Webster v. Family Dollar: No Evidence of a Dangerous Condition
Webster v. Family Dollar, 2026 WL 50642 (2026)
This was a trip and fall case over an entrance mat filed in federal court. The plaintiff went into the Family Dollar store, shopped for ten to twenty minutes, then left. According to the Court’s opinion, “[s]he testified that the floor mat outside the entrance caught her foot and threw her to the cement ground.” (quotation and punctuation omitted). She also testified that the floor mat “had to be laying flat on the ground for [her] to walk across it.” Her lawyer introduced no evidence that the mat was curled, bunched or wrinkled. The court granted summary judgment to Family Dollar, ruling there was no evidence of a hazardous or dangerous condition.
Practice Pointer:
- In cases involving mats, the plaintiff needs evidence that the mat was defective, curled, bunched, wrinkled, unsecured, or otherwise hazardous. A fall involving a mat is not enough. Testimony, photographs, surveillance video, incident reports, or prior complaints may be necessary to create a jury issue.
Mejia v. SK Battery America: Summary Judgment on Assumption of the Risk
Mejia v. SK Battery America, Inc., 925 S.E.2d 772 (Georgia Court of Appeals, 2026)
This was a wrongful death case from a fall at the SK Battery plant in Commerce, Georgia. The deceased was a foreman for one of the construction companies building the plant. In the ceiling of the plant, there were holes where HVAC vents would eventually be installed. The holes were covered with non-weight-bearing grilles that would fall to the ground if someone stepped on them. The grilles were marked with large red-taped Xs with “Danger” written on the red tape. The plant had a safety plan that required workers to be “tied off” when working more than six feet off the ground. The deceased had seen a co-worker fall and be saved because he was tied off. The morning of his fall the deceased had filled out a form acknowledging falls were a safety risk and required “100% tie off.” The deceased went up to work on the ceiling but did not tie off. Co-workers warned him to tie off but he did not. He stepped through one of the red-taped grilles and fell 50 feet to the ground. He died two weeks later of his injuries.
The defense argued the deceased assumed the risk of his injuries. The trial court granted summary judgment and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Court ruled the evidence “conclusively established as a matter of law that Bell possessed actual knowledge of the specific, particular risk of harm. He witnessed another worker fall through a non-weight bearing [grill] a mere twelve days before his own fall. And he witnessed what saved the worker — that the worker was tied-off when he fell.”
Practice Pointer:
- Assumption of the risk is usually a jury issue. However, the evidence that the deceased knew the risks of working while not tied-off was extremely strong and shows the defense can win summary judgment on assumption of risk when there is actual knowledge of the specific hazard, appreciation of the risk, and voluntary exposure to that risk.
Georgia Power & Ansley Walk v. Ries: Building Code Violations, Lighting, Prior Traverse, and Superior Knowledge
Georgia Power & Ansley Walk v. Ries, 928 S.E.2d 447 (Georgia Court of Appeals, 2026)
This was a trip and fall case on stairs at a condo complex. Several years before the fall, the condo association had hired a contractor to fix the stairs leading to the plaintiff’s condo because they were not up to code. The stairs were rebuilt without handrails, which violated building code. Two weeks before the plaintiff’s fall, another resident noticed that the outdoor pole light near the plaintiff’s building was out and notified the condo association. The plaintiff had not been living in her condo for several months. The day of her fall, she returned to her condo. She took her dog out for a walk and began walking down the stairs. She testified “that when she started walking down the stairs, it was absolutely normal and then all of a sudden there was no light. [She] thought that she was at the bottom of the stairs and that the safest thing was to just step off of the landing. But she was not at the bottom of the stairs. Instead, she fell down the last two steps.” (quotation and punctuation omitted)
The case went to trial and the jury returned a $8,500,000 verdict against the condo complex and Georgia Power and the Court of Appeals affirmed.
On appeal, the condo complex argued that the plaintiff had equal or superior knowledge of the dangerous condition of the stairs because of her “prior traverse” of the stairs, i.e., she had walked up and down them before. The Court of Appeals ruled that the plaintiff had not been at the property for months, that the condo complex knew the light was out but had not warned the plaintiff, that the plaintiff had walked up the stairs instead of down, that violations of building codes and regulations may be negligence per se, and evidence of nonconformity with code standards may be proof of a landowner’s superior knowledge of a defect.
- Practice pointers:
- Consider retaining an expert to inspect for building code violations. A building code violation may be evidence of negligence per se and proof that a property owner has superior knowledge of a defect.
- In cases involving stairs and ramps, the prior traverse defense does not apply unless the plaintiff had walked the same direction before her fall. Walking up a ramp or set of stairs does not give equal knowledge of the hazards of walking down.
- Though not discussed in this opinion, the “necessity doctrine” applies in cases like this. If the stairs were the only way to and from the plaintiff’s condo, the necessity doctrine is an exception to the prior traverse / equal knowledge rule.