Yes. When a private security company was hired to protect the place where your loved one was killed, that company can often be named in a Nevada wrongful death lawsuit alongside the property owner. A security company is responsible for doing the job it was hired to do, and failing at that job can make it share liability for a fatal attack.
Many families are stunned to learn there were guards on site when it happened. That’s usually where the questions start. Here’s how you can sue a security company after a fatal attack in Nevada, what proves the claim, and why an assault wrongful death lawyer in Las Vegas looks at the guard contract early.
Who Actually Ran Security?
Many Las Vegas properties don’t employ their own guards. Apartment complexes, HOAs, shopping centers, parking garages, event venues, and some bars contract with outside security firms. Large resorts usually run in-house security but may bring in contractors for events.
The answer matters because it decides who gets sued. In a contracted setup, the property owner, the management company, and the security company may each have played a role, and each may carry its own insurance. If the attack happened where your loved one lived, our post on who is liable for an injury at an apartment complex in Las Vegas explains how owners and management companies divide responsibility.
How a Security Company Can Be Responsible for a Death
A security company isn’t expected to prevent every crime. It is expected to perform its job with reasonable care. Liability usually comes from one or more of these failures.
Not Following Post Orders
Post orders are the written instructions for each guard position: where to stand, how often to patrol, which areas to check, and when to call police. When guards skip patrols of a parking structure or never check a broken gate they were assigned to watch, that gap can become the center of the case.
No-Shows, Understaffing, and Guards Off Post
Shifts go unfilled. One guard covers a post meant for three. A guard sits in a car or an office instead of walking the property. Timecards, billing records, and patrol data often show the difference between the coverage promised and the coverage delivered.
Poor Training or Unlicensed Guards
Nevada’s Private Investigators Licensing Board licenses private patrol companies, and guards working for them generally need a state work card. A company using guards without proper credentials, or without training in de-escalation and emergency response, will have a hard time defending its staffing.
Negligent Hiring and Supervision
Hiring guards with violent histories, failing to supervise them, or ignoring complaints about specific officers can make the company liable, especially if a guard’s own conduct contributed to the death.
Why Families Usually Name Both the Property and the Security Company
The property and its security contractor will often point at each other. The owner says the guards dropped the ball. The security company says the owner refused to pay for more coverage, never fixed the lighting, or limited guards to “observe and report.” Naming both keeps those arguments in one case, in front of one jury.
It also matters for recovery. Under Nevada’s comparative fault rules, negligent defendants are generally responsible for their own share of fault, so having every responsible party in the case helps account for the full harm. Our post on multi-party liability in Nevada covers how responsibility is split among several defendants. Contracts between the owner and the security company may also include indemnity and insurance terms that affect who ultimately pays.
The Paperwork That Shows What Guards Were Supposed to Do
Security cases are often won on documents. Through a wrongful death lawsuit, an attorney can obtain:
- The security services contract and any amendments
- Post orders for each guard position
- Patrol logs and electronic guard-tour data showing where guards actually went
- Daily activity reports and incident reports
- Staffing schedules, timecards, and billing records
- Training records and licensing information
- Prior incident reports from the same property
That paper trail can show the gap between what a family was told (“security was on site”) and what actually happened that night. Families can help by gathering what they already know, as we explain in how to find out if there were prior crimes where your loved one was killed.
What Security Companies Argue, and Why It Often Falls Apart
Expect familiar defenses: the attack was random, the guard had no duty to step in, the contract only required observing and reporting, or the attacker alone is to blame. Glen Howard heard these arguments from the other side for years as an insurance defense attorney. He knows they often depend on the jury never seeing the post orders, the patrol data, or the emails about short staffing.
An “observe and report” defense also doesn’t excuse a guard who wasn’t there to observe anything. And the attacker’s criminal act doesn’t automatically erase the responsibility of a company paid to deter crime. Whether the attack was foreseeable is still the key question, which we explain in how negligent security claims work in Nevada. For garage and lot attacks, see who’s responsible if attacked in a Vegas parking lot or garage.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you sue a security guard personally?
Sometimes, but it’s rarely the focus. An individual guard who caused or contributed to a death can be named, but guards typically don’t carry their own insurance or assets to pay a wrongful death judgment. The more practical defendants are the security company that employed the guard and the property that hired it. Under Nevada law, an employer can be held responsible for an employee’s conduct on the job, and the company may also be liable for how it hired, trained, and supervised that guard. An attorney can decide whether naming the guard individually helps your family’s case.
Do security guards in Nevada need a license?
Generally, yes. Nevada’s Private Investigators Licensing Board licenses private patrol companies, and guards who work for those companies generally must hold a state-issued work card, which involves a background check. Armed guards face additional firearms requirements. Some in-house security departments operate under different rules, so the requirements depend on who employed the guard. If a guard or company wasn’t properly licensed, that can become important evidence in a wrongful death case, because it speaks directly to whether the company met basic standards.
Is the property still liable if it hired a security company?
Often, yes. Hiring a security contractor doesn’t automatically shift all responsibility away from the owner. The property still controls lighting, locks, gates, cameras, and the level of security it was willing to pay for. If the owner knew about prior crimes but kept coverage thin, or ignored the security company’s warnings, it may share fault. In many Nevada negligent security cases, the property owner, management company, and security contractor are all named so a jury can decide each one’s share. Every case is different, so the contracts and facts need a close review.
What if the guard was off post when the attack happened?
That can be one of the strongest facts in a case. If post orders put a guard at a specific location or on a set patrol route, and records show the guard was elsewhere, asleep, or never clocked in, the company’s failure is concrete and easy for a jury to understand. Electronic patrol systems, timecards, and camera footage can show exactly where guards were. This evidence needs to be preserved quickly, since some systems overwrite data on a routine schedule.
There Was Security. So Why Wasn’t Your Loved One Protected?
That question deserves a real answer, and it usually lives in records the security company and the property control. Howard Injury Law represents Las Vegas families in negligent security and assault wrongful death cases, and we know how to pull the contracts, post orders, and patrol data that show what really happened.
Schedule a free consultation to talk through what happened and whether your family has a claim. We handle wrongful death cases on contingency, so there’s no fee unless we win. You can also learn more about our approach to wrongful death cases in Las Vegas.
