Patrick v. Macon Housing Authority

• Decision Date: 06 July 2001
• Docket Number: No. A01A0066, No. A01A0067.
• Citation: 250 Ga. App. 806,552 S.E.2d 455
• Parties: PATRICK, v. MACON HOUSING AUTHORITY et al. Macon Housing Authority, v. Patrick.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

552 S.E.2d 455

250 Ga. App. 806

PATRICK, v. MACON HOUSING AUTHORITY et al.

Macon Housing Authority, v. Patrick.

Nos. A01A0066, A01A0067.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

July 6, 2001.

Reconsideration Denied July 31, 2001.

Sell & Melton, Russell M. Boston, Macon, Neil A. Halvorson, for appellant.

Martin, Snow, Grant & Napier, John C. Daniel III, Richard A. Epps, Jr., Hall, Booth, Smith & Slover, Heather C. McGrotty, Jason P. King, Moore, Clarke, DuVall & Rodgers, Luanne Clarke, Albany, for appellees.

ANDREWS, Presiding Judge.

Wanda Patrick slipped and fell in a puddle of water in a common area of an apartment building owned and operated by the Macon Housing Authority. She brought two suits seeking to recover for injuries she suffered in the fall: a premises liability claim against the Authority pursuant to OCGA § 51-3-1 claiming it failed to keep the common area safe for invitees, and a claim based on the principle of respondeat superior against Justice Home Care, Inc. claiming its employee negligently left the water on the floor. The appeal in Case No. A01A0066 is from the trial court's grant of summary judgment for Justice Home Care. We affirm the trial court in this case because Patrick's claim was based on sheer speculation that Justice Home Care's employee left the water which caused the slip and fall. The appeal in Case No. A01A0067 is from the trial court's denial of the Authority's motion for summary judgment. We reverse the trial court in this case because we find as a matter of law that the Authority exercised reasonable care pursuant to OCGA § 51-3-1 to inspect and keep safe the common area of the building.

Case No. A01A0066

At the time of the slip and fall, Patrick was working as an aide for Crossroads Home Service, a personal care provider, and was about to do laundry for an elderly client who lived in the Authority's apartment building. Patrick took two steps into the third-floor common area laundry room and slipped and fell in a puddle of water on the floor. Gussie Mae Fleming, who worked as an aide for Justice Home Care, another personal care provider, was also doing laundry in the same laundry room for one of her clients. Fleming had just finished taking clothes out of a washer and putting them into a dryer and was leaving the laundry room when she saw Patrick about to enter the room. As Fleming left the room, she did not see or hear Patrick slip and fall. At her deposition, Fleming was asked if it was possible she put water on the floor when she transferred clothes from the washer to the dryer by shaking the clothes to straighten them before putting them in the dryer. She responded that she commonly shook clothes to get any knots out before putting them into the dryer, but added that, when she did so, the clothes were not dripping wet but only damp. She could not ever remember water dripping from clothes when she shook them and testified that she saw no water on the floor of the laundry room from the time she entered the room until she left after putting the clothes in the dryer.

At best, this evidence shows only a possibility that Fleming might have shaken a few drops of water from damp clothes, but there is no evidence of it. It might also support speculation that, if some drops were shaken to the floor, they might have formed the puddle of water in which Patrick slipped and fell, but there is no evidence this happened.

Patrick further suggests there was evidence raising a reasonable inference that Fleming negligently spilled water on the floor while attempting to add water to one of the washers. This contention is based on evidence that, after the slip and fall, one of Patrick's elderly clients, Minnie Etheridge, spoke to a woman who worked as an aide at the building and who admitted to her that she spilled water on the floor of the laundry room while pouring it into a washer.

Etheridge testified that, when she learned Patrick slipped and fell while doing her laundry, she immediately went to look at the laundry room with Patrick. She said a woman was in the laundry room when she and Patrick arrived, and this woman told her that she had spilled water on the floor when she tried to pour extra water into the washer she was using. Etheridge said the woman was "an aide for some company," wearing a pink top and a white skirt, but she did not know which company. She variously described the woman as "average size[d]" and "big and fat." Etheridge, who admitted that her eyesight was failing, was not sure of the woman's height, weight, or race, or whether she could identify the woman if she saw her again.

There was no evidence in the record showing what Fleming was wearing on the day of the slip and fall, nor any other evidence showing she fit a description given by Etheridge. Evidence showed that other residents of the building also had aides who provided personal care services. The record shows no effort was made to have Etheridge identify Fleming as the woman she saw in the laundry room after the slip and fall. No reasonable inference can be drawn from this evidence that Fleming was the woman who told Etheridge she spilled the water.

Moreover, other evidence in the record supports the reasonable inference that Fleming was not the woman who told Etheridge she spilled the water. Patrick testified that, after she fell, she immediately walked to the nearby elevator, asked a person on the elevator to tell Etheridge that she had fallen, and that Etheridge immediately came down to the third floor to meet her. Etheridge testified that she and Patrick went to the third-floor laundry room together and that the woman she spoke to was in the room.

Patrick testified that, as she was entering the laundry room just before she slipped and fell, she passed a woman coming out of the laundry room whom she recognized but did not know by name. This testimony was consistent with Fleming's testimony that, as she was exiting the laundry room, she passed Patrick entering the room, and that, when she returned to get clothes out of the dryer, she learned from a janitor that Patrick slipped and fell when she entered the room.

These facts support the conclusion that Patrick saw and recognized Fleming just prior to the slip and fall. If Fleming was the woman in the laundry room who admitted in the presence of Etheridge and Patrick that she spilled the water, surely Patrick would have recognized and identified her. However, Patrick made no such identification and said she never spoke to Fleming about the slip and fall. The only reasonable inference is that the woman Patrick and Etheridge saw, and who admitted spilling the water, was not Fleming.

In fact, Patrick testified that she had only heard rumors that a woman who worked in the building spilled the water on the floor, and that Retha Jones, the resident services coordinator at the apartment building, mentioned Fleming's name in connection with finding out who spilled the water. Jones testified, however, that she had only heard rumors that Fleming spilled the water on the floor. Fleming denied that she poured water into a washer or spilled water onto the floor of the laundry room, and she denied having any conversation with Etheridge in which she admitted doing so. Furthermore, Fleming testified that she knew Etheridge and spoke to her occasionally, but she did not remember seeing her on the day of the slip and fall.

No reasonable inference can be drawn from the above facts that Fleming was the woman who admitted spilling the water. To the contrary, the only reasonable inference which can be drawn from the facts is that Fleming was not the woman who spilled the water. It follows that pure speculation was the only basis for Patrick's claim that Justice Home Care's employee, Fleming, negligently left the water on the laundry room floor which caused Patrick to slip and fall.

Only reasonable inferences can give rise to a genuine issue of fact sufficient to preclude summary judgment. Lau's Corp. v. Haskins, 261 Ga. 491, 495, 405 S.E.2d 474 (1991). An inference based on mere possibility, conjecture, or speculation is not a reasonable inference sufficient to establish a genuine issue of fact and preclude summary judgment. Pafford v. Biomet, 264 Ga. 540, 544, 448 S.E.2d 347 (1994); Butler v. Huckabee, 209 Ga.App. 761, 762, 434 S.E.2d 576 (1993). Where a plaintiff's proof of causation in a negligence case is based on mere possibilities, or the matter remains one of pure speculation or conjecture, or the probabilities are at best evenly balanced, it is the duty of the trial court to grant summary judgment for the defendant. Futch v. Super Discount Markets, 241 Ga.App. 479, 482, 526 S.E.2d 401 (1999). Accordingly, the trial court correctly granted summary judgment in favor of Justice Home Care.

Case No. A01A0067

In this premises liability case, the Macon Housing Authority cross-appeals from the trial court's denial of its motion for summary judgment on Patrick's claim that the Authority failed to exercise ordinary care under OCGA § 51-3-1 to keep the common area of its apartment building safe for invitees.

Because Patrick's slip and fall occurred in the third-floor laundry room, a common area of the apartment building over which the Authority retained control, the Authority was obligated under OCGA § 51-3-1 to exercise ordinary care to keep this area safe for tenants and for Patrick, who was invited by a tenant to perform work for the tenant in this area. Lidster v. Jones, 176 Ga.App. 392, 393, 336 S.E.2d 287 (1985); Hohnerlein v. Thomas, 186 Ga.App. 282-283, 367 S.E.2d 95 (1988). In order for Patrick to prevail on her slip and fall claim against the Authority under OCGA § 51-3-1, she had to prove two essential elements: (1) that the Authority had actual or constructive knowledge of the puddle of water which caused her slip and fall; and (2) that she lacked knowledge of the puddle despite the exercise of ordinary care. Robinson v....