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Can You Still Sue for Negligent Security in Georgia After SB 68?
Yes, but Georgia's 2025 tort reform made these cases harder to win, and it is worth understanding why before you assume a claim is hopeless or easy.
Negligent security is a premises claim: a property owner can be liable when a foreseeable crime injures someone because the property failed to provide reasonable security.
Senate Bill 68, signed on April 21, 2025, rewrote the standard for these claims and raised the bar an injured person has to clear.
The new law tightens what counts as foreseeable, requires the danger to be tied to a condition of the property, and forces juries to assign fault to the criminal who committed the act.
These claims are still viable in the right circumstances, but they now turn on specific proof of what the owner knew and what the property failed to do.
Call (888) 713-6653 for a free, confidential review of a Georgia negligent security case.
At-a-Glance: Negligent Security in Georgia After SB 68
- SB 68 (signed April 21, 2025) created a new, tougher standard for negligent security claims
- It applies to incidents occurring after April 21, 2025; earlier incidents follow prior law
- Invitees must prove foreseeability plus a known hazardous condition under O.C.G.A. § 51-3-51
- Licensees face an even narrower standard under O.C.G.A. § 51-3-52
- Juries must apportion fault to the criminal who committed the act
- Owners are exempt in several situations, including single-family homes and trespassers
What Is a Negligent Security Claim?
A negligent security claim holds a property owner or business responsible when a third party's crime injures someone on the premises and reasonable security measures would have prevented it. The crime is the act of the attacker, but the claim is about the property's failure to protect people it had a duty to keep reasonably safe.
These cases arise where crime is a known risk and security is the difference between safety and harm:
- Apartment complexes with broken gates, dead lighting, or no response to a pattern of break-ins and assaults.
- Parking lots and decks where poor lighting and no patrol invite robberies and carjackings.
- Gas stations and convenience stores in areas with a documented history of violent crime.
- Bars, clubs, and hotels that fail to provide security a known crowd or location calls for.
- Shopping centers and offices that ignore prior incidents on or around the property.
The injuries in these cases are often severe: gunshot wounds, assaults, and the lasting trauma that follows a violent attack. The legal question is whether the owner should have seen the danger and done something about it.
How SB 68 Changed Georgia Negligent Security Law in 2025
For years, Georgia let a jury find a crime foreseeable from the totality of the circumstances, including prior crimes in the area, and the state developed a reputation for large negligent security verdicts. SB 68 changed that. Effective for incidents on or after April 21, 2025, the law created a new Article 5 in the premises-liability code that governs negligent security claims specifically, and it raised the bar in three ways.[1]
First, it narrowed what counts as foreseeable, tying it to a particularized warning of an imminent threat or to prior, substantially similar wrongful conduct the owner actually knew about. Second, it requires the crime to have exploited a specific condition of the property that created a security risk substantially greater than the general risk in the surrounding area. Third, it forces juries to apportion a share of fault to the criminal who committed the act. The change applies only to negligent security claims, not to ordinary slip-and-fall premises cases, which still run under the longstanding duty in O.C.G.A. § 51-3-1.[2]
The New Standard for Invitees and Licensees
SB 68 set two different standards depending on why the injured person was on the property. The distinction now decides many of these cases.
- Invitees (O.C.G.A. § 51-3-51). A customer or other business visitor must show the wrongful act was foreseeable, that the owner had a particularized warning of an imminent threat or actual knowledge of prior substantially similar conduct on or near the property, that the act exploited a hazardous condition of the premises posing a higher-than-usual security risk, that the owner failed to use ordinary care to address it, and that the failure caused the injury.
- Licensees (O.C.G.A. § 51-3-52). Someone on the property for their own purposes faces a narrower path. Liability generally requires a specific prior warning of the danger and a willful or wanton failure to address it, a tougher standard than the one that applies to invitees.
Sorting out which category applies, and assembling the proof each one demands, is now one of the first and most important steps in a Georgia negligent security case.
Fault Is Now Apportioned to the Criminal
One of SB 68's most consequential changes is how fault gets divided. In a negligent security case, the jury must now apportion a reasonable share of fault to the person who actually committed the crime, and a trial court is required to set aside a verdict that fails to do so and order a new trial.
That matters for the recovery. Georgia already abolished joint liability for apportioned damages, so each party pays only its share. When a portion of the fault is assigned to a criminal who is unidentified, uninsured, or in prison, that share is effectively uncollectible, and it comes off the top of what the property owner pays. Building the case to keep the owner's share where the evidence supports it, and to show the security failure was a real cause of the harm, is central to the result.
When a Property Owner Is Not Liable
SB 68 also wrote in clear exemptions. A property owner generally cannot be held liable for a third-party crime when the injured person was:
- A trespasser, or someone on the property to commit a crime.
- Not injured on the owner's property, even if the events began nearby.
- A tenant or a tenant's guest who was subject to eviction proceedings.
- Injured at a single-family residence.
The law also protects an owner who made a reasonable effort to alert law enforcement to a particular warning of imminent wrongful conduct, and it limits a security contractor's liability to the same extent as the owner, so a guard company generally cannot be held more responsible than the property it served.
How These Cases Are Proven Under the New Law
The higher bar makes the evidence work decisive. A Georgia negligent security case now stands or falls on documenting what the owner knew and how the property failed.
- Prior incident history. Police call logs, crime reports, and incident records on the property and in the immediate area that show the owner knew, or had clear reason to know, of substantially similar conduct.
- The security condition. Proof of the specific failure, a broken gate, dead lighting, a propped door, absent or untrained guards, that created a risk beyond the general crime risk nearby.
- What the owner did, or did not do. Internal complaints, work orders, security budgets, and communications showing the response, or the lack of one.
- Causation. Reconstruction and expert testimony connecting the security failure to how the crime unfolded.
That evidence has a short shelf life. Surveillance footage overwrites, work orders get purged, and incident reports are easy to lose, so the preservation work has to start early. The proof that meets the SB 68 standard is exactly the proof that disappears first.
What About Incidents Before April 21, 2025?
SB 68's negligent security changes apply to incidents that occurred on or after April 21, 2025. If you were injured before that date, the prior law governs your claim, under which foreseeability could be shown from the totality of the circumstances, including the history of crime in the area, without the added conditions SB 68 imposes.
That makes the date of the incident a threshold question in any Georgia negligent security case right now. A free review is the fastest way to find out which standard applies to yours and what it will take to meet it.