After Steven Hudson sustained serious injuries in a criminal assault, he sued the City of Douglas, alleging that it owed a duty to protect him from his assailant but negligently failed to do so. The City moved for summary judgment, disputing that it owed any such duty, but the court below denied that motion. The City now appeals from the denial of summary judgment,1 and we reverse. The standard for summary judgment is settled and familiar. “Summary judgment is warranted when any material fact is undisputed, as shown by the pleadings and record evidence, and this fact entitles the moving party to judgment as a matter of law.” Strength v. Lovett , 311 Ga. App. 35, 39 2 714 SE2d 723 2011. So, as we have explained before, “to prevail on a motion for summary judgment, the moving party must show that there is no genuine dispute as to a specific material fact and that this specific fact is enough, regardless of any other facts in the case, to entitle the moving party to judgment as a matter of law.” Id. “When a defendant moves for summary judgment as to an element of the case for which the plaintiff . . . will bear the burden of proof at trial . . . the defendant may show that he is entitled to summary judgment either by affirmatively disproving that element of the case or by pointing to an absence of evidence in the record by which the plaintiff might carry the burden to prove that element.” Id. We review the denial of summary judgment de novo, viewing the evidence in the record, as well as all inferences that might reasonably be drawn from that evidence, in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Cowart v. Widener , 287 Ga. 622, 624 1 a 697 SE2d 779 2010.
So viewed, the record shows that Hudson experienced a disruption of his cable television service in November 2007, and he discovered that someone had tampered with the cable box outside his apartment. He reported the tampering to his cable service provider, and it dispatched repair personnel to restore cable service to Hudson. About a week later, Marcus Zachery —who apparently had tampered with the cable box to steal cable service for himself —approached Hudson, complained that Hudson should not have contacted his cable service provider, and threatened to kill Hudson. Hudson called for police assistance, and several City of Douglas officers responded. Hudson told these officers about the threat and asked them to “make Zachery leave me alone.” One of the officers spoke with Zachery, but the officer did not arrest him. The same officer subsequently provided a copy of his incident report to Hudson, and the officer suggested that Hudson take the report to a magistrate judge and apply for a warrant on Zachery. Two weeks later, Hudson did so, but the judge would not issue a warrant because the incident report was incomplete. Hudson tried several times to contact the officer to ask for a completed report, but he was unable to reach the officer.
