After she slipped and fell in the lobby of the Outpatient Care Center at the Southeast Georgia Medical Center, Jean Benton initiated the current premises liability action against Glynn-Brunswick Memorial Hospital, d/b/a Southeast Georgia Health System hereinafter “the Hospital”. The Hospital now appeals from the trial court’s denial of its motion for summary judgment, arguing that Benton has presented no evidence to support her assertion that her fall resulted from a dangerous condition on the hospital’s premises. We agree, and therefore reverse the trial court’s order. We review the trial court’s grant of summary judgment de novo to determine if the evidence demonstrates any genuine issue of material fact. To prevail, the moving party must demonstrate that there are no genuine issues of any material fact and that the undisputed facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, support judgment as a matter of law. A defendant may do this by showing the court that the documents, affidavits, depositions and other evidence in the record reveal that there is no evidence sufficient to create a jury issue on at least one essential element of plaintiff’s case. Punctuation omitted. Prescott v. Colonial Properties Trust .1 Where the defendant “discharges this burden, the plaintiff cannot rest on his pleadings, but rather must point to specific evidence giving rise to a triable issue.” Henson v. Georgia-Pacific Corp. 2 Viewed in the light most favorable to Benton, as the non-movant, the record shows that at approximately 10:00 a.m. on January 8, 2008, Benton had an appointment with a podiatrist whose office was located in the Outpatient Care Center. According to Benton, it was raining lightly that morning and, on the way to her appointment, she traveled through the lobby of the building without incident. After her appointment, as she walked through the lobby to exit the building, Benton slipped on the tile floor and fell, severely injuring her right shoulder. Benton testified at her deposition that as she was walking, “just all of a sudden the surface of the floor changed. I mean it was —I mean it was like that and it was —my foot was gone.” When questioned further, Benton stated that the floor “was like slick . . . I mean slick slick. . . . I don’t know what . . . would make a floor slick like that, but . . . whatever it was there should not have been part of the floor.” When asked if the floor was wet when she fell, Benton responded that she did not “know the difference between wet and slick,” and that she did not know what made the floor slick. She further testified, however, that when she fell she did not see any water or other liquid on the floor and that her clothes were not wet after the fall.
The security guard on duty in the lobby at the time of the incident averred that as he made his ususal rounds on the morning in question, he inspected the premises for any dangerous conditions, and he found none. He inspected the area where Benton fell approximately 15 minutes before her fall, and found the floor to be completely dry and free of foreign objects or hazards of any kind. The security guard returned to the area to assist Benton after she fell and stated that, when asked, Benton could not describe what had caused her to fall. After assisting Benton, the security guard again inspected the area but saw no water, no foreign substances, and no foreign objects on the floor.
