Brighton Assault and Battery Lawyer
You were attacked.
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A Brighton assault and battery lawyer who stands with you.
Being attacked leaves more than physical wounds. The medical bills, the lost income and the lasting fear are real, and a criminal case against the person who hurt you — if there even is one — does nothing to make you whole. A separate civil claim can, and it is often the only path to real compensation.
That claim frequently runs not only against the attacker but against the business or property owner whose carelessness allowed the violence to happen. As a dedicated Boston assault and battery practice, Larson Law investigates who failed to keep you safe, gathers the evidence before it disappears, and pursues every responsible party under Massachusetts law. There is no fee unless we win.
These cases take sensitivity and determination in equal measure. We handle them with care for what you have been through, and with the resolve it takes to hold a company accountable for putting profit ahead of safety.
What our clients say
We fight for people harmed by violence.
- We handle civil assault and battery claims, including serious and life-altering injuries.
- We pursue the businesses and property owners whose inadequate security allowed an attack.
- We move quickly to preserve surveillance video, incident reports and prior-crime records.
- We work with medical and mental-health experts to document physical and emotional injuries.
- We build the civil case whether or not the attacker is ever charged or convicted of a crime.
- We handle it with discretion.
- We answer when you call.
- No fee unless we win.
- Free case review, always.
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How a Massachusetts assault and battery claim works.
Assault and battery as civil claims
In addition to being crimes, assault and battery are civil wrongs. A battery is an intentional harmful or offensive contact; an assault is an act that puts you in reasonable fear of imminent harmful contact. When someone commits either against you, Massachusetts law lets you sue for the full harm it caused — separate from, and independent of, anything that happens in criminal court.
The civil case is separate from the criminal case
A criminal prosecution is brought by the state to punish the offender; a civil claim is yours, to compensate you. They use different standards of proof, and your civil case can succeed even if there is no criminal charge, or if the criminal case ends in an acquittal. You do not need a conviction to recover.
Suing the attacker directly
You can bring a claim directly against the person who assaulted you. The practical problem is that many attackers have no insurance and few assets, because intentional acts are excluded from most policies. That is why identifying every other responsible party is so important to an actual recovery.
Negligent security — the property owner’s responsibility
Often the most meaningful claim is against the business or property owner where the attack happened. Massachusetts law requires owners of bars, clubs, restaurants, apartment complexes, hotels, stores and parking facilities to take reasonable measures to protect the people they invite onto their property from foreseeable criminal harm. When lax security allows a foreseeable attack, the owner can be held liable in negligence.
What foreseeability means
A negligent-security claim turns on whether the attack was foreseeable. Prior assaults or crimes on the property or in the immediate area, a known dangerous condition, broken locks or lighting, absent or inadequate security staff, and ignored complaints all help show that the owner should have seen the danger and acted. We obtain the records that prove it.
Bars, clubs and dram shop liability
A licensed establishment that serves alcohol to a visibly intoxicated patron who then injures someone can be liable under Massachusetts’s dram shop law, General Laws chapter 138, section 69. Over-service is a common thread in bar and nightclub violence, and it opens an additional path to recovery against the establishment.
Apartments, landlords and common areas
Tenants and their guests are entitled to reasonable security in the common areas of a rental property — working locks and doors, adequate lighting, and attention to known dangers. A landlord who ignores a broken entry door or a pattern of crime in the building can share responsibility for an assault that follows.
Parking lots, garages and lighting
Poorly lit and unmonitored parking lots and garages are frequent sites of assaults and robberies. When an owner fails to provide the lighting, cameras or patrols that the risk called for, and a foreseeable attack occurs, that failure can support a claim.
Other venues where it happens
Negligent-security claims are not limited to bars. Gyms, concert and event venues, schools and colleges, hospitals, ATMs and banks, gas stations and convenience stores, and rideshare settings all involve places where an owner’s security choices affect the risk of an attack. If violence was foreseeable and reasonable precautions were missing, the setting rarely matters to whether a claim exists.
When security itself causes the harm
Sometimes the injury comes from a bouncer, guard or staff member who uses excessive force. A business is responsible for the conduct of the people it puts in those roles, and an assault by an over-aggressive employee can create a claim against the business as well as against the individual who caused the harm.
Building the case and preserving evidence
Surveillance footage is often the heart of these cases, and it is frequently overwritten within days. We move immediately to preserve video, incident and police reports, security-staffing records, and the history of prior crimes on the property, and we work with experts in security standards to show what reasonable care required.
Working alongside the criminal case
If there is a criminal case, we coordinate with it — using the police reports, the evidence and any restitution order — while pursuing your separate civil claim. A criminal conviction can help a civil case, but its absence does not stop one, and we make sure the two proceedings do not work at cross purposes.
If you were partly at fault
An attacker cannot reduce responsibility by blaming the victim for an intentional assault. In the negligence claim against a property owner, Massachusetts’s comparative negligence rule, chapter 231, section 85, may apply, reducing but not barring a claim unless you were more than half at fault. Insurers raise this often, and we are used to answering it.
When the attacker is never identified
Sometimes the person who carried out an attack is never caught. That does not end your case. Because a negligent-security claim is against the property owner rather than the attacker, it can proceed even when the assailant is unknown — the question is whether the owner’s failure to provide reasonable security allowed a foreseeable crime, not who committed it.
Robberies, carjackings and stranger attacks
Many assaults are not personal disputes but crimes of opportunity — a robbery in a dark lot, a carjacking at a gas station, a random attack near a transit stop. These are exactly the situations where security precautions matter most, and where their absence most clearly supports a claim against the property owner who should have provided them.
How these cases are paid
Because the recovery in an assault case usually comes from a property owner’s or business’s liability insurance rather than the attacker’s pocket, the case is built to reach that coverage. We identify each policy — the bar’s, the landlord’s, the management company’s, a security contractor’s — because a serious injury can exceed any single one, and finding all of them shapes what a full recovery looks like.
The emotional injuries are real
The harm from an assault is not only physical. Survivors often live with anxiety, sleeplessness, hypervigilance and post-traumatic stress that can affect work, relationships and daily life for a long time. Massachusetts law treats this emotional injury as genuine and compensable, and documenting it with the right professionals is an important part of valuing the claim honestly.
The deadline to file
Under chapter 260, section 2A you generally have three years from the date of the assault to bring a civil claim. Evidence such as surveillance video disappears far sooner, so acting quickly protects both the proof and the claim.
Your privacy matters
These cases involve some of the most personal experiences a person can have, and we treat them that way. We handle every assault claim with discretion, protect your privacy at each step, and never lose sight of the fact that behind the legal questions is a person who was hurt and deserves to be treated with respect.
What a claim can include
A civil assault claim seeks the full range of damages: emergency and ongoing medical care, therapy for trauma and post-traumatic stress, lost wages and earning capacity, scarring and disfigurement, and the pain and emotional suffering the attack caused. Where an assault proves fatal, the family may bring a wrongful death claim.
Your Brighton assault and battery lawyer knows this community.
Where these attacks happen in Brighton
Brighton’s nightlife and density shape where violence occurs — outside the bars and restaurants along Brighton Avenue and Harvard Avenue, in the shared entryways and stairwells of crowded apartment buildings, in dim parking lots and garages, and around the Green Line B stops late at night. In many of these places, better security would have prevented the harm.
Nightlife and late nights
Much of Brighton’s assault risk clusters around closing time and the walk home — crowded sidewalks outside bars, isolated stretches near transit, and unlit paths between the avenues and the side streets. Businesses that draw late-night crowds have a real responsibility to plan for the risks that come with them, and too often they do not.
When a business should have done more
A packed bar with no real security, an apartment building with a broken front door, a garage with burned-out lights and no cameras — these are the conditions that turn a foreseeable risk into a serious injury. We look closely at what the owner knew and what they failed to do.
Colleges, campuses and student housing
With colleges and thousands of students, Brighton sees assaults in and around campus areas, at off-campus parties, and in student rentals. Schools, landlords and venues that serve students still owe a duty of reasonable security, and a foreseeable attack that better precautions would have prevented can support a claim, whatever the setting and whoever the survivor.
Care and support after an attack
Serious injuries from an assault are often treated at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center on Cambridge Street, and the emotional toll can last far longer than the physical one. We connect the full picture — medical, psychological and financial — to build a claim that reflects everything you have endured.
The wider region
Larson Law represents assault survivors across the area, including as a Cambridge assault and battery and Quincy assault and battery firm, so people beyond Brighton get the same determined, discreet help.
When to reach out
The sooner you call, the more of the evidence — above all the surveillance video — we can preserve before it is erased. Even if the police are still investigating or some time has passed, a confidential conversation costs nothing and can protect your rights.
A claim should cover every lasting cost.
An assault can carry costs that reach far past the emergency room — reconstructive surgery, months of physical and psychological therapy, income lost during recovery, lasting scarring, and the fear and trauma that change daily life. A civil claim seeks the full range of these damages, both economic and human, so that the price of someone else’s violence and another’s carelessness does not fall on you. A properly built claim accounts for all of it, present and future, and pursues every party and policy that should answer for the harm.
Medical Bills and Future Care
Lost Wages and Earning Capacity
Pain, Suffering, and Hardship
Wrongful Death of a Loved One
Simple steps that protect your health and your claim.
Get medical care and report it fast
Get medical attention right away, even for injuries that seem minor, and report the assault to the police just for an official record. Prompt care and a report protect both your health and your claim.
Preserve the evidence without delay
Write down what happened, note any cameras, and ask that the property owner keep the surveillance video before it is erased. Photographs of your injuries and the scene can make a big difference later.
Talk to a lawyer before the insurer
Do not give a recorded statement or accept offers from the property owner or its insurer. Speak with a Brighton assault and battery lawyer first so the evidence is preserved and your rights protected.
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Talk to a Brighton assault and battery lawyer today.
If you were injured in an assault, you should not carry the medical bills, lost income and trauma alone, and you may have a claim well beyond any criminal case. Larson Law offers a free, confidential case review, explains exactly where your claim stands and who may be responsible, and charges nothing unless we recover for you. There is no pressure and no cost simply to understand your options.
You can learn more about our full range of Boston personal injury services, then call or message us to speak, in confidence, with a Brighton assault and battery lawyer about what happened, who may be responsible, and what your claim may realistically be worth.
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Larson Law helps injured people and families across Massachusetts after a serious accident. If you were hurt by someone else’s carelessness in Boston, we are ready to listen and explain your options at no cost.
Assault and battery claims, answered directly.
Do I have a civil case for an assault?
Very possibly. Assault and battery are civil wrongs as well as crimes, so if you were attacked and injured, Massachusetts law lets you sue for the harm — the medical costs, lost income, and physical and emotional suffering. The claim may be against the attacker, and often against a business or property owner whose poor security allowed the attack to happen at all. A free, confidential case review is the best way to learn exactly what claims you may have and who may be responsible.
The attacker was never charged. Can I still sue?
Yes. A civil claim is entirely separate from a criminal prosecution. The criminal case belongs to the state and is meant to punish; your civil case belongs to you and is meant to compensate you for what you lost. Because the two use different standards of proof, your claim can succeed even if the attacker was never charged, was acquitted, or is unknown to the police. You do not need a criminal case, or a conviction, to bring and win a civil one.
Who can I hold responsible besides the attacker?
Often the property or business owner where the attack happened. Bars, clubs, apartment complexes, hotels, stores and parking operators must take reasonable steps to protect people from foreseeable violence. When inadequate security — no guards, broken locks, dark lots, ignored prior crimes — allows an attack, that owner can be liable. A bar that over-served an intoxicated attacker may also be responsible, and so may a security company. Identifying every one of these parties is often what makes a real recovery possible.
What is negligent security?
Negligent security is a form of negligence that holds a property owner responsible when their failure to provide reasonable security allows a foreseeable crime to injure someone on their property. It is not about guaranteeing safety; it is about doing what a reasonable owner would — adequate lighting, working locks, cameras, or security staff where the risk called for them. When an owner ignores a known danger, or a pattern of prior crime, and a foreseeable attack follows, the law allows a claim.
The attacker has no money. Is a claim still worth it?
It often is, because the attacker is usually not the real target of the claim. Because intentional acts are excluded from most insurance and many attackers have no assets, the recovery that actually matters typically comes from a business or property owner whose negligence allowed the attack — and from their liability insurance. That is exactly why we focus on identifying every responsible party, not just the person who struck you, and why a claim that looks hopeless at first can turn out to be very real.
Can I sue a bar that over-served the attacker?
Possibly. Under Massachusetts’s dram shop law, a licensed establishment that serves alcohol to a visibly intoxicated person who then injures someone can be held responsible for the resulting harm. Over-service is a common thread in bar and nightclub violence, and it creates a claim against the establishment in addition to any negligent-security claim. Proving it involves the establishment’s service records, witness accounts, and evidence of the attacker’s level of intoxication that night.
What if I was attacked in my apartment building?
You may have a claim against the landlord or management company. Tenants and their guests are entitled to reasonable security in common areas — working entry doors and locks, adequate lighting, and attention to known dangers. A landlord who ignored a broken front door, a pattern of crime in the building, or repeated complaints from tenants can share responsibility for an assault that a reasonable owner would have taken steps to guard against. These claims turn on what the landlord knew and what they failed to do about it.
What is an assault claim worth?
It depends on the severity of your injuries, the medical and psychological care you need, income lost, any lasting scarring or disability, and the emotional trauma the attack caused. Because these claims seek the full range of damages — including compensation for fear, post-traumatic stress and the disruption to your life — the value can be significant, especially where a business’s negligence is clear. We evaluate all of it, and identify every source of recovery, before advising you rather than quoting a figure.
How long do I have to file?
Generally three years from the date of the assault, under Massachusetts law. That may feel like plenty of time, but the most important evidence — surveillance video especially — is often erased within days or weeks. Acting quickly is what lets us preserve the footage, the incident and police reports, and the record of prior crimes that a negligent-security claim depends on, so early advice matters even when the filing deadline still seems comfortably far away.
Will I have to relive it in court?
Not necessarily. Most civil claims resolve through settlement without a trial, and even when a case is filed, much of the process happens outside a courtroom. We handle these cases with sensitivity to what you have been through, prepare you fully for any step that does require your participation, and carry the weight of the process so you can focus on healing. Should the case go to trial, we make sure you are supported and ready, and you are never alone in it.
What will hiring a lawyer cost me?
Nothing up front. Larson Law handles assault and negligent-security cases on a contingency fee, so our fee comes only as a percentage of what we recover — if we recover nothing, you owe no attorney’s fee. The initial review is free and confidential, and we advance the costs of investigating the attack and the property’s security history, which these cases require. Cost should never keep a survivor from finding out what claims they have and who can be held to account.
What should I do after an assault in Brighton?
Get to safety and get medical care first, and let the police document what happened. Then focus on evidence while it still exists: note the exact location and any cameras, ask the business or building to preserve its surveillance video, photograph your injuries, and write down the names of any witnesses. Keep your medical and police records together in one place. Before speaking with the property’s insurer, call a Brighton assault and battery lawyer to preserve the proof and protect your claim.
Results Disclaimer: Past case results, settlements, and verdicts mentioned on this website do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case. Every case is unique and depends on its own facts and legal issues.