Businesses are Liable When Bouncers Act — or Fail to Act
You see them all the time in clubs and bars and large events. Bouncers—private security, there to keep the peace, and make sure that things don’t go out of hand. But while bouncers are there to provide what seems to be police-like protections, many are not only not trained police officers, but may receive little to no training at all.
Who Are They?
While many establishments will hire off duty police officers, many do not, mostly for cost concerns. And many establishments hire bouncers because of their sheer size, or the fact that they may have some kind of self defense or martial arts or security background.
But being an effective and safe bouncer, is about more than knowing how to fight. It’s about knowing how to recognize and de-escalate a situation, while causing as little harm as possible. It’s also being mature enough not to take personal offense and to only do what is needed to address a situation.
There are subtle things that require training—training that most bouncers never receive.
How People Get Injured
As a result, bouncers can cause serious injury to people in two primary ways.
The first way is obvious—using too much force. By law, a bouncer may only use the force that is necessary to protect the bouncer, and others. But many act too quickly, and too violently. They may see a rowdy customer as “carte blanche” for the bouncer to do whatever he or she wants to the customer.
Worse, they may escalate situations, taking a customer who is only being verbally abusive and turning into a physical confrontation. Or, they may go too far, continuing to physically handle a customer who has long been subdued, or using techniques that don’t restrain, but rather, which cause physical harm to others.
Sometimes, this is because the bouncers themselves may have criminal histories—histories that the business either ignored, or never bothered to explore before the bouncer was hired.
Doing Nothing At All
Bouncers can harm people in other ways as well, specifically, when they do nothing. Bouncers may do nothing when they are distracted, talking, or on phones, but they also may do nothing when they aren’t trained to see a situation arising before it gets out of hand. In a sea of people, in a crowded bar or club, seeing who may be on the verge of causing trouble, is a skill.
When bouncers do nothing, allowing someone to get injured, the victim must show that had the bouncers been more attentive that they could have avoided the incident that led to the victim’s injury.
Businesses also can have liability, simply for having too few bouncers. Here, the bouncers are doing everything they can—there just simply aren’t enough of them to manage a crowd or establishment of a given size.
Contact the Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian and schedule a consultation today if you have been injured by a bouncer, or you feel your injury could have and should have been prevented by a bouncer or private security.
Source:
newschannel9.com/news/local/new-tennessee-law-requires-changes-for-how-security-guards-do-their-jobs-bouncers-bars
