Negligent Security On The Las Vegas Strip: When A Hotel Is Liable

By Katie Goldberg, founding attorney at Goldberg Injury Law, Las Vegas.

A Las Vegas hotel is liable for an assault, robbery or other harm by someone who isn’t its employee only when the wrongful act was foreseeable and the hotel failed to take reasonable precautions against it. That’s Nevada’s innkeeper statute, NRS 651.015, and it’s narrower than most people expect. The statute even defines what foreseeable means, and the court decides it, not the jury. This page walks through those conditions, the evidence that proves them, and what to do in the first days after you’re hurt.

The Short Answer

• Foreseeability And Missing Precautions: the wrongful act was foreseeable, and the hotel failed to take reasonable precautions against it.
• Foreseeable Has A Legal Definition: under the statute, an act is not foreseeable unless the hotel failed to exercise due care for your safety, or similar wrongful acts happened there before and the hotel knew about them.
• The Judge Decides Foreseeability: the court decides as a matter of law whether the act was foreseeable and whether the hotel had a duty to take precautions.
• The Statute Names The Business: it covers hotels, inns, motels, motor courts, boardinghouses and lodging houses, and the people on their premises.
• Evidence Disappears Fast: surveillance video and incident reports are in the hotel’s hands, so ask in writing for them to be preserved right away.

What Nevada’s Innkeeper Statute Says

The law is NRS 651.015. It applies to an owner or keeper of any hotel, inn, motel, motor court, boardinghouse or lodging house, and to the death or injury of a patron or other person on the premises caused by someone who is not an employee under the hotel’s control or supervision.

It works in two directions. The hotel is not liable unless the wrongful act was foreseeable and there is a preponderance of evidence that it didn’t exercise due care for the person’s safety. And it is liable if the wrongful act was foreseeable and it failed to take reasonable precautions against that act.

Harm caused by the hotel’s own staff is a different question; this statute is about a third party, meaning guests, visitors and strangers. Inadequate security is the everyday name for a claim under it.

Is A Las Vegas Hotel Liable If I Was Attacked On The Property?

Only if the statute’s conditions are met. Under NRS 651.015, the attack had to be foreseeable, and the hotel had to fail to take reasonable precautions against it. A hotel isn’t liable for every crime on its property. The statute also defines foreseeable narrowly, which is why prior incidents and the hotel’s own security records matter so much.

Does It Matter That I Wasn’t A Hotel Guest?

Not under the statute’s wording. NRS 651.015 covers a patron or other person on the premises, so a visitor walking through the casino, someone at a show, or a friend meeting you at the bar is covered the same way a registered guest is. The claim still turns on whether the attack was foreseeable and whether the hotel failed to take reasonable precautions against it.

How Nevada Defines A Foreseeable Attack

This is the part of the statute that decides most cases. A wrongful act is not foreseeable unless one of two things is true:

1. The hotel failed to exercise due care for the safety of the patron or other person on the premises, or
2. Prior incidents of similar wrongful acts occurred on the premises, and the hotel had notice or knowledge of those incidents.

The second route is about the property’s own history. Similar incidents on the same premises that the hotel knew about make the next one foreseeable under the statute. That’s why the security logs, incident reports and calls for service from the property are often the center of a case.

The statute also says who decides. The court determines as a matter of law whether the wrongful act was foreseeable and whether the hotel had a duty to take reasonable precautions against it. So the foreseeability fight usually happens in front of a judge, early, on the evidence of what the hotel knew.

How The Nevada Supreme Court Reads NRS 651.015

Two decisions show how judges apply it. In Estate of Smith v. Mahoney’s Silver Nugget (2011), a patron was shot in a casino bar moments after a fight started. The court found no duty: security had already been sent, nothing suggested the shooter was armed, and the earlier incidents were fistfights and robberies where no weapon was used, plus gun reports in the parking lot where no one was shot. The court added that a judge can still weigh the basic minimum precautions expected of a hotel, even with no similar history.

In Humphries v. New York-New York Hotel & Casino (2017), a patron attacked two people on the casino floor at 3:50 a.m. The trial court called the fight spontaneous; the Supreme Court reversed. Similar means general likeness, not an exact match, judged by the location, the level of violence and the security concerns involved. The security manager had testified to two to three fights a week on the casino floor. The court also named security staffing, response time and the lack of a security audit.

The difference between those cases was in the hotels’ own records, which is why we ask for incident reports and staffing logs first.

Where Negligent Security Claims Come From On The Strip

Las Vegas hotels are some of the busiest properties anywhere, and the spaces where an assault, robbery or shooting tends to happen are predictable: parking garages, elevators and hallways, pool decks, the walk between a hotel and the next property on Las Vegas Boulevard, and hotel rooms where a key card or a door lock fails.

What a reasonable precaution looks like depends on the property and its history: guards and patrols, working cameras, lighting in the garage, access control on guest floors, and how staff respond when a guest reports a threat. Whether a specific hotel’s precautions were reasonable is the question a negligent security case is built to answer.

Can I Sue A Casino For An Assault In The Parking Garage?

If the casino is part of a hotel, NRS 651.015 is usually the starting point when the hotel owns or runs the garage. Some garages, clubs and security teams are run by another company, which can change who the claim is against. The claim still needs both conditions: the attack was foreseeable under the statute’s definition, and the hotel failed to take reasonable precautions. Whether a property the statute doesn’t name is covered is a question to ask a lawyer.

Can I Sue The Security Company The Hotel Hired?

Possibly. NRS 651.015 speaks to the hotel’s owner or keeper, and a security company the hotel hired is a separate business. Whether it shares responsibility depends on what its contract required and what its guards did or didn’t do. A nightclub, restaurant or garage run by another company on the property can be a separate defendant for the same reason, and so can the person who attacked you.

What To Do After You’re Hurt At A Las Vegas Hotel

1. Get Medical Care First: and keep every record, bill and discharge instruction.
2. Report It To Police And To Hotel Security: ask for the LVMPD event number and for the hotel’s incident report number.
3. Ask In Writing For The Video To Be Kept: send the hotel a written request to preserve surveillance footage of the area and time. Many systems record over themselves. Our guide to preserving evidence and subpoenaing casino footage explains how that request works.
4. Write Down What You Remember: where it happened, the time, what security was or wasn’t there, and the names of witnesses and staff you spoke with.
5. Keep Your Room And Booking Records: the reservation, the key card folder and any messages to the front desk.

If you live out of state, the claim still runs under Nevada law and in Nevada courts. Our page on being injured in Las Vegas while visiting from out of state covers how that works from home.

How Long You Have To File A Negligent Security Claim

The statute of limitations is the filing deadline. In Nevada, you generally have 2 years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit. Miss that deadline and you can lose the right to recover, so it is important to act early. The practical deadline is much shorter: the hotel’s video and records are the evidence, and they’re in the hotel’s hands.

What Can A Negligent Security Claim Pay For?

Medical bills, now and in the future, and lost wages are the economic damages. Pain, suffering and the other harms without a receipt are non-economic damages. When an attack is fatal, the family and the estate can bring a wrongful death claim, as the estate and parents did in the Silver Nugget case. Your own share of fault, if any, reduces the award, as the next answer explains.

Does It Matter If I Had Been Drinking?

It can. A hotel may argue that your own conduct contributed to what happened, and Nevada splits fault by percentage. You can still recover as long as you are not found more than 50% at fault, and your share reduces the award. Being a guest who had a few drinks doesn’t erase the hotel’s duty to take reasonable precautions against a foreseeable attack.

Talk To Katie About What Happened At The Hotel

A negligent security claim is built on what the hotel knew and when, so the first step is getting that evidence preserved. A conversation is free and doesn’t commit you to anything.

Call 702-529-2661, text Katie at 702-702-9585, or send us a message. Our Las Vegas hotel and casino injury lawyers and our premises liability team handle these claims, and you can read what clients say on our Google Business Profile.

Nevada Negligent Security Resources

• NRS 651.015: the Nevada innkeeper statute on injuries caused by someone who isn’t an employee.
• Estate of Smith v. Mahoney’s Silver Nugget, Inc.: the 2011 Nevada Supreme Court opinion on what foreseeable means under NRS 651.015.
• Humphries v. New York-New York Hotel & Casino: the 2017 opinion on prior similar incidents.
• NRS 11.190: Nevada’s filing deadlines, including the 2-year deadline for injury claims in subsection 4(e).
• NRS 41.141: Nevada’s comparative negligence statute, which splits fault by percentage.
• LVMPD, Requesting Report Copies: how to get a copy of the police report in Las Vegas.

Reviewed by Katie Goldberg, founding attorney at Goldberg Injury Law.

This information is general and not legal advice. Every case is different. Talk to a licensed Nevada attorney about your situation. Contacting this firm or reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case depends on its own facts.

Goldberg Injury Law

Office Address:
6010 S Rainbow Blvd Suite A1,
Las Vegas, NV 89118

Phone: 702-529-2661

Fax: 702-920-8670