A dangerous tenant premises injury case asks a question that should be simple but rarely gets answered until a family is badly hurt: what happens when a landlord is warned, again and again, about a dangerous person on the property, and does nothing. This case study walks through a matter in which a family living at an apartment complex was attacked by a man who did not even live there, after nearly two years of documented warnings to the property owner went ignored.
2 years
Of documented warnings before the attack
20+
Separate warnings logged by one tenant alone
2
Independent grounds of landlord liability proven
For roughly two years, tenants at a Pico Rivera apartment complex warned the property owner about one man. A retired sheriff who lived across the street warned him. A longtime tenant warned him at least twenty times. Our client, the father in the affected family, personally warned the landlord eight or nine times, including once while calling 911 as he heard the man's girlfriend being beaten inside her apartment. On January 24, 2015, the warnings ran out. The man drove his wife's 4,600-pound SUV into our client and his wife in the complex's carport area while their two young children stood a few feet away and watched. Our client's left leg was completely severed by the vehicle, and he underwent an above-knee amputation. His wife suffered deep lacerations, and the vehicle's tires ran over her face. Both parents were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder, and their two children witnessed the entire attack, a trauma California law recognizes as its own compensable harm.
None of the danger on this property was a secret from the landlord. The man had a documented pattern of drinking on the property, driving through the common areas at high speed, and fighting violently with his girlfriend in full view of other tenants and their children. Days before the attack on our client's family, he had already used his vehicle to pin his girlfriend against the property's entrance gate, bending the gate off its rail. The property's own lease, house rules, and Section 8 housing contract each gave the landlord clear authority to remove the danger, either by excluding the man as a disruptive guest or by addressing his girlfriend's repeated lease violations. The landlord had even used a similar notice against a different tenant for a lesser problem. He simply never used it here.
The landlord conceded nothing, so the case had to prove both a legal duty and years of warnings that a jury could see the owner chose to ignore.
The case rested on ordinary landowner negligence under Civil Code section 1714, the basic duty every property owner has to manage their property so as not to create foreseeable danger, and on negligent undertaking, since the landlord had voluntarily promised through the lease, house rules, and Section 8 contract to protect tenants from exactly this kind of danger.
The record built around a pattern: a retired sheriff's direct warnings, a tenant's log of roughly twenty separate warnings over two years, our client's own eight or nine personal warnings including a 911 call, and a prior incident days earlier where the same man used a vehicle as a weapon against his girlfriend at the property's gate.
Records showing the property manager's practice of shredding tenant communication notes undermined any claim that the landlord never received the warnings. At deposition, the manager's testimony that she did not recall complaints collapsed under her own admission that she routinely destroyed the notes she took, meaning there was no way to verify her denial.
A pattern most defendants would call a series of unconnected incidents instead formed a single, escalating trajectory the landlord had every opportunity to interrupt.
If you or a family member has been hurt because a landlord ignored repeated warnings about a dangerous tenant or a tenant's guest, do not assume nothing can be done because the person who hurt you was not the property owner. California law holds landlords responsible for injuries caused by third parties when the landlord knew, or should have known, about the danger and failed to act. The duty starts with the ordinary duty of care every landowner owes under Civil Code section 1714, and courts examining landlord liability for third-party crime, including Delgado v. American Multi-Cinema, weigh how foreseeable the harm was against how easy it would have been to prevent. Where the remedy was as simple and inexpensive as enforcing an existing lease term against a known dangerous individual, a landlord cannot credibly argue that acting would have been an unreasonable burden. Ask whether other tenants complained about the same person before you were hurt, and whether the lease or house rules gave the landlord authority to remove that person that the landlord simply never used. Those details are often the foundation of the strongest cases.
This matter proceeded through litigation in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, Norwalk courthouse, with trial set and mediation held. The public record of the case's ultimate resolution is not disclosed here. Arash Homampour has described the case as having all the necessary ingredients for a strong seven-figure result, given the severity and number of family members harmed and the strength of the liability evidence against the landlord. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. The Homampour Law Firm represents injured tenants and their families in premises liability cases against negligent landlords on a contingency fee basis, meaning no upfront cost and no fee unless a recovery is obtained.
The breakdowns below cover the landlord third-party crime standard, building the notice record, the foreseeability framework, the sliding-scale duty analysis, dangerous stairway code violations, and landlord habitability injury liability.
The landlord third-party crime standard
We try catastrophic premises and third-party crime cases against property owners as counsel or co-counsel and pay statutory referral fees.
Refer a caseCalifornia law holds landowners responsible for injuries caused by third parties when the landlord knew, or should have known, about the danger and failed to act, and in this case multiple tenants and a retired sheriff had warned the landlord repeatedly over roughly two years.
Multiple tenants separately warned the landlord and his property manager over roughly two years, including a retired sheriff who told the landlord directly the man was dangerous, a tenant who recorded at least twenty separate warning conversations, and our client, who personally raised the danger eight or nine times, including once while calling police.
Nothing upfront. The firm handles landlord negligence and premises liability cases on a contingency fee basis and advances the costs of investigation and litigation. Call 323-658-8077 for a free consultation.
