Use Surveillance Video to Show Reasonable Maintenance

Install security cameras not only to help you deter and catch criminals, but also to help you prove to a court whether or when a dangerous condition existed on your property. That's important because the length of time a dangerous condition has existed on your property where an accident occurred is a consideration in determining whether an owner acted reasonably. If the dangerous condition existed long enough so that you should have known about it, and you did nothing to make the area safe, the court is more likely to find you at fault for an injury.

Consider what happened in this New York case. A customer was injured in a mini-mart parking lot when he became entangled in a plastic band that had been used to bundle newspapers. The customer sued the mini-mart's owner.

To establish that the owner had actual or constructive notice of the “dangerous condition,” which would make it liable for the injury, the customer had to show that the condition was “visible, apparent, and in existence for a sufficient period of time so as to allow the owner an opportunity to take corrective action,” the court said.

Surveillance video footage of the parking lot showed that the band had appeared in the parking lot at 8:50 a.m. and that the customer had fallen on it at 9:18 a.m. The court concluded that the owner was not liable for the customer's injuries because the video established that the owner had maintained the premises in a reasonably safe condition and neither created nor had actual or constructive notice of the condition.

• Perry v. Cumberland Farms, Inc., December 2009