Georgia Premises Liability Case Law: 30 Court Decisions That Hold Property Owners Accountable

Georgia premises liability law starts from a statute. OCGA § 51-3-1, as the Supreme Court of Georgia quoted it in 2023, provides that an owner or occupier of land who, “by express or implied invitation, induces or leads others to come upon his premises for any lawful purpose, … is liable in damages to such persons for injuries caused by his failure to exercise ordinary care in keeping the premises and approaches safe.” The courts have built two further ideas on that text: the owner’s liability rests on superior knowledge of the hazard, and, in the Supreme Court’s words from 1991, “The proprietor is not the insurer of the invitee’s safety.” The 30 appellate decisions below show how Georgia courts have applied those rules to the basic elements of a claim, to spills and objects on the floor, to steps, curbs and other fixed conditions, and to crimes committed by third parties on the property.

The title of this page speaks of holding property owners accountable, and the decisions cut both ways. By this page’s count, 13 favored the injured visitor on the question appealed, 16 favored the owner or occupier, and one was split. Three of the 13 left in place a result reached at trial; the other ten allowed a claim to go forward past summary judgment. Each summary reports what the court decided and links to the opinion in the Caselaw Access Project’s reporter text, on the Supreme Court of Georgia’s website, or in the court’s own PDF as archived by CourtListener.

A Note on Statutes and Later Decisions

The annual summaries of general statutes enacted in 2024, 2025 and 2026, published by the Georgia General Assembly’s Office of Legislative Counsel, list no amendment to OCGA §§ 51-3-1, 51-3-2, 51-3-3 or 44-7-14. Senate Bill 68 (Act 9), signed on April 21, 2025, added a new article on negligent security, OCGA §§ 51-3-50 through 51-3-57. As enacted, § 51-3-51 makes an owner or occupier liable to an invitee for negligent security only if the plaintiff proves, among other elements, that the third person’s wrongful conduct was reasonably foreseeable because the owner or occupier “had particularized warning of imminent wrongful conduct by a third person” or reasonably should have known of it from prior occurrences of substantially similar wrongful conduct of which it had actual knowledge, whether on the premises, on adjoining property or within 500 yards, or by the same third person, and that the conduct was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the third person “exploiting a specific physical condition of the premises known to the owner or occupier.” For licensees, § 51-3-52 requires a particularized warning. Section 9 (b) of the act provides that these sections “apply only with respect to causes of action arising on or after the effective date of this Act, and any prior causes of action shall be governed by prior law.” The decisions on third-party crimes below applied the earlier law. According to the 2024 summary, House Bill 404 (Act 392), the “Safe at Home Act,” provides for “the implied warranty of habitability in residential lease agreements” and amended § 44-7-13, for leases entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2024.

Alterman Foods (No. 1) applied the predecessor of § 51-3-1, then numbered Code Ann. § 105-401, and four decisions (Nos. 6, 25, 26 and 27) apply the apportionment statute, OCGA § 51-12-33, as it read when they were decided. The Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in SMG (No. 8) was followed by a 2026 ruling of the Court of Appeals on remand, described in that summary.

The Basic Rules and the Burden of Proof

Under § 51-3-1 an owner or occupier owes invited visitors ordinary care, and under § 51-3-2, as the Supreme Court quoted it in 2021, “The owner of the premises is liable to a licensee only for willful or wanton injury.” In slip-and-fall and trip-and-fall cases the Supreme Court has framed two elements: the owner’s actual or constructive knowledge of the hazard, and the visitor’s lack of knowledge despite ordinary care. The eight decisions below set out those elements, who must produce evidence at summary judgment, and how a visitor’s own knowledge is measured.

1. Alterman Foods, Inc. v. Ligon (1980)

Alterman Foods, Inc. v. Ligon, 246 Ga. 620, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided November 5, 1980

Ligon slipped and fell while shopping in the defendant’s store. She did not see what she slipped on, before or after the fall; it had been raining, but she noticed no water, and she described the floor as “slippery and highly polished as usual.” A shopper who helped her and a store employee saw nothing on the floor, and the floor had been waxed with a non-slip wax two and a half days earlier. The Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment for the store.

Reinstating summary judgment, the Supreme Court held that a plaintiff who slips on a foreign substance must show “(1) that the defendant had actual or constructive knowledge of the foreign substance and (2) that the plaintiff was without knowledge of the substance or for some reason attributable to the defendant was prevented from discovering the foreign substance.” Where the claim is that the floor itself was made too slippery, the plaintiff must show negligence in the materials used or in their application. “Falling and injuring one’s self proves nothing,” the Court said. Robinson (No. 3) later kept the two elements but changed how the burden of producing evidence is allocated.

2. Barentine v. Kroger Co. (1994)

Barentine v. Kroger Co., 264 Ga. 224, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided May 31, 1994

Around 3:45 a.m., Barentine went into a Kroger store to buy cigars and slipped on a puddle of clear liquid near the checkout counter. He was looking at the cashier, who was standing away from the only open register, so that he could tell him he was ready to pay. His deposition and trial testimony conflicted on whether he could have seen the liquid had he looked down, and the Court of Appeals held that Kroger was entitled to a directed verdict.

The contradiction had to be construed against Barentine, the Supreme Court agreed, but it was not the only evidence of his care: his specific reason for looking at the cashier “is some evidence that Barentine exercised reasonable care for his own safety in approaching the check-out counter.” The Court of Appeals’ judgment was reversed. Two justices concurred only in the judgment, and in Robinson (No. 3) the Court later clarified what kind of distraction counts.

3. Robinson v. Kroger Co. (1997)

Robinson v. Kroger Co., 268 Ga. 735, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided December 3, 1997

Henrietta Robinson slipped on a foreign substance on the floor of a Kroger supermarket and injured her knee; the opaque roof of a produce bin blocked her view of the spot. The trial court granted summary judgment, and the Court of Appeals affirmed on the ground that she failed to exercise ordinary care by stepping where she had not looked.

Her admission did not settle the question. Reversing, the Supreme Court held that “an invitee’s failure to exercise ordinary care is not established as a matter of law by the invitee’s admission that he did not look at the site on which he placed his foot.” The question is whether the visitor “exercised the prudence the ordinarily careful person would use in a like situation.” A distraction within the owner’s control that the owner knew or should have known would divert a visitor’s attention is some evidence of care, and the visitor’s burden on the second element arises only after the owner produces evidence of the visitor’s negligence. The Court reminded judges that such “routine” issues “are generally not susceptible of summary adjudication.” One justice concurred only in the first division and in the judgment.

4. American Multi-Cinema, Inc. v. Brown (2009)

American Multi-Cinema, Inc. v. Brown, 285 Ga. 442, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 1, 2009

On Christmas Day 2003, a full auditorium was emptying at an AMC theater when Nancy Sue Brown tripped over a “Wet Floor” sign that an employee had placed over a small spill minutes earlier and that had fallen flat. The crowd blocked her view. Her expert testified that that type of sign collapses easily on contact with moving crowds. The trial court granted summary judgment to AMC, and the Court of Appeals reversed.

AMC’s own conduct supplied the knowledge: because it had its employee put the sign in the path of the exiting crowd, a jury could find that it had “actual knowledge” of the hazard. Affirming, the Supreme Court declined to create an exception for warning devices. Questions such as “how closely a particular retailer should monitor its premises” and “where customers should be held responsible for looking or not looking,” the Court wrote, “must be answered by juries as a matter of fact rather than by judges as a matter of law” in general.

5. The Landings Association, Inc. v. Williams (2012)

The Landings Association, Inc. v. Williams, 291 Ga. 397, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 18, 2012

Gwyneth Williams, 83, was house-sitting in The Landings, a planned community on Skidaway Island whose lagoons alligators moved in and out of, when she went for a walk near a lagoon one October evening in 2007. Her body was found in the lagoon the next morning, and an eight-foot alligator was later caught there. Family members testified that she knew alligators lived in the community and did not want to go near them. The Court of Appeals held that a jury should decide the claims against the community association and the club.

The Supreme Court reversed, 4 to 3. Because Williams “had knowledge equal to The Landings entities about the presence of alligators,” her walk near the lagoon at night showed that she “either knowingly assumed the risks of walking in areas inhabited by wild alligators or failed to exercise ordinary care by doing so.” The majority rejected the argument that she had to know alligators of that size lived in that lagoon: “small alligators have large parents.” The dissent pointed to the association’s advertised policy of removing alligators seven feet or longer, the absence of lagoon inspections and warning signs, and would have left the case to a jury.

6. Johnson Street Properties, LLC v. Clure (2017)

Johnson Street Properties, LLC v. Clure, 302 Ga. 51, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided September 13, 2017

A limb from a tree on a neighboring lot fell during a storm and hung suspended between the gutter of an apartment building and some brush. Tenant Cynthia Clure knew of it and had warned other tenants to stay away. She was struck when another tenant, who sometimes did maintenance work for the owner, pulled on the limb with a rope and it swung down. The trial court denied the owner summary judgment.

On that point the Supreme Court affirmed: whether the owner knew of the hazard, whether the tenant who pulled the limb was its agent, and whether Clure was careful were jury questions. “[I]t is a plaintiff’s knowledge of the specific hazard which precipitates [the injury] which is determinative,” the Court explained, “not merely her knowledge of the generally prevailing hazardous conditions.” Clure knew the limb might fall; she was hurt when it came down during the removal. The Court reversed a ruling that had barred the owner from asking the jury to assign fault to the neighbors whose tree dropped the limb.

7. Cham v. ECI Management Corp. (2021)

Cham v. ECI Management Corp., 311 Ga. 170, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 15, 2021

Franklin Callens was shot and killed during an armed robbery in the parking lot of an apartment complex in December 2015. He was living in his girlfriend’s apartment, although she had written “N/A” where the rental application asked for other occupants; she testified that an assistant manager had said it was “perfectly fine” for him to live there. Over the plaintiffs’ objection, the trial court instructed the jury on the lower duty owed to a licensee, and the jury found for the owner and manager.

Affirming, the Supreme Court held that at least “slight” evidence supported the licensee charge: a jury could find that Callens used the common areas with the owner’s permission but “merely for his own interests.” The Court distinguished a landlord’s duty for common areas it controls under § 51-3-1 from its limited liability for areas in a tenant’s possession under § 44-7-14. Three justices dissented. A new trial ordered by the Court of Appeals on other grounds was not before the Court.

8. SMG Construction Services, LLC v. Cook (2025)

SMG Construction Services, LLC v. Cook, 322 Ga. 819, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided October 15, 2025

Daniel Cook, an independent contractor installing cabinets in a house under construction, fell from an unguarded second-floor ledge while moving backward to straighten an air hose. He had seen the open ledge and “could see where [the ledge] dropped off,” but testified that drywall dust, overspray and a cloudy day made its edge hard to judge. The Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment for the owner.

Cook’s own testimony established actual knowledge of the hazard as a matter of law, the Supreme Court held, 6 to 3: “A plaintiff’s misapprehension of the precise details of a known hazard does not negate his actual knowledge of that hazard.” Evidence that conditions obscured a hazard bears on constructive knowledge, the Court explained, not actual knowledge, and it sent the case back for the Court of Appeals to consider the other elements of the owner’s defenses. On remand in June 2026, a Court of Appeals panel held that jury questions remained on assumption of the risk and voluntary negligence and reversed summary judgment; one judge concurred only in the judgment and one dissented.

Spills and Objects on the Floor

When the hazard is a substance or an object on the floor, the dispute usually turns on knowledge. As the Court of Appeals stated the test in 2025, quoting an earlier decision, a plaintiff may show constructive knowledge through “evidence that the hazardous condition lasted so long that it would have been discovered and removed if the proprietor had exercised reasonable care in inspecting the premises,” or through “evidence that an employee of the defendant was in the immediate vicinity of the hazardous condition and could have easily seen and corrected the hazard.” The seven decisions below apply those tests and the visitor’s own knowledge.

9. Johnson v. LT Energy, LLC (2023)

Johnson v. LT Energy, LLC, No. A23A0240, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 27, 2023

Ricardo Johnson tripped on a rubber floor mat as he entered a convenience store in March 2018. The mat was not secured to the floor, could move around, and was not flush against the door threshold that day; its position was within view of an employee at the register. Johnson was looking back at a companion as he stepped in, and his foot went under the mat’s edge. The trial court granted summary judgment to the store.

A jury could decide whether the mat was a hazard and whether the store knew of it, and because a loose mat can shift, it was not a static condition subject to the prior traversal rule; the summary judgment was reversed. Nor did Johnson’s failure to look at the floor establish a lack of care as a matter of law; quoting earlier decisions, the court said an invitee “is not required to maintain a constant lookout.”

10. Suddarth v. Lounsbrough (2023)

Suddarth v. Lounsbrough, 369 Ga. App. 158, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided September 8, 2023

Samantha Lounsbrough, a rural mail carrier filling in on another route, delivered a package to the Suddarths’ front steps after dark in December 2019. She noticed that the ground she walked on was covered in “crunchy” leaves, reached over the top steps to set the package down, and slid off the bottom step as she turned to leave, breaking her foot. The porch light was off. The homeowners, who cleaned up leaves weekly, were denied summary judgment.

Nothing showed that the homeowners knew of the leaves on their steps: their general knowledge that leaves fell and their weekly cleanup were not actual knowledge, nothing showed how long the leaves had been there, and Lounsbrough’s knowledge was at least equal to theirs. The denial of summary judgment was reversed. An owner has no obligation to light porches or steps “absent a contractual or statutory duty to do so,” the court added, unless the lack of lighting keeps a visitor from discovering a danger the owner should know about.

11. All American Quality Foods, Inc. v. Britten (2025)

All American Quality Foods, Inc. v. Britten, No. A24A1262, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided January 13, 2025

Bernice Britten fell while walking past the meat cases in a store. She never saw what caused her fall and did not know what she slipped on; in an affidavit she said an unidentified person told her there was water. A co-manager who had walked near the spot less than a minute earlier saw nothing on the floor, and a later wet area came, he said, from a leaking ice pack given to her after the fall. The trial court denied the store summary judgment.

The Court of Appeals reversed because Britten pointed to “no evidence establishing a causal connection between any substance on the floor and her fall.” Apart from the fall itself, nothing showed that the floor “on which she landed was slippery or somehow caused her fall.”

12. Drossman v. Wal-Mart Stores East, LP (2025)

Drossman v. Wal-Mart Stores East, LP, No. A24A1720, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 4, 2025

Erin Drossman slipped on water near the end of an aisle in a Walmart store. She did not see water before she fell and speculated that it came from a nearby freezer. Walmart’s evidence showed that two employees had inspected the area within the three and a half minutes before her fall and found it dry, and two employees stocking bread were about 15 feet away.

Walmart was entitled to summary judgment. Evidence that freezers in the store were known to leak did not show actual knowledge of the specific water, and “when an owner shows that an inspection occurred within a brief period of time prior to an invitee’s fall, the inspection procedure was adequate as a matter of law,” the court said, quoting an earlier decision. No evidence showed that the employees stocking bread were in a position to have easily seen the water.

13. Miller v. Dolgencorp, LLC (2025)

Miller v. Dolgencorp, LLC, No. A25A1363, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided September 16, 2025

Terry Miller spent 15 to 20 minutes in a Dollar General store whose aisles, in his word, were “crowded” with boxes and plastic totes of merchandise on the floor. Turning to leave an aisle, he caught his pants leg on the open lid of a tote and fell, grabbing a ladder as he went down. His own photographs showed many identical totes in the aisles.

Given what Miller had seen in the store, the tote “was in a place it could be expected to be,” the Court of Appeals held in affirming summary judgment, and even if he had no actual knowledge of it, he should have known of it. The court stressed that its ruling did not rest only on his failure to see the tote, which Robinson disapproved, but on his awareness of the store’s condition after browsing its crowded aisles.

14. Morano v. Wal-Mart Stores East, LP (2026)

Morano v. Wal-Mart Stores East, LP, No. A26A0191, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 11, 2026

In a Walmart store, a customer dropped a container of hair product, spilling a light-colored substance that blended with the tile floor, and put the container back on the shelf. About 30 minutes later Betty Morano stepped into the substance without seeing it, realized she was standing in it, turned to warn another customer, and shortly afterward slipped and fell. The trial court granted summary judgment to Walmart.

Learning of a hazard after stepping into it is different, the court held in reversing: knowledge of a hazard “gained after the invitee has already been exposed to it but immediately before the invitee falls” does not show that she “intentionally and unreasonably exposed [her]self” to it, and it was reasonable to infer from the evidence that her movements in the substance were an effort to get out of it. The court distinguished restroom cases in which plaintiffs saw a hazard before putting themselves near it.

15. Holston v. Aboebarensi, Inc. (2026)

Holston v. Aboebarensi, Inc., No. A26A1219, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided September 16, 2026

At a vehicle repair shop, Kristina Holston saw tools and an air hose running in a “wiggly jiggly” fashion across the pavement, then stepped forward and tripped over the hose. A surveillance recording was later erased; the shop owner testified that he erased it accidentally while trying to view it.

Applying the Supreme Court’s decision in SMG (No. 8), the Court of Appeals held that her testimony that she saw the hose established actual knowledge, since a “plaintiff’s misapprehension of the precise details of a known hazard does not negate [her] actual knowledge of that hazard.” Summary judgment for the defendants was affirmed. The trial court also acted within its discretion in refusing spoliation sanctions, because the recording could not have changed the effect of her admission and there was no evidence of bad faith.

Steps, Curbs and Other Fixed Conditions

A static condition, as the Court of Appeals quoted the rule in 2024, “is one that does not change and is dangerous only if someone fails to see it and walks into it.” Under the prior traversal rule, as the same court quoted it, “when a person has successfully negotiated an alleged dangerous condition on a previous occasion, that person is presumed to have equal knowledge of it and cannot recover for a subsequent injury resulting therefrom.” The six decisions below show when those rules end a case and when color, lighting or a first visit leave it for a jury.

16. Brixmor New Chastain Corners SC, LLC v. James (2023)

Brixmor New Chastain Corners SC, LLC v. James, 367 Ga. App. 235, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 16, 2023

Leaving a restaurant at halftime on a dark January evening in 2020, Arlene James tripped on a row of three concrete parking bumpers that separated her parking space from a motorcycle area. After asphalt work about a month earlier, new bumpers had been left in their natural light color instead of the red and yellow paint on the old ones, and five days after her fall the owner had them painted yellow. She testified that she did not see them.

Parking bumpers are common features that visitors should generally anticipate, the court acknowledged, but “evidence of a failure to distinguish [a parking lot structure] by color could demonstrate a hazardous condition,” and whether James had constructive knowledge from walking past them on the way in was for a jury. The denial of summary judgment was affirmed, and the court vacated a spoliation ruling against the owner because the trial court had not applied the correct test for when a defendant must preserve evidence.

17. North Fulton Community Charities, Inc. v. Goodstein (2023)

North Fulton Community Charities, Inc. v. Goodstein, 367 Ga. App. 576, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 3, 2023

Stephen Goodstein went to a charity’s food pantry regularly. In July 2017, after parking on its access road, he tripped over an unmarked raised bump that spanned almost the entire width of the road, struck his head, and later died; his widow brought a wrongful death action. The record did not show whether he had walked over the bump on earlier visits.

On this record the prior traversal rule did not apply, and whether the bump was readily observable in the exercise of ordinary care was a question of fact, so the denial of summary judgment to the charity was affirmed. The court also affirmed summary judgment for the widow on the charity’s defense that Goodstein failed to mitigate his damages by not seeking treatment sooner.

18. Meadows v. Dollar General Store (2024)

Meadows v. Dollar General Store, 371 Ga. App. 695, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 29, 2024

Teri Meadows, a regular customer, had known for more than a year and a half that a Dollar General store’s sliding door did not work and had to be opened and closed by hand; a sign on the door asked customers to pull it shut. She also knew that an employee had hurt her hand on the same door. Having entered through the door without trouble, she caught her hand in it as she pulled it closed on the way out.

The door was an open and obvious static condition, Meadows had knowledge of its condition equal to the store’s, and she had just passed through it, so under the prior traversal rule she was “presumed to have equal knowledge of it.” Summary judgment for the store was affirmed.

19. American Multi-Cinema, Inc. v. Gillis (2024)

American Multi-Cinema, Inc. v. Gillis, No. A24A0537, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 27, 2024

Marie Gillis usually went to an AMC theater every Sunday afternoon. On a sunny afternoon she walked down a section of the five front steps where brick columns separated the stairs and there was no handrail, reached for a railing that was not there, and fell. Her building expert said the missing handrails violated building codes, and the trial court denied AMC summary judgment.

The missing handrail was an open and obvious static condition that nothing obstructed, the Court of Appeals held in reversing, so Gillis was presumed to have equal knowledge of it, and “Negligence per se does not equal liability per se.”

20. Hailu v. John Milledge Academy, Inc. (2025)

Hailu v. John Milledge Academy, Inc., No. A25A1130, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided September 12, 2025

On her third visit to John Milledge Academy in January 2021, Mekedelawit Hailu was told to use a different building entrance and, crossing the parking lot crosswalk, tripped on an asphalt water-diversion feature that looked the same as the surrounding pavement. The school painted it yellow several weeks later. An engineering expert said it violated the building code and lacked contrasting markings, and surveillance video of the area was not preserved.

Viewed in her favor, the evidence showed a steep feature that was hard to see, no warning, and no earlier crossing, so the prior traversal rule did not apply and whether the hazard was readily observable was for a jury; summary judgment for the school was reversed. The court also held that the trial court had wrongly required Hailu to prove what the lost video showed, and it sent the spoliation motion back.

21. Stevens v. Welch (2025)

Stevens v. Welch, No. A25A0778, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 17, 2025

Bobby Stevens drove across a single-lane earthen bridge over a creek to reach a gun and pawn shop that advertised firewood, found it closed, and drove back out. On a later visit with his wife, Olivia, he paused to look at the firewood, and as he pulled forward his right front tire dropped over the edge; the vehicle fell into the creek and came to rest upside down. He was injured, and his wife was killed.

The prior traversal rule decided the appeal, and summary judgment for the owners was affirmed. Stevens had crossed the bridge on the earlier visit, the edge was an open and obvious static condition shown in unchallenged photographs, and the firewood, which he had seen before, did not relieve him of his duty of care.

Crimes by Third Parties

As the Supreme Court summarized the rule in 2023, an owner is generally insulated from liability for a third party’s crime unless it had sufficient reason to anticipate it. The same decision held that “the totality of the circumstances informs whether a third-party criminal act was reasonably foreseeable.” For causes of action arising on or after April 21, 2025, negligent security claims are governed by the statutes enacted by Senate Bill 68 (see the note above); the nine decisions below applied the earlier law.

22. Lau’s Corp. v. Haskins (1991)

Lau’s Corp. v. Haskins, 261 Ga. 491, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 27, 1991

Sarah and Louis Haskins were robbed in the parking lot of the China King Restaurant; he was hit in the head and her purse was snatched. The owner knew of one earlier purse snatching in the lot four days before. The lot was lit by floodlights and neighboring lights, and after the first incident the owner checked it several times each evening. The Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment for the restaurant.

The Supreme Court reversed. The earlier incident and evidence of a “high crime” area were enough, though “weak,” to raise a question of duty, but there was no evidence that the owner breached it. The Court declined “to require owners to post signs warning of a generalized risk of crime,” held that “A landowner does not become an insurer of safety by taking some security precautions,” and set out the summary judgment standard under which a defendant may point to the absence of evidence on an element of the plaintiff’s case. One justice dissented from all but the first division and from the judgment.

23. Days Inns of America, Inc. v. Matt (1995)

Days Inns of America, Inc. v. Matt, 265 Ga. 235, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 13, 1995

A hotel guest sued Days Inns for injuries from an attack by an unknown assailant. There was proof of a prior robbery committed by force; the opinion gives few other facts. The trial court granted summary judgment to Days Inns, and the Court of Appeals reversed.

“Simply put, without foreseeability that a criminal act will occur, no duty on the part of the proprietor to exercise ordinary care to prevent that act arises,” the Supreme Court wrote in affirming, and the proof of the prior forcible robbery “creates a triable issue” as to whether that duty existed. Unlike in Lau’s Corp., the record did not permit summary resolution of whether ordinary care was exercised. One justice concurred only in the judgment.

24. Sturbridge Partners, Ltd. v. Walker (1997)

Sturbridge Partners, Ltd. v. Walker, 267 Ga. 785, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 17, 1997

Walker was raped and sodomized in her apartment shortly after midnight in May 1992. In March and April there had been three burglaries in the complex, in vacant apartments during the day without forced entry, and management knew of two. The trial court granted summary judgment on the owner’s argument that no prior rape or other violent sex crime had occurred, and the Court of Appeals reversed.

Affirming 4 to 3, the Supreme Court held that prior crimes must be “substantially similar” to the one at issue, which “does not mean identical,” and that courts must consider “the location, nature and extent of the prior criminal activities and their likeness, proximity or other relationship to the crime in question.” The question was not whether the rape itself was foreseeable but whether, knowing of the burglaries, the owner should have anticipated the risk of personal harm in the burglary of an occupied apartment. The Court overruled a 1991 decision to the extent it held otherwise; the dissent said the ruling made landowners “virtual insurers.”

25. Couch v. Red Roof Inns, Inc. (2012)

Couch v. Red Roof Inns, Inc., 291 Ga. 359, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided July 9, 2012

In a federal suit against a hotel, a guest claimed that the hotel negligently failed to prevent a foreseeable criminal attack; in the Supreme Court’s description, the assailant evaded hotel security and abducted, robbed and assaulted the guest. The federal court asked whether the jury could apportion damages between the hotel and the assailant.

The Supreme Court answered yes, 5 to 2. Under OCGA § 51-12-33 as it then read, an assailant who intentionally injures a guest is at least partly at “fault” and must be included when damages are apportioned, and requiring apportionment does not violate the plaintiff’s rights to a jury trial, due process or equal protection.

26. Martin v. Six Flags Over Georgia II, L.P. (2017)

Martin v. Six Flags Over Georgia II, L.P., 301 Ga. 323, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 5, 2017

In July 2007, after a day at Six Flags Over Georgia, Joshua Martin was beaten with brass knuckles by members of a group of young men at a bus stop about 200 feet outside the park’s property line. The group had caused trouble in the park all day and threatened other families, and according to a security officer’s testimony, park security reprimanded them rather than ejecting them as company policy required. A jury awarded $35 million and assigned 92 percent of the fault to Six Flags and 2 percent to each of four attackers.

The liability verdict stood. The bus stop was not part of the park’s “approaches,” the Supreme Court held, but because the attack began while Martin and his attackers were on Six Flags property, “liability may arise from a breach of that duty that proximately causes injuries even if the resulting injury ultimately is completed beyond that territorial sphere.” An error in the trial court’s pretrial apportionment rulings required a new trial only on apportionment, not the full retrial the Court of Appeals had ordered.

27. Georgia CVS Pharmacy, LLC v. Carmichael (2023)

Georgia CVS Pharmacy, LLC v. Carmichael, 316 Ga. 718, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 29, 2023

James Carmichael was shot during an armed robbery at his vehicle in a CVS parking lot, and a jury found CVS 95 percent at fault, Carmichael 5 percent, and the shooter not at fault. In companion cases decided in the same opinion, Anthony Welch was killed during an armed robbery in the parking lot of a Pappadeaux restaurant, and the Court of Appeals had held the shooting unforeseeable as a matter of law.

The Supreme Court held that the reasonable foreseeability of a crime is part of the owner’s duty under § 51-3-1, that “the totality of the circumstances informs whether a third-party criminal act was reasonably foreseeable,” and that the question is generally for the jury. Evidence of substantially similar prior crimes is often among the most probative considerations, the Court said, but it is not required, and a location in a “high-crime area” is not enough on its own. It affirmed the CVS judgment, finding the verdict assigning the shooter no fault “capable of a viable construction” in light of the jury instructions, and reversed in part and vacated in part the judgments in the Welch cases, adding that a security contractor may owe a duty to visitors under Section 324A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. Two justices concurred specially in one division.

28. Jones v. Scarlett & Associates, Inc. (2024)

Jones v. Scarlett & Associates, Inc., No. A24A1022, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 28, 2024

Early on January 3, 2021, a fight broke out in the parking lot of a Brookhaven restaurant. Curtis Jones punched a security guard in the face, and the guard, a convicted felon who was barred from carrying a firearm, shot him. Jones and his mother sued the property owner, among others.

Under the mutual combatant doctrine, the owner prevailed: “when a person is injured in the course of mutual combat, the combatants are deemed to have superior knowledge of the risk of harm,” and prior crimes on the premises become irrelevant. Summary judgment was affirmed, and the court held that the Supreme Court’s 2023 totality-of-the-circumstances test did not change that result.

29. Tuscany Condominium Association, Inc. v. C.P. (2025)

Tuscany Condominium Association, Inc. v. C.P., No. A25A0145, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 2, 2025

C.P. rented a unit at a condominium. According to the record, in June 2020 an assailant entered through an unlocked pedestrian gate, pulled her into a vacant unit and raped her. The condominium’s declaration said the association would not be a provider of security and would have no duty to provide it, but her lease with the unit owner did not mention that provision, and she was never given the declaration.

Whatever effect such a “no security” provision has among unit owners, the Court of Appeals held, as applied to a renter it operates as an exculpatory clause, and such a clause must be “explicit, prominent, clear and unambiguous.” Her lease contained nothing of the kind, so the denial of summary judgment to the association on her negligent security claim was affirmed. The court described the question as one of first impression.

30. Richardson v. Thunder, LLC (2026)

Richardson v. Thunder, LLC, Nos. A26A1519, A26A1520, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided August 24, 2026

At the annual homecoming block party that a fraternity’s Fort Valley State University chapter held at a house in Fort Valley in October 2021, several people opened fire; Megan Jackson was wounded and Tyler French was killed. The hosts had obtained a city permit and requested three off-duty police officers, and a witness described a “heavy police presence.” The trial court granted summary judgment to the national fraternity and the property owner.

The Court of Appeals affirmed. Fistfights that witnesses recalled from earlier parties, at least four years before, and police calls for “crowd control” or “disorderly conduct” were not substantially similar to a multi-party shootout, and nothing showed a high-crime area, weapons at past parties or a volatile situation that night. Allowing liability whenever a large party serves alcohol, the court said, would make the owner an insurer of guests’ safety.

How These Decisions Were Selected and Checked

Each summary was written from the text of the opinion itself rather than from secondary descriptions. Citations use the Georgia Reports or Georgia Appeals Reports where the reporter citation was available; twelve decisions from 2023 through 2026 are cited by docket number and decision date. Court of Appeals decisions in which a judge concurred only in the judgment were not selected as entries; one such ruling is mentioned in the summary of No. 8. The summaries cover the issues discussed here and not every issue in each appeal, and facts are stated as the court described them, including allegations where a case was decided on summary judgment. Statutory language is quoted as the court quoted it in the year of the decision. Where a decision on this page overruled, clarified or applied another decision listed here, the summary says so; a full review of each decision’s later history was not performed. Research for this page was completed in September 2026.

Statutes and Legislative Summaries Cited

Senate Bill 68 (2025), as passed, Georgia General Assembly

Summary of General Statutes Enacted at the 2nd Session of the 157th General Assembly (2024), Georgia Office of Legislative Counsel

Summary of General Statutes Enacted at the 1st Session of the 158th General Assembly (2025), Georgia Office of Legislative Counsel

Summary of General Statutes Enacted at the 2nd Session of the 158th General Assembly (2026), Georgia Office of Legislative Counsel

About This Page

This page summarizes published appellate decisions for general information. It is not legal advice and does not describe how the law applies to any particular claim. Court decisions can be limited, distinguished or overruled, and statutes change; the outcome of a case depends on its facts and on the version of the law that applies to it.