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The Victims’ Recovery Law Center Secured Civil Financial Accountability for a Shooting Victim Whose Case Five Other Firms Turned Away – Demonstrating What Residential Negligent Security Claims Can Recover
PHILADELPHIA, PA / ACCESS Newswire / June 16, 2026 / A negligent security civil lawsuit filed against an apartment building management company on behalf of a Philadelphia shooting victim has resolved for a seven-figure confidential settlement. The Victims’ Recovery Law Center, a civil litigation firm based in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, filed the claim after five other law firms declined to pursue the case.
What Happened
A resident was shot outside his apartment building as he left to retrieve food for his son. Five law firms declined to pursue the case before The Victims’ Recovery Law Center filed a civil lawsuit against the building’s management company. The firm argued that the management company had failed to address known criminal activity on the property and that this failure created the foreseeable conditions in which the shooting occurred. The case resolved for a seven-figure confidential settlement.
Why the Management Company Was the Defendant
In civil shooting cases arising from residential properties, the individual perpetrator is rarely the defendant from whom meaningful financial recovery is possible. The management company responsible for the day-to-day operation and security of the building, however, carries commercial general liability insurance and bears direct civil responsibility where its specific failures contributed to foreseeable harm.
Under Pennsylvania law, an apartment management company can be held civilly liable where it undertook to provide a specific security measure – such as a security guard, a controlled access system, or a gated entrance – and that measure was negligently maintained or failed, and residents relied on it for their safety. The analysis focuses on the specific security commitments the management company made to residents and whether those commitments were honored.
This standard is different from and stricter than the standard applied to commercial properties such as bars, hotels, and shopping malls. For commercial properties, courts apply a broad foreseeability analysis examining prior incident history and the overall adequacy of security measures. For residential properties, the focus is on whether a specific provided security measure failed. The specific facts of this case supported the claim that the management company had failed to address known criminal activity that it was obligated to address.
