Court Opinion

ID: 9626111
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:02:34.07276+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:21.450638
License: Public Domain

Blackburn, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with the majority’s affirmance of the trial court’s grant of the defendant’s motion for summary judgment with regard to plaintiff’s claims under OCGA §§ 44-7-13 and 44-7-14. However, I must respectfully dissent to the portion of the majority that reverses the trial court’s grant of defendant’s motion for summary judgment, because I believe that the trial court did not err in so granting Briar-gate’s motion for summary judgment. The majority fails to apply the general rule that a landlord is not the insurer of a tenant’s safety. “It is well established that the landlord is not an insurer of the tenant’s safety, but ‘is bound to exercise ordinary care to protect the invitee from unreasonable risks of which he or she has superior knowledge.’ ” (Citations omitted.) Scott v. Housing Auth. of Glennville, 223 Ga. App. 216 (477 SE2d 325) (1996).
In the present case, because the plaintiff had been attacked in her apartment less than six weeks prior to the present attack, she had equal, if not superior, knowledge of the foreseeability of criminal activity in the complex. The defendant’s duty in a premises liability case is still based upon its superior knowledge of the criminal activity in the complex. Where the plaintiff has equal knowledge of such activity, she cannot merely sit back and demand protection. We are dealing here with an independent criminal act of a third party. The law has traditionally limited a landlord’s liability for independent criminal acts, because the injury was not directly caused by the acts of such landlord, but rather by the actions of the criminal. At best in such cases, the landlord has failed to prevent the injury as has the victim in this case.
*413Decided July 16, 1997.
William N. Robbins, for appellant.
Swift, Currie, McGhee & Hiers, Lynn M. Roberson, for appellee.
To impose liability under the clear facts of this case would make the landlord the insurer of its tenants. As a jury would not be authorized to so find as a matter of law, there remains nothing for jury determination. I would hold that the trial court did not err in granting summary judgment to defendant.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Andrews joins in this opinion.