Legal Brief: Lessons Learned from a Bank Robbery

April 11, 2025
Security Business Magazine

Types : Bylined Articles

While it is your job to install security systems, the end-customer often faces their own security obligations

Years ago, I litigated a case in federal court in Massachusetts brought by three bank tellers who alleged emotional distress resulting from a bank robbery. The tellers sued my client, a prominent security provider, claiming that it failed to design the electronic alarm system properly.

Specifically, they claimed that one of two exterior doors of the bank should have been alarmed 24 hours a day; instead, that door, although locked from the outside, was set to disarm when the main door was disarmed during banking hours. While the other exterior door was clearly the customer entrance, the second door in question – used only by employees – was not.

On the morning of the bank robbery, the bank robber waited for the bank manager to disarm the alarm system at the main door, and then used a crowbar to pry open the second exterior door. The robber seemed to know – perhaps from an insider – that the side door and main door disarmed in tandem.

Upon entering the bank from the side door, the robbery took less than 10 minutes, and roughly $100,000 was stolen. The tellers suffered no physical injuries, and no panic alarms were triggered.