Chamblee v. Grayco

Elizabeth Chamblee appeals from the trial court’s order granting summary judgment to her landlord Grayco, Inc. in this trip and fall case. We affirm. On appeal from the grant of summary judgment, this Court conducts a de novo review of the record, construing the evidence and all inferences in favor of the non-moving party. Maddox v. Southern Engineering Co. , 231 Ga. App. 802, 803 500 SE2d 591 1998. Viewed in this light, the evidence showed that Chamblee was injured when she stepped from a sidewalk onto a partially exposed drainage pipe. The sidewalk led from her apartment to the parking lot where her car was parked. The pipe was adjacent to a sidewalk at the top of a series of four steps that led to the parking lot. At the time of her injury, Chamblee’s son had left the apartment ahead of her. Chamblee, fearing that her son would pull on the car door and set off the alarm, stepped from the sidewalk with both feet so that she could see her son around a holly bush and tell him not to set off the alarm. She immediately fell and slid down the small hill, breaking her ankle.

Chamblee did not normally park in this lot and did not know whether she had ever used this particular sidewalk before. At the time of her fall, she was looking straight ahead or at her son. She had never seen the exposed pipe before and did not see it immediately before her fall. She never saw anyone walk through the area where she fell before her fall, and she had never walked through there before her fall.