Articles Posted in Premises Liability

In Georgia, if a bar, restaurant or other business that serves liquor over-serves a customer and that customer gets into their car and kills someone, the establishment can be held liable for punitive damages. If there was any doubt, the Supreme Court of Georgia reaffirmed in a unanimous decision, this in a recent decision. In other words, someone (i.e., a bar, restaurant, etc.) who helped cause a drunk-driving accident but was not the actual DUI driver, could still be liable for uncapped punitive damages as an “active tortfeasor” in the wreck.

To be sure that the ruling is not limited to a certain set of facts, the case that the Georgia Supreme decided involved a man who had been drinking and loaned his car to his friend who he had been drinking with. So, the punitive damages liability would apply to individuals and businesses alike. This broad case ruling changes the landscape on liability in these situations. Someone who serves somebody — a restaurant, bartender, or even a private host holding a party– who serves someone who is obviously too drunk to drive is subject to punitive damages. In the case decided by the Court, the one defendant asked his friend to drive his car and give him the keys to it, even though his friend was obviously too drunk to drive and he knew it. The friend, as it turns out, did not have a valid driver’s license and the court determined he had a habit of recklessness. Of course, his friend drove drunk and caused a wreck while DUI. In a situation like this, it is common for the DUI driver to be sued for negligence and the person who gave him the car to be sued for negligent entrustment, which is what happened in this case. Both were found liable for the injuries caused by the DUI driver who caused the wreck. The trial judge found that both defendants (the DUI driver and his friend who loaned him the car while knowing he was drunk) “acted in a manner that showed willful misconduct, malice, wantonness, and that entire want of care which would raise the presumption of conscious indifference to consequences.” Normally, this would give rise to punitive damages liability, but the trial judge, while awarding punitive damages agains the driver, would not award them agains the friend who had been found guilty of negligent entrustment.

In reversing the trial court, the Supreme Court of Georgia ruled that there is no limit to punitive damages in cases where the defendant is found to have acted or failed to act with the specific intent to cause harm and that, pursuant to Georgia law amended in 1997, a defendant under the influence of alcohol or drugs “to the degree that his or her judgment is substantially impaired” could be subjected to unlimited punitive damages as an active tortfeasor.” This couple with the ruling that the party guilty of negligent entrustment was an active tortfeasor was the impetus for the Court to hold that the negligent entrustor was liable for punitive damages, as well as the DUI driver.

The owners and management companies of Georgia Apartment complexes have what is referred to under Georgia law as a non-delegable duty to make sure that their apartments and the entire complex are safe and do not have any unsafe conditions that can cause injury or death to the occupants, their guests or anyone else who is lawfully on the premises. This duty would extend to workers who are delivering packages for UPS, Federal Express and Amazon during the busy holiday season in Atlanta, as well as others who come onto the property for lawful purposes. In their wrongful death lawsuit filed in Fulton County State Court a toddler’s parents allege that their apartment complex in the Lindbergh area of Atlanta was negligent by not having any safety features in the window, as required by building codes, and that this lack of safety features was the proximate cause of their son’s tragic death. The toddler was curious, looked down through the windows and was able to squeeze through and feel to his death.

As mandated by the International Building Code, which has been adopted by the state of Georgia and which sets the standard for safety in apartment complexes, an exterior wall window within 3 feet of the floor must have safety devices if opening the window would allow an object 4 inches in diameter or larger to otherwise pass through.

In response to the lawsuit, the complex’s owner, ignored a request for comment on the lawsuit. However, lawyers have indicated that after the toddler’s death, the complex installed safety features on the windows that would have avoided the death.

The #metoo movement is on everyone’s mind. It is real and it is a problem that everyone in our society must take seriously, address and come up with a solution. One way to do this is to expose all of the ways that unwanted touching, unwanted sexual advances, and other types of violations are perpetrated in our society. A few years ago, a popular massage company that had aggressively expanded into Atlanta was in the news for instances of unwanted touching. The most common scenario: females being massaged by male employees of the massage company were being touched on parts of their body that were: (1) not what they wanted; (2) too intimate for a massage; (3) sexual in nature; and (4) beyond what they consented to when they agreed to the massage. The message that can be taken from this is: while this is the most common scenario, many types of unwanted sexual advances take place today. Many go unreported, others are reported but not taken seriously by the organization through which the sexual aggressor work, and still others are covered up by the organization (the very same organization that is responsible under the legal theories of agency, respondeat superior or joint venture for the acts of the perpetrator). While the act of unwanted touching is a crime in and of itself, putting someone in the position to commit this act (such as a massage therapist) when they are not sufficiently vetted and or trained, is an act of negligence on the part of the company and gives rise to a claim against that company for allowing this to happen.

Wide scale sexual abuse has been in the news seemingly all the time during this decade. The boy scouts, the catholic church, and national massage chains have all been associated with these claims of allowing sexual predators to operate within their organizations. However, the prevalence of these crimes is not restricted by any stretch of the imagination to these organizations. The following is an example of how unwanted touching can affect almost anyone in our society. How it can occur via a slippery slope and how the victim, many times remains quiet and “suffers in silence” because they somehow blame themselves, at least in part, for either allowing the unwanted touching to happen; or not stopping it once it happens; or not standing up for themselves and reporting it immediately; or not reporting it at all. Then again, this example exemplifies the suffering after the fact that is almost inevitable. The facts have been changed to protect the victim, but the moral of the situation is clear: This can happen to anyone, at any time. It does not matter if you are a woman, man, young boy, young girl, teenager, retiree, child, etc. It can happen to anyone and it can affect anyone. Just because we seemingly hear and read about woman and young boys being the victim of this crime, it is not limited to them. Here is one example that may be an eye-opener to many:

I took a vacation with my family. We were all excited to be headed to the beach and have a few well-deserved days off from the grind. My wife and I decided to spend the day together and we saw a popular massage place in the area. We wandered in and scheduled massages. They happily took us right away and we were in separate rooms. I lay on the massage table and the lady came in. I was getting a full body massage, and was naked under the sheet and towel on the massage table. I have gotten many massaged before and have always felt more comfortable removing all my clothes. Perhaps this was a mistake, I don’t know. The massage therapist came in and whispered “Hi Honey,” a bit unusual, but I did not think much of it as massage therapists usually talk very low and serene, as does everyone in a massage parlor, at least that is my impression. Was this a signal of things to come? I don’t know, perhaps it was, but I had no idea at the time.

If you live or work in or around Atlanta, you have undoubtedly seen uncovered holes like the one below. Far too often, the City of Atlanta workers will not cover make the necessary repairs on these hazards, even after being  repeatedly notified of the dangerous condition (Full disclosure: the picture below is from DeKalb County and was in the section of the AJC entitled “What’s not working around Metro Atlanta”).

Dangerous conditions like this are a hazardous condition. When an innocent person is injured by this hazard, they can sue the city of Atlanta or DeKalb County for negligence. However, once a city of county is made aware of the dangerous condition, the injured person can sue the city of county under and additional basis of negligence called nuisance. Nuisance, is essentially when a city of county is aware of a dangerous condition and allows it to continue to be unsafe instead of simply correcting the problem and eliminating the nuisance.

My firm recently tried a case in DeKalb County against the City of Decatur for a serious injury that was caused by the failure of the City of Decatur to properly maintain and repair its sidewalks. The fall occurred right outside the courthouse square. During the trial, my partners were able to establish that the City of Decatur did not proactively inspect and fix it sidewalks, but apparently just waited until someone reported an unsafe sidewalk condition (or, as in the lawsuit, was injured) before they would make repairs. The jury sided with our client and awarded an almost $200,000 verdict against the City.

The initial inquiry by trial courts in Georgia in slip and fall cases can result in summary judgment and end Plaintiff’s case before the jury has a chance to render a verdict.  However, attempts by the defendant stores to move for summary judgment and escape liability for the injuries caused by their negligence are substantially hampered by Georgia case law from the 1960’s. In fact other jurisdictions have cited a 1967 Georgia case as precedent for the evolving principle that a store’s “mode of operation” can fulfill the superior knowledge or constructive notice requirement in a premises liability case. Colonial Stores, Inc. v. Donovan, 154 S.E.2d 659 (Ga. App. 1967), addresses hazards created by the manner of displaying merchandise in a retail store. Pursuant to the Colonial Stores, Inc. decision:

“A person who maintains a place of business to sell goods or services owes a duty to a customer of using ordinary care to keep the premises in a safe condition and in the exercise of this duty the merchandise must be so placed as not to cause injury to a customer exercising ordinary care.  A storekeeper who balances merchandise on display in a precarious manner (or allows another to so arrange a display) should anticipate that slight force, not sufficient ordinarily to suggest to the actor who does not know of the peril that injury will result, may be sufficient to cause injury, and the storekeeper is not relieved of the consequences of this negligence by an intervening act which he should have anticipated. Constructive knowledge of a defect, i.e., that the defendant ought to have known of the defect in the exercise of ordinary care, is sufficient to charge the defendant with liability for injuries caused by the defect.  Ordinarily, whether the owner or occupant of land exercises ordinary care in keeping premises in a safe condition, upon which an invitee goes and is injured, whether the invitee could have avoided injury in the exercise of ordinary care, or whether both were negligent in some degree, as the proximate cause of an injury, or the absence of any negligence, are questions for jury determination, which the court will not decide as a matter of law on demurrer except as to acts declared by law to be negligence, or palpable and indisputable cases where reasonable minds cannot differ as to the conclusion to be reached.”

Citing Colonial Stores, Inc., in Keaton v. A.B.C. Drug Co., 467 S.E.2d 558, 561 (Ga. 1996), the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed a reversal of summary judgment for the defendant premises owner.  Importantly, the Supreme Court of Georgia focused on the manner in which the merchant/store owner displayed merchandise which created the likelihood that a spill would occur rather than the spill itself and held: the merchant had constructive knowledge of a hazard, superior to the knowledge of the plaintiff, under the following circumstances. The jury was authorized to find that by placing a caustic substance contained in a package without some sort of leakage preventer, such as a protective wrap, at a level above the eyes of an average adult, ABC should have anticipated that in the event of a leakage, injury would result. Further, by placing the bleach at such a level, ABC created a high risk of injury from spilling bleach by virtue of a loose cap, and created an impediment to a person’s ability to exercise caution by checking to see if the cap was loose.  Clearly, had ABC placed the bleach at a level significantly below the eyes of an average adult, the risk of injury is different in type and scope from the risks presented when the bleach is placed at a higher level.  Also, the ability of a plaintiff to avoid injury by exercising caution for his or her own safety is substantially heightened if the bleach is placed at a lower level.” (internal citations omitted)

A lawsuit filed by plaintiffs against MARTA concluded last week with a $1.4 million verdict in Fulton County Superior Court. Two years ago, Patricia Weeks missed a football game because a MARTA escalator abruptly switched directions, causing most of its riders to fall. Now Weeks, after suing MARTA, has been compensated for her injuries.
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On July 4, 2006, a family was traveling along Rte 29 when the limb from an oak tree fell on their car. Due to the fallen tree limb, the husband suffered a broken neck and permanently lost the use of his right arm. The driver lost control of the SUV after the tree limb landed on the car, which caused the SUV to hit the guard rail on the opposite side of the road.

The verdict was against the State for failing to properly maintain the roadway, as the oak tree had apparently been weakened by flooding and showed signs of rot, yet the State failed to take appropriate action to ensure the roadway was safe. $6 Million Article. While this wreck did not happen inside the City of Atlanta city limits, it is interesting to note how the City’s tree ordinance addresses potentially hazardous tree conditions.

If the above situation applies, the owner (even if a governmental entity) is on notice of the hazard and is liable for all damages that flow from the hazard, such as falling limbs onto houses and cars or into the roadway which causes damages. If a private property owner in Georgia has prior knowledge that their tree is unsafe they will likely be liable for damages that stem from the tree throwing off limbs or falling. “Prior knowledge” can be established by a letter sent to the property owner putting them on notice or by obvious conditions that would indicate that the tree is unsafe such as falling limbs, rot or decay.
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