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SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS AND FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY
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Ken,
    Recently, I had a discussion with a property management company about video surveillance for the exterior of their commercial building. They said that they leave that up to the tenants. Second of all, they highly discourage it because of the liability of creating a false sense of security.  I was surprised as I had never heard of that before and asked "Have you ever had an instance where you were held liable for something because of an external surveillance system?" They responded "Yes, we have."  I am writing them a letter asking for more information on that, but my question to you is:  Have you heard of this before?   Has there been instances where building owners were held liable for an operable surveillance system creating a false sense of security? 
    What are your thoughts?
Tre Brickley
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RESPONSE
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    A property owner can be held liable for creating a false sense of security that others lawfully on the premises rely on for their security.  That is however a very broad statement and not every surveillance camera is going to meet the criteria of "creating a false sense of security" that someone "reasonably relies upon".  
    Some property owners are required to take more security measures than others because of the nature of the property or use of the property.  There may be laws that require cameras in certain establishments [such as night clubs in NYC].  Residential properties in high crime areas may need special protective measures and cameras may be one such measure, though I suspect they would have to be monitored to make any difference.  
    I haven't researched cases for this response, but I am sure there have been cases.  Be careful though because "small claims" or lower court cases have no precedential value, meaning that the judge in that particular case may not have based the decision strictly on the law and other judges don't have to follow that decision.  But certainly it would be easy to create a scenario whereby the property owner, by installing the cameras and advertising the property as a safe haven, could be liable if it turns out the victim of crime justifiably relied on false representations, express or implied.  
    The important issues for property owners is determining whether there is any law requiring a particular type of security measure, such as cameras, and whether circumstances warrant the property owner taking security measures.  Once measures are taken the property owner would have to be careful not to create a false sense of security.  Dummy cameras would be a fair example.  Other examples are placing a dummy security guard behind smoked glass and posting signs proclaiming security measures that simply are not true.  But just putting up cameras is not enough to create liability and yet may act as a deterrent to crime.
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FOLLOW UP ON COLLECTION ISSUE FROM FEBRUARY 6, 2016 ARTICLE
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 Ken,
     Got a question on collection of debt.  
    We have enforced our contracts in the California small claims court arena and have obtained  judgments for money owed us by dead-beat customers. Many of these X customers seem to care less and still  don't pay up, even with a judgment in place.  Now what to do?
    It seems quite the challenge to skip-trace these people and / or try to ID assets to attach them. Do you have any suggestions for helping us collect money owed to us with good judgments in hand?
    I was told there are companies out there that will buy this 'paper' at a discounted rate and  / or attorneys that will take the paper and try to collect on a contingency basis.
    What could I expect to pay for this  luxury?  Are there any reputable companies for this that you would recommend?
    Love to here from you on this,
 Ben
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RESPONSE
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    You have found out that collecting a judgment is usually harder than getting the judgment.  Exemption statutes are typically very liberal and prohibit enforcing judgments against a wide range of property held by judgment debtors.  There are several steps you can consider:

  • Join a credit reporting company and report the judgment hoping that the debtor will want to remove this blight on the credit report.
  • Do nothing and hope the credit reporting agency picks up the judgment and reports it on the credit report.
  • Take steps to make sure your lower court judgment is recorded as a judgment lien against the judgment debtor's real property, in which event you might get paid if the house sells.
  • Give the judgment to a collection agency or collection lawyer and hope they can recover the money and actually send it to you.  You may as well have engaged them in the first place since they will want their full fee even though you obtained the judgment on your own.
  • Sell the judgment to companies that buy debt.  You'll find this the greatest waste of your time since you'll only get pennies on the dollar [expect 1 to 3 cents]  and you'll be asked to indemnify the company in the event there has been a violation of any consumer laws in your collection process.

    What could you do to increase your chances of collecting from defaulting subscribers?  Well, you did stack the deck, so to speak, by referring to them as "dead beats" in your question, because there isn't much you can do to collect from a true "dead beat".  They are skilled at avoiding payment, adept at circumventing judgments and adroit at busting your chops.  Move on and avoid these dead beats.
    But on a more positive note, acting quickly when your subscriber fails to make a timely payment could make all the difference.  Your immediate action to terminate service unless payment is made, while the amount owed is still relatively small [as opposed to an accelerated balance on the entire contract plus legal fees], may save the account.  You may also appreciate the subscriber's effort to at least pay through the use of the system and you may be persuaded by the subscriber's circumstances not to pursue the balance of what you are owed.
    Unless you have a staff devoted to collections and enough accounts to pursue you may want to give pause before getting started with a collection case.  One or two a year could end up causing you more aggravation than it's worth.  One or two a week, give me a call and refer them to my office.
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