Three Questions I Ask Before Taking a Georgia Premises Case

Premises liability is where good lawyers lose money. The intake sounds terrible — real injury, obvious hazard, sympathetic client — and eighteen months later you’re staring at summary judgment because nobody could establish what the owner knew.

Georgia law doesn’t ask whether the property was dangerous. It asks whether the owner’s knowledge of the hazard was superior to the plaintiff’s. O.C.G.A. § 51-3-1; Robinson v. Kroger Co., 268 Ga. 735 (1997).

That single word — superior — decides most of these cases. Here’s how I screen for it.

1. How long was the hazard there, and who could have seen it?

This is the whole ballgame on constructive knowledge.

A puddle that appeared ninety seconds ago is nobody’s fault. A puddle that sat through two shift changes under a leaking cooler is a case.

What I want, early:

• Inspection procedures. Does the defendant have a written sweep or inspection policy? How often? Who signs it? A policy that exists and wasn’t followed is worth more than no policy at all.
• The gap. Time between the last documented inspection and the incident. If they can’t produce the log, that absence is itself evidence.
• Camera coverage and retention. Ask in writing, immediately. Most systems overwrite in 14–30 days. A preservation letter sent in week six is a preservation letter sent too late.

Send the spoliation letter before you send the representation letter if you have to.

2. Is there a repair history, or is this the first time?

One-off hazards are hard. Recurring ones are cases.

Pull for:

• Prior work orders, maintenance tickets, and vendor invoices for the same condition
• Prior incident reports at the same location — not just the same store, the same spot
• Tenant complaints, in a landlord case
• Code citations and inspection reports

A defendant who fixed the same step four times in two years has actual knowledge, and no amount of “we had no notice” survives the invoices.

This is also where negligent security cases live. The question there isn’t whether a crime was foreseeable in the abstract — it’s whether this crime, at this property, was foreseeable given what had already happened there. Crime grids and prior-incident data do that work.

3. What does the plaintiff’s own conduct look like?

Georgia is modified comparative fault with a 50% bar. O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33. A plaintiff who is 50% or more at fault recovers nothing.

So I ask the uncomfortable questions in the first conversation, not the deposition:

• Had they walked that path before? How many times?
• Was the hazard open and obvious? Were there cones, signs, tape?
• What were they carrying? Where were they looking?
• Were they wearing something a defense lawyer will put on a screen?

Robinson moved a lot of this to the jury, and that’s real. But “it’s a jury question” is a litigation posture, not a valuation. A case that goes to a jury with a 35% comparative fault problem is worth what it’s worth, and you should know that number before you spend forty thousand dollars getting there.

What I do with the answers

If the hazard was transient, undocumented, and the client walked past it twice — that’s a call, not a case, and I say so on the phone. Nobody is served by carrying it for two years.

If there’s an inspection gap, a repair history, and a client with a clean fault profile — that case is worth real money and it’s worth real work: site inspection with a photographer, 30(b)(6) on inspection and maintenance procedures, and the corporate rep depositions early enough that the answers still shape discovery.

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If you’ve got one of these on your desk and don’t want to carry it — send it to me. I’ll handle it completely, you stay on your own docket, and we’ll paper the fee split up front. One conversation is all it takes: let’s talk.

This article is general commentary for other lawyers, not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for your own research on the facts of your case.