S2 E18 Defund the Police – Liabilities for your company?

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In this episode, we talk to an attorney very familiar with security liabilities. Hear what he has to say about understanding the contract process, who is responsible for indemnifications and what private citizens can and cannot do to protect your property. This is an episode you cant afford to miss.


Guest Bio:
Jim Burke is a trial lawyer who focuses his practice on the defense of complex, high-exposure premises, security guard, construction, auto and general liability claims in New York state and federal courts. Jim also has defended product liability; lead poisoning and medical malpractice claims during his career.
Drawing on the finely honed investigative skills he developed as a detective sergeant with the New York Police Department (NYPD), Jim often is brought in on cases being prepared for trial or mediation to ensure that all key issues and possible defenses have been uncovered.
Jim has been lead trial attorney on more than 50 cases and recently has won defense verdicts in a federal civil rights Section 1983 abuse of force claim in the Southern District of New York; a premises security case in the Supreme Court, New York County; and a negligent premises maintenance claim in the Supreme Court, Westchester County.
Jim had a 20-year career with the NYPD and achieved the rank of detective sergeant. He served as an investigator, supervisor and squad commander in the Narcotics Division, Detective Bureau and Organized Crime Control Bureau. Jim completed his police career as the lead trial lawyer in the NYPD’s Civil Enforcement Unit, for which he tried nine cases to verdict in the Supreme Court, New York County.

SHOW NOTES

Sal Lifrieri: Welcome to the risk advisor.com podcast I’m Sal Lifrieri I’m here with my good friend and co-host Jim Henry. Before we begin, I’d like to remind each of you to subscribe to this show and push the like button for us we would love for you to be able to subscribe to the show and follow us as we proceed with this endeavor. Please leave your comments as your opinions are important to us as well. So, today’s topic we want to talk about de-funding the police the possible effects of privatization. We don’t want to have this political conversation about de-funding the police, what we do want to do in this episode is to talk about dealing with the effects of privatization or the when you run into a situation when you don’t have the reliance upon law enforcement to be able to respond in a timely and effective manner. What are the building owners and managers and security directors, what are the issues they’re going to be faced with and what are some of the solutions that they may be able to have so Jim I know this is a relatively sensitive topic for both of us but with respect to the audience, the people who are listening to this, what do you think about in all your years of experience what do you think about this whole concept of privatization for law enforcement?
Jim Henry: Well we touched on this on an earlier session all of the systems for the decade that I’ve been in the business you know have been designed to provide actionable intelligence to the local building you know security teams and with the knowledge that they have the backup of local law enforcement you know should they see an incident developing or have an incident develop you know, very quickly and it’s a given that the law enforcement would respond almost in you know seconds if not if not minutes from you know many of our you know larger customers you know particularly in uh you know in New York City. What we’ve seen now develop over the over the last few months is really calling into question whether that’s going to be there and of course that and CEOs of you know of these corporations always have to have a contingency plan now it’s going to be well what if that’s not going to be the case you know do we have to have a plan b uh that becomes even maybe a plan a and what does that mean for the for the liabilities that that they may assume by having you know private guard services whether they be armed or unarmed you know acting on behalf of what normally would fall to the to the authorities.
Sal Lifrieri: So, today’s guest is someone special to me Jim is my best friend in the whole wide world and a guy who you know coming out of law enforcement we don’t trust everybody or anybody and this is the one guy in the world that i just trust implicitly Jim Burke is a trial lawyer who focuses his practice on the defense of complex high exposure premises, guard security, guard construction, auto and general liability claims in New York State and Federal Courts. Jim has also defended product liability, lead poisoning, and medical malpractice claims during his career. As his bio states, drawing on his finely honed investigative skills, of which I can attest because Jim and I were partners together at one point in our career, he developed as a detective sergeant with the New York City Police Department. He’s often brought in on cases preparing for trial and mediation to ensure that all key issues and possible defenses have been uncovered. So, Jim it is my pleasure to welcome you to the show. Jim Burke: Thank you Sal. Thank you Jim. Thank you for having me and well you know what I’d like to do is just you know help you and Jim out with what the contractual and insurance issues might be when the decisions might be made to get private security when it’s not clear that the police will be there to help. Sal Lifrieri: Let’s start with the you know the privatization of the police that that’s obviously that’s a that’s somewhat of a problem we’re seeing security getting more and more involved in enforcement operations. What are some of those problems that pop up that the end users should be you know are going to be contained you know dealing with? Jim Burke: Sure, well from the perspective of not so much for me to talk about how much security you should have an entity should have or what security company, there are a couple of themes that run through every single transaction or contract when a landowner promise owner needs to get private security, they think they’d have. The first thing to understand is in the law in the state of New York and in many jurisdictions, a person who is not a party to the contract is not a third party beneficiary; which means if security guards are near where something happens to someone else they won’t necessarily be able to have an effective lawsuit against the security company for failing to stop an action unless the contract is drafted in a way that the courts could construe that that person would be a third party beneficial beneficiary of it. So, the drafting of the security contract between the security company and the landowner is extremely important it will control a lot of things if something goes wrong. The next thing that comes up a lot is the contracts typically require the security company to defend whole homeless and indemnify the premise owner in the event that there is a lawsuit say brought by someone who said that they were injured on the property and they felt the security was deficient they may not be able to sue the security company that may be able to do it, but if they bring a lawsuit against the premise owner the premise will look to the contract to transfer that risk back to the security company. Every place today is going to require that the security company name the premise owner as an additional insured on their security on this insurance policy and that has not only the effect of making the building owner obviously or premise owner an insured but it also stops the possibility the security company could have a cross claim against the building owner because the law in this state in every state is that you it’s called anti-subrogation you can’t sue someone that you’ve insure. Going directly to the issue of the difference between public security and private security is that a police officer at the scene of an event if there’s a use of force or something along those lines if there’s a lawsuit the officer is entitled to qualified immunity, it’s a civil rights case, and what that means is it’s not enough for a plaintiff to show the officer did something negligently or improperly they have to show that the officer’s actions were malicious and could not be justified under any you know rule under any decent rule. That does not apply to private security at all private security does not get qualified immunity. Sometimes you’ll see a confluence of this thing going to happen when certain governmental agencies vend out or contract out to security for their facilities to private guard companies and there’s a blend or a mix between private security that’s there to augment a police force. This can happen in men’s shelters and airports and things along those lines, and if something happens that goes askew the officer would more than likely be able to have qualified immunity but whether it will apply to the private person that’s assisting the officer would be a would be a question determined after the trial happens by the trial judge. So that is probably one of the biggest things is that a police officer has an immunity their private citizen or private guard will never have.
Sal Lifrieri: Let’s just go back for one for one second, for the people listening, obviously where we are today understanding that the country has become incredibly litigious, understanding that a lot of things get wound up challenged and lawsuits are you know brought up historically were these concerns that always occurred or was this was basically a contract written on a napkin for facilities years ago?
Jim Burke: Yes absolutely, if you go back really not all that many years, you just go back about 15 years or so a lot of security was controlled by small security companies, mom and pop shop companies, a few retired police officers get together and form a company, that kind of stuff. What has gone on in the industry over the last 15 years, is there’s been a confluence of small companies being bought up by somewhat larger companies that get up bought by larger companies again and it all finds its way eventually to the four or five very large international companies. As that has occurred, these companies have large legal in-house departments, they have outside counsel like myself and so the content of the contracts are more detailed, it’s more to understand what’s understand what’s going on. Back in the earlier days it was very common to find that there was no contract at all and that the arrangement between a small security company and a small premise owner was something that was written on something that really wasn’t much more than a napkin; and I’m not kidding about that. It would be like a purchase order or something like that. But one thing that is very important opposes a strange related issue is every security company that is doing a decent job, in addition to having a contract with the premise it’s on, it is going to have a set of post orders. And the post orders are critical to understanding what the duties of the guard were when something goes wrong. So that’s something that’s also developed over the last 15 years or so is not only the quality the contracts have changed but also security companies that didn’t even know that they needed to have post orders or they were very they were demonyms are now much more detailed and in any case that I’ve had recently with a major security provider there is a contract, there is a there is a set of post orders and these are the things the better idea of what the responsibilities were between the parties should something go wrong.
Jim Henry speaking now, I’m drawing a parallel here to these new you know you raise a lot of issues with the complexity and logistics of of dealing with transitioning to private security from where normally you know it’s public law enforcement. And it reminds me you know, immediately post 9 11, when there was fear of chem bio nuclear attacks terrorist attacks and whatnot. And there was you know was a rush to a number of sensory systems that were coming out. Technology that was looking to get into the commercial space from what would normally was Federal gov you know Fed gov D O D and what have you. And one of the manufacturers said to me, you know is it is it the price point? You know how can we get into the commercial buildings now? You really need you know you got these anthrax threats and whatnot. Dirty bombs all this stuff, you know how can we commercialize this? And I said, “Well you know I’m going to give you I’m going to give you an education.” So, we went down and had lunch with one of the security directors for a marquee building and that director said to him, “I wouldn’t deploy your censors if they were free.” And he just looks at him and he goes, “Why?” and he says, “Because no matter what I do, we’re gonna get sued.” So, he says, “I’m gonna just defer to whatever the public authorities tell me to do. Whatever sensors you deploy and whatever the con ops are, that I’m, that’s what I’m going to defer to because then I’m covered.” And I’m just sensing that there’s a parallel here that we can that we can talk about you know in you know in the next two segments. So hold that thought, I’m going to do a break right now and then and then come back and kind of and kind of tee this up. You are listening to the Risk Advisor Podcast hosted by Jim Henry and Sal Lifrieri. We invite you to comment on our blog, and to subscribe and follow us on our social media like Facebook Instagram and Twitter. If you are interested in having one or both of us speak at an upcoming event or would like to consult with us please go to our webpage at Theriskadvisor.com to set that up.

So picking up on that and the complexity now that that raises when the building owners are much more exposed because they’re engaged in in hiring these, you know, private guard services, you know what, again to, in some cases, replace, you know, let alone augment, but even replace what law enforcement is doing. So, does that really drive the insurance certifications that are that are needed to help mitigate the risks that the owners are going to have in this new capacity?
Jim Burke: I’ll tell you that you know a company’s insurance run, its claims, will control the cost of its renewal right? And so they’re very you know companies are very sensitive to this but as to your friend with the idea or the person that said these things about these sensors- the courts will not be moved by what the police may have or may not told you. It’s there, but see if you look at a case like -if you take it directly out of this security situation per se but you go to a larger thing. I think we all remember the case with Erin Andrews, the sportscaster who had that…
Sal Lifrieri: They did surveillance video that, the perp who took the video of her.
Jim Burke: Yeah. Right. So there was a huge verdict for Erin in that case, and I actually know the security expert that testified on behalf of the hotel chain in that case. And discussed the case with him. With the plaintiffs bringing the case, right? It’s always it comes down to, it’s almost like the thing from the Watergate hearing: What did you know and when did you know it? Right? And there’s very much a thing is that you have to maintain security that’s within the parameters of industry standards because that’s what you’re going to be held to. And sometimes what is and what is not an industry standard is hard to know. For example, the American Society for Industrial Security, which is the biggest security organization in the world, actually does not have any published standards for what security might be. And that comes up in trials, all right? But that said, there will be experts in an event that will say you should have done this and then they’ll be a defense expert that said, no you met the standard of care. What you should never do, is seek to maintain the minimal standard right? right? And that’s just that’s just something, when you when you put yourself near the line then there’s always taking the chance that you’re going to be under the line. So, in terms of a building, in terms of a case like Erin Andrews, when there was a you know, a guy that put a, snuck a video in, the biggest key thing in Erin Andrews, was why did this one particular guy request to have this one particular room and what knowledge would he have had to do that -and that’s what came out. And that’s where the verdict came from. There was something that alerted, or should have alerted the staff at the hotel, about why some guy would come up with some obviously focaccia reason about wanting to have a room as opposed to some other room. And it wasn’t because of well I like the view or something like that, or I don’t like to be near the elevator. It didn’t seem to be any reason and the idea was in that trial is it should have raised a bell. Okay? When an interesting thing that really came down, a landmark case in New York, was after the first World Trade Center incident in 1993. A case went up to the New York court of appeals, which was based upon the idea that the plaintiff said that there should have been better security at the World Trade Center. And that was the one where they drove the truck into the basement. And the Port Authority and its police department claimed immunity in that case. Private security tried to claim it too but the biggest issue there was for the court to decide is whether or not it was a governmental property engaged in a governmental business or whether it was a commercial business. Now the World Trade Center was the biggest commercial business in the world, but held that the police, even though they were in a commercial property, were executing a police function as opposed to a private function and the Port Authority was immune from the suit. The decision came down about 12 years after the event, so these are concern these are you know concerns and so you know what is the standard in a place where there’s actually no explicit standards? The standard is just trying not to be near the line. Try to have an operation that’s not hypersensitive, but you know, when you put your best heads together. When you can show that you anticipated things and you took reasonable steps you’ll probably be alright.
Jim Henry: Well that’s common sense and we we’ve had a number of shows trying to use common sense but you know on the other hand the old adage of no good deed goes unpunished is you know is also true. And i think that particular example that I referenced, you know with the with the luncheon that we had with the with the CVRNE manufacturer, you know was that if they took the initiative, privately you know, just trying to do the right thing, of being a little bit more proactive, that they would actually assume more liability than they would otherwise you know otherwise have had. You know by going and spending the money and trying to be ahead of the but again because there were no con ops that they could see from the authorities on what to be doing. You know, if you have if you particularly if you’ve got a plume of some you know toxic you know material or whatnot you know you’re sending them into harm’s way no matter what you do if you keep them in the building you put them outside but what you’re saying is trying to stay on the other side of the of that dividing line is equally treacherous. Jim Burke: Right. So let me give you an example. Let me give you an example of how you have to deal with people that make up stories okay? So I had a case where I was going to trial in Queens, oh a bunch of years ago- maybe 12 13 years ago right? And I was defending landowner a building. A guy a reasonable seven or eight story apartment building with you know elevators in a nice, in a fairly nice working-class neighborhood. Now they had cameras in that building. They had cameras. But it was a little unclear what the purpose of the cameras were for and the true purpose of the cameras was not to provide security but so that they could look at property to see if you know if it got stolen defaced, they could figure out who did it. So, the building never really deployed anybody to monitor the cameras. Butt were they clear about the expectations that they delivered to the people in the building whether those cameras were going to be monitored? Now everything indicated that they weren’t, like the monitor was in some closets, you know no nobody was assigned to do it and the building was small enough that most people would know. But along comes a situation where there was a 14-year-old girl, it was very sad. She went out from the apartment to go down the block on her mother’s errand to pick up some dry cleaning and you know some milk and eggs from the store. And she came back into the building, okay, and she got raped. And so a lawsuit was brought on behalf of her and the parents and all these other things. And the child’s mother, who I felt terrible for in many ways, but I knew she was not being truthful. She said that although she never got any notice from the building that the cameras would be monitored and she knew that the you know wherever the films for the camera were being made- this was back in like the days of VHS tapes- was in some place in the back. And there was nobody hired, there was no porter, there was no guard. She said that the superintendent of the building told her that the cameras were being monitored and she would never have to worry about sending her kid out to do errands for her. Now that never happened, okay? But it was what’s called a reliance case. Because if you don’t have a duty, but you tell somebody something, whether it’s true or it’s not true, and then they change their position based upon your representation, and it looks like you, they should have reasonably had the right to rely on your representation, you’re gonna get it okay? And in this case she said I would have never let my daughter go do that if I wasn’t told that by the super, that they were being monitored. Do you see what that does? That takes the whole case out of whether or not they’re being monitored or not. Because it’s no longer an issue. The issue was what she told, and did she reasonably rely on. And is it reasonably, would a jury believe that she indeed would not have sent her 14-year-old daughter to the store in this neighborhood had the cameras not been in the building? And stuff like that like whether or not. There, you see how that works? The idea here is you don’t have to have the best security; you don’t have to go spending for all kinds of security but you better darn be sure that when you have it that the people that are in your building know why it’s there unless for some reason it’s hidden for a real purpose of hiding it. If it’s out in the open anyway, like cameras or something like that, the people in the building should know exactly why they’re there. Jim Henry: In the old days, because I’m old, when cameras were a couple thousand dollars apiece, you know there was a trend. You know by some owners to try and you know save some money and have you know some cameras installed like in elevators and what have you where they were more expensive because of traveling cables and whatnot to actually put in dummy cameras. And as an integrator, I think I had the intuition, you know back then, you know we just we just refused to install them. Because we could sense what was going to happen, there would be the implied security that if you know if some of the static cameras were monitored and you had these dummy cameras there was a perception of safety and security you know when you were in the range of those cameras. Now you fast forward to today and are we looking at something similar? Where you do see postings- where there are closed circuit surveillance systems- you know that these areas are monitored blah blah in some parking garages I note that there’s signage there that says that the cameras are not monitored uh continuously you know by a live guard they’re for forensic purposes. You know we might we now be in a situation where the perimeters of some buildings which are still the property of the building owners it’s questionable as to whether or not there is local law enforcement out there to protect those areas. May we now be looking at some signage that cautions people you know to be on their guard when they’re out there because they may not have local law enforcement there you know in case there is an incident and does that provide a degree of protection then to the building owners whether they have private security or not? Should there be an incident that’s on their property? Jim Burke: Right so I can tell you that as far as things that go on inside a building, without going into something that would take me hours and hours to go over the law. In the state of New York both the statutory and the case law says that the owner of a premise, where crime has already infiltrated the building, has an obligation to provide a working door lock and possibly an intercom system. You’re not required to provide more than that. Now as for the outside of the premise, it’s not very well you really have much of a requirement out there maybe some lighting things like that. But where you need, where you need to make the, where the two roads have to intersect, because remember also from a perspective of just being a good person- you’re not looking for people to get hurt right? But you have to always be clear right? Is who is your audience and what are you communicating? And if you start to communicate to somebody that these things exist but then they’re not but they’re not what they’re supposed to be it’s not going to take very long for someone if something goes wrong to say you said something you didn’t say right? So, it is important that communication, communication actually of all the things that happen and go wrong in civil litigation, communication is almost the number one offender, right? It is somewhere there is an there’s a gap between what people happens and what people say right? If you have a case that happens in a building where you know the locks are kicked out by bad guys, whatever else like that, well the building is not automatically liable because the lock wasn’t there. The liability comes from when if someone notifies somebody or enough time has gone by that they should have known and then nobody does anything. So, what protects you is like a system of inspections. Did someone go around the building and look oh the lock was working this morning. Then if the lock gets busted but only four hours have gone by, you’re not going to be liable. If the lock was busted last week you know you’re not going to do well in court saying well you know in this building the locks get busted every other week and I can’t keep up that’s not going to work right? So, it’s kind of like that you know? Communication, a good set of post orders, something that says you know how you go about things methodically will go very far in in helping from liability. Sal Lifrieri: Okay we’re going to take a quick break for at that point but we do want to get into a little bit more on communication but first let me remind the listeners that you’re listening to The Risk Advisor Podcast hosted by Jim Henry and me, Sal Lifrieri. Once again, we want to invite you to comment on our blog at Theriskadvisor.com, to subscribe and follow us on our social media like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you’re interested in having one or both of us speak at an upcoming event or would like to consult with us please go to the webpage at theriskadvisor.com to set that up. In the final section Jim we want to talk a little bit, you mentioned it earlier, about post orders and so the two areas I’d like to do in the last few minutes that we have available is I want to talk about co-employment and dealing with post orders. With respect to the post orders, whose responsibility is there a legal minefield that should be avoided for security directors or owners as to who writes the post order? Jim Burke: Well yeah and I think the way to handle it again is to make sure that everybody’s sort of on the same page. In many cases, many cases, the post orders are written by the landowner as opposed to the security guard company which seems sort of like counter-intuitive. Like when we were in the police department, the patrol guide was written by the police department, not someone else. But in in this case the best the best part of a negotiation for security if you’re a premise owner and you want to have you have us, you should be thinking what is my security purpose? You know like anything else, when you get involved in something the first question you ask yourself is why am i doing this? So, if you have what the security objective is then you hire the security company the contract comes in and the post orders are really important because they’re also related to what the cost is right? Like what are your security guards doing is going to be a factor of the number of hours. Usually, security guard contracts usually go in the number of hours per week or month you know how how are you covering this? Is this face-to-face relief? What are you doing? And it really makes an enormous difference later on in life if something goes wrong. When you sort of, when you’re trying to defend something like I’ve had cases where something bad happens. Ok, let me see the post orders and I find out, well there really weren’t any. Oh that’s great, because now I don’t really, I’ll have the testimony of the witnesses, but I’ll have nothing from either the company or from the landowner that says this is what we expected the security guards to do. Now it doesn’t have to be super all-inclusive, cover every sort of thing, but it should have things about like -all right you know once an hour you’re going to do this. You’re going to do you’re going to do this you’re going to make the make your rounds, you’re going to do this and almost all security companies have electronic detect systems that they go around and they wave their wand at a place that kind of keeps an idea of where they’re going. And that idea is as old as the hills. The things used to be mechanical, but it was still done, so you know a great thing to have. Like you know, sometimes I’ve had cases where something bad has happened and the plaintiff is saying well there was no security there. And I’m able to get the detect print out and find out the security guard was just there-and the place was empty- what are you talking about right? One thing I think, and I’ll finish up too, that is a minefield okay? Is that if you provide security in a place that’s like a big shopping center or a casino or something along those lines. Those places all have something which is called the back of the house which are these back walkways that sort of like help users and people go from different place to different place. Restaurant to restaurant workers, but the access to the back of the house is not always so well defined. And if it’s part of the security guard’s job to patrol the back of the house and there’s a detect point back there or something like that you better pay attention to. That’s because those are the kinds of places where you know near the (stairwells) You know, kind of find themselves either to shoot up drugs or to rip something off and if you got something going, I will tell you- without telling tales out of school- I had a case one time in another jurisdiction where the claim was a guy was in the back of the house and he shouldn’t have been. And then there was a meeting between him that there was there was a killing. And the guy that was actually in the back (of the house)-was a kid- he was actually sentenced to death okay. And it was a big deal, the case was a lot, and the case turned on what the security did. Did they pass somebody that they didn’t know it was supposed to be back there? It was it was a massive case. It is very important to control access to these semi-public areas. Because some places you go, it’s people can go back there and there’s no control. Whether places they’re not supposed to go. There’s no signage. You got to watch it okay? Jim Henry: Well building on this back of the house area now and because a lot of these you know a lot of new high-rises you know are built specifically providing you know outdoor arcades or small parks or what have you that are actually the property of the building owner. And again in the past, they had the cover of local law enforcement more visibly protecting these areas. Now are we actually going to evolve into something similar to what we had after 9 11 with emergency action planning the lessons learned from you know what happened with the towers coming down and emergency evacuation protocol you know signage and stairwells and what have you where Local Law 26 came into play for inside buildings? Building owners have to submit you know their emergency plans to the fire department and have them certified to be compliant with Local Law 26. Are we going to look at something similar now for security for these public semi-public areas or back of the house areas outside the buildings where the post orders are actually submitted to the police department for review and approval whether that actually becomes part of a city code or whether that is initially done uh proactively by the building owners does that mitigate? Is that a good idea? Does that mitigate you know their risk to a degree by at least making the effort to have that protocol you know or post orders or whatever submitted and reviewed and approved or at least acknowledged you know by the PD? Jim Burke: I can’t say to what is going to be a good idea or not but this is what I can say, we’re facing the possibility if the rhetoric is to be is there if the rhetoric actually turns into action that there are political forces saying police should be defunded and the money should be diverted to other places which we have not identified with those places are. And I wouldn’t think for a second that if there’s a diversion of funds that that means it’s going to go to allow people to buy private security. I’m not going to say that at all, but what I will say is that you can expect that the state of the law will change in that if people no longer have the act ready access to police there will become a common law expectation for the retention of security where one does not exist now. The people are going to go to the civil courts and demand compensation if they are injured as a result of something that happens to them that’s violent in a store or a place and if the police aren’t providing security you can be sure that there will be an enhanced view as to what the expectations are for keeping people safe. There will be a transference of that I have absolutely no doubt, I’ve been doing this a very long time, and people are going to want to remain safe. And this will have a ripple effect to other places. And it won’t matter you know one of the reasons that say a building only has to do so many things to keep the tenants safe, and I mentioned earlier which would be a working door lock and then maybe an intercom system or something, is that the law has recognized that these things have to be paid for and the regular building owner may not be operating on a on a budget that could allow for the provision of these enhanced kinds of security. And if that didn’t work there’d be no buildings and there’d be no places for people to live, but if the assumption becomes that the police are no longer the primary providers of protection then you have to almost logically ask yourself what will happen to people in poor areas where there is prevalent crime? Jim Henry: Well where you have high crime areas you know like you said you know you just because the door lock is broken you know every day doesn’t mean that you’re not the building owners are responsible to continue to repair it so again looking at these at the back of the house area the perimeter you know of the building in in high crime areas where it’s been there’s been a clear you know record of incidences out there and the tenants and visitors to a particular building are exposed to that risk could we actually be looking at you know building owners being challenged as being uh you know negligent by not having engaging in armed guard services versus just on armed guard services? Him Burke: I don’t think premise owners will ever become absolutely liable. That happens in some areas of the law with products liability, labor law cases, things like that and you’re never good that’s not gonna happen but what you’re gonna have happen is. If society, see like what the issue and i think one of the main points for a conversation like we’re having here is society right now is obviously changing and everybody can have their own opinion on whether that’s good or is bad but you can’t deny that it’s changed. People need to be safe. People are going to have requirements for security. Whether they’re provided for by the government where they’re provided by for something else and if one doesn’t work you might find that although things like hazards don’t exactly have published standards because they can’t because there’s too many different things too many different entities, you’re going to find that the standards are certainly not going to become relaxed and they will probably become somewhat stringent as to what is. Because if there’s a lawsuit there’s always four components on a lawsuit on an injury. There’s a duty, there’s a breach, there’s approximate cause and damages. So if the duty is there, if we assume that the situation is the duty is there then the biggest question is always going to be what constitutes a breach? And that’s where the change is going to be on, that second part, what constitutes a breach? That will change. I guarantee it does. As Joe Namath said, “I guarantee it.” Sal Lifrieri: Well i think that’s, this is going to be a good place for us to stop. Jim thank you so much for taking the time and coming on with us to chat about these topics this is obviously something that we can go on and on and we’d love to get you back at some point and talk about the co-employment. And talk about some of the other issues that some of the owners and security directors are facing. But with that, just want to remind everyone that you’ve been listening to The Risk Advisor Podcast hosted by Jim Henry and me Sal Lifrieri. 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