Harriett Barnes appeals from the grant of summary judgment in favor of St. Stephen’s Missionary Baptist Church in this premises liability suit. Finding no error, we affirm. Summary judgment is appropriate when no genuine issue of material fact remains and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Matthews v. The Varsity, Inc. , 248 Ga. App. 512 546 SE2d 878 2001. On appeal from a grant of summary judgment, we apply a de novo standard of review and “view the evidence, and all reasonable conclusions and inferences drawn from it, in the light most favorable to the nonmovant.” Citation, punctuation, and footnote omitted. Id. Viewed in this light, the record shows that Barnes was assaulted and seriously injured on her way home late one evening from a neighborhood convenience store. Her assailant crept up behind her as she walked along the sidewalk near St. Stephen’s Missionary Baptist Church on Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard in downtown Atlanta. The church building was abandoned. Barnes speculates that her assailant was hiding behind bushes near the church; however, she did not see him before he hit her in the back of the head. A narrow window well extends along the west wall of the building and terminates in stairs several feet from the sidewalk, but Barnes denied in her deposition that she fell or was pushed down those stairs. During the attack, Barnes’s back was injured and her legs paralyzed. While Barnes lay immobile, she testified, a second assailant emerged from a door on the church property. This person raped Barnes and left her.
The church adamantly disputes that any doorway on the church property was open. Approximately two years before the assault, after the church moved to another location, the building’s ground floor windows and doors were sealed with concrete blocks, except for one locked basement door on Central Avenue, at the opposite corner of the church from the location at which Barnes testified the assault occurred. A police officer testified that he inspected the church four weeks after the assault and that “the basement and ground-level doors and windows were sealed with concrete blocks.” The officer took photographs of the church, showing the sealed door and window openings and the basement door.
