ABA Family Legal Guide

Personal Injury

Negligence

Some Special Situations

I was attacked after withdrawing money from an automated teller machine (ATM). What can I do?

Under the tort theory of premises liability discussed above, customers have sued banks for failing to protect them from assault at ATMs. While there used to be no common-law duty to provide security against such crimes, some courts today have recognized such a duty.

A key question would be whether the crime was a reasonably foreseeable danger. The business owner will argue that third-party criminal attacks are inherently unforeseeable, and that the act of the third party, the criminal, is an intervening, superseding act that breaks the chain of causation. In other words, they will argue that the true cause of the harm is the act of the third party.

You may be able to overcome these arguments if you can show that the business owner knew or should have known about prior incidents of crime at or near the location. In such a case, a judge or jury would determine if there were past occurrences and if a likelihood of a crime was foreseeable. If so, they may hold that the bank had a duty to protect people using that machine and that the bank was liable.

Recently, the banking industry has been successful in limiting banks' liability if they comply with security and lighting requirements.