Imperial Investments Doraville Inc. v. Childers

In this trip and fall case, the landowner appeals from a jury verdict and judgment in favor of the plaintiff, contending the trial court erred in denying its motion for directed verdict.1 Because the plaintiff failed to show that an alleged defect in the premises caused his fall, or that the landlord had a duty to inspect and discover a different alleged defect in the premises, we must reverse. The plaintiff, Shane Childers, was at a weekend darts tournament held at a hotel owned by defendant Imperial Investments Doraville Inc. “Imperial”. On Sunday afternoon, he was watching some friends compete in the hotel ballroom when he noticed that another friend had left the room. Anxious because he wanted to get something out of the friend’s truck, Childers left to catch up with him. As he came out of the ballroom, he called to his friend, who turned around. Childers tripped and collided with his friend, and they both fell through a plate glass window, causing serious injuries to Childers’s arm.

At trial, Childers agreed that he was making “assumptions about why he fell.” While he knew that he tripped, he did not know if he tripped over an object, because “at the time I never did look to see anything I tripped on.” He also testified that he had gone in and out of the doorway about 15 times during the weekend, and he agreed from viewing photographs that there was renovation or construction work going on in the hall outside the banquet room, although he had no independent recollection of it. He did recall seeing some tape in the doorway as he exited and “rolls of carpet in the hallways . . . . You had to step through and over stuff just to go back to the dart hall.” Childers also noticed that the carpet was “wrinkly,” but even after he agreed with his counsel’s suggestion, “You know with some precision what you fell over, you don’t know exactly and that is how you testified” he still responded that he did not know if he stumbled over a raised piece of carpet. Childers’s counsel then again asked Childers if he “had a pretty good idea what you fell over” and Childers responded affirmatively, but never testified directly that he knew that he fell over the carpet.