Attorney Douglas Herman serves as chief legal officer and director of litigation of a law firm focused on personal injury. His team at the Mike Hostilo Law Firm focuses on areas such as truck and motor vehicle accidents and products liability. Attorney Douglas Herman‘s team also provides knowledgeable assistance to clients in cases of premises liability. This type of incident involves an injury suffered on another’s property, due to the property owner’s negligence.
Liability centers on the concept of “duty of care,” which has to do with a property owner or manager’s ensuring that a property is maintained in a safe way that safeguards employees, guests, and members of the public. They have a legal obligation to maintain premises properly. If they identify issues that pose a danger, they have a duty to correct them promptly, keeping problematic areas off limits until the issue is fixed. Not doing this is considered carelessness or negligence, and creates liability risk should someone suffer an injury as a result.
Several basic types of premises liability cases exist, starting with slip, trip, and fall accidents. These relatively common incidents are rooted in various causes, from lack of proper signage on wet floors to icy outdoor walkways without proper surface treatment. Other causes include uneven flooring, inadequate lighting, and broken railings.
For the plaintiff, the burden of proof is significant. Not only do they need to demonstrate the unsafe condition, but they also need to show that the property owner or manager had knowledge of the specific hazard or danger that led to the injury. They then need to prove that the owner or manager negligently ignored the condition that posed a foreseeable risk. The Georgia appellate case Strauss v. City of Lilburn involved a finding that the property owner may have not considered a hazard to be dangerous, but that they could still be held liable if they knew of its existence.
Another type of premises liability case involves violent crime related to inadequate security. This particularly applies to the owners of commercial holdings such as shopping malls, apartment complexes, and parking lots, who must ensure the properties offer a reasonably safe environment. Precautions and safeguards that help meet these standards include the deployment of security personnel and cameras in places with known criminal activity, as well as providing adequate nighttime lighting.
The Georgia Supreme Court has weighed in on this, with profound impact for proprietors, occupiers, and security contractors. A 2023 ruling covered a trio of negligent security premises liability cases, with “CVS Pharmacy, LLC v. Carmichael” stemming from a December 2012 incident in which plaintiff James Carmichael suffered multiple gun wounds from an unknown assailant during an attempted armed robbery in a CVS store parking lot.
A Fulton County jury determined that CVS did not have adequate security measures on the property, and awarded $42,750,000 against CVS. On appeal, the defense argued against the ruling based on issues of “superior knowledge of danger” and causation. However, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the jury, finding that a security guard presence or enhanced lighting would have deterred any attack.
The other two cases involved plaintiff Anthony Welch being killed in the course of an armed robbery occurring in a Pappadeaux restaurant parking lot, where security was provided by Tactical Security. The victim’s spouse filed a premises liability suit against the restaurant owner, as well as a negligent security suit against Tactical Security.
In upholding charges in these three cases, the Supreme Court brought focus to a case-by-case “totality of the circumstances” analysis. This approach involves evaluating reasonable foreseeability of third-party criminal acts. It requires close examination of evidence on substantially similar crimes in the area, as well as factors such as high-crime-area location and owner knowledge of a “volatile situation brewing on the premises.”
The Supreme Court also held that prior crimes need not be identical to the current one under review in order to have case relevancy and applicability. This expansive ruling raised the bar for defendant-proprietors as they seek to counter negligent security premises liability summary judgments.
