Dillard, Presiding Judge. Valdosta State University[1] appeals the denial of its motion for summary judgment in Elizabeth Davis’s action against it. Davis alleged that, as a result of VSU’s negligence, she fell off of a “lofted bed” in her dorm room and suffered severe injuries. VSU argues that the trial court erred in denying its motion for summary judgment because Davis’s lofted bed was an “open and obvious” condition, which precludes liability. For the reasons set forth infra, we reverse. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Davis (i.e., the nonmoving party),[2] the record shows that on August 8, 2016, she moved into her dorm room at VSU to begin her freshman year of college. Davis’s room contained two lofted beds, one of which was higher than the other one. And by the time Davis arrived to her room, her roommate was already there and had chosen the bed in the lower position. Davis initially wanted to lower her bed to the same height as that of her roommate’s bed, so she submitted an online request to VSU’s housing department to that effect. But this request was never fulfilled. As a result, in order to access her bed, Davis would step on her desk and then climb into her bed because there was no ladder in the room. Later, after rearranging the furniture multiple times, Davis and her roommate settled on a “final [ ]arrangement,” which Davis thought was “really cute” and “functional.” And once the final configuration was done, Davis “never followed up on lowering the bed . . . because [she] was happy with it.” On October 30, 2016, Davis and a friend attended a Halloween party at a fraternity house. Davis first went to a pre-party, and she had “a couple beers” throughout the course of the evening. Then, at the end of the night, Davis walked back from the party alone and returned to her dorm room by 11:00 p.m. She recalled feeling “[t]ipsy” after the party, and when she arrived home, she fell asleep. The next thing Davis remembered was falling out of her lofted bed, blacking out, and waking up on her back with her roommate standing over her asking if she was all right. As a result of this fall, Davis sustained serious injuries, which required surgery and a stay in the intensive care unit. Due to the nature and severity of her injuries, Davis had to “medically withdraw” from all of her classes at VSU in November 2016. Davis subsequently registered for the spring semester, but withdrew from school again a few weeks into the semester because her “concussion was still really bad and [she] wasn’t able to concentrate or perform as [she] had been used to and [she] was failing everything.” But during the brief period of time that Davis returned to her dorm room, her lofted bed was lowered to the same height as that of her roommate’s bed. And because VSU did not provide her with a “bed rail,” Davis purchased one and installed it on her bed. On December 22, 2017, Davis filed a complaint against VSU, asserting that its negligence in failing to install safety rails on her lofted bed proximately caused the serious and permanent injuries she suffered from falling out of the bed. She claimed that VSU had notice of the specific risk of falling from the lofted beds due to similar incidents at other schools within the University System of Georgia. VSU answered the complaint and discovery ensued. Subsequently, VSU filed a motion for summary judgment, which was denied by the trial court in a summary order.[3] We granted VSU’s motion for an interlocutory appeal, and this appeal follows. Summary judgment is proper when “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.”[4] Furthermore, a de novo standard of review “applies to an appeal from a grant or denial of summary judgment, and we view the evidence, and all reasonable conclusions and inferences drawn from it, in the light most favorable to the nonmovant.”[5] Moreover, at the summary-judgment stage, “[w]e do not resolve disputed facts, reconcile the issues, weigh the evidence, or determine its credibility, as those matters must be submitted to a jury for resolution.”[6] With these guiding principles in mind, we now address VSU’s specific claim of error. VSU argues that the trial court erred in denying its motion for summary judgment because Davis’s lofted bed was an open and obvious condition, which precludes liability. We agree. In Georgia, in order to prevail on a premises-liability claim, a plaintiff must prove that “(1) the owner or proprietor had actual or constructive knowledge of the hazard and (2) the plaintiff lacked knowledge of the hazard despite exercising ordinary care.”[7] Indeed, as a general rule, owners or occupiers of land are “not insurers of the safety of invitees.”[8] So, in a premises-liability case, such as this one, the mere fact that Davis fell, without more, “does not give rise to liability on the part of [VSU].”[9] Instead, the true basis of a property owner’s liability for an injury to its invitee is “the [owner's] superior knowledge of a condition that may expose the invitees to an unreasonable risk of harm.”[10] Moreover, it is the plaintiff’s knowledge of the specific hazard which caused the [injury] that determines whether the plaintiff can prevail on a premises[-]liability claim, not merely the plaintiff’s knowledge of generally prevailing hazardous conditions or of other hazardous conditions in the area which plaintiff observes and avoids.[11] The superior-or-equal-knowledge rule is “the practical application of a rule that a knowledgeable plaintiff cannot recover damages if by ordinary care [she] could have avoided the consequences of defendant’s negligence.”[12] And particularly relevant in this case, even if a defendant “had knowledge of the alleged hazardous condition . . . , [a plaintiff] cannot recover if it is shown that the hazard was open and obvious.”[13] Lastly, we are mindful that in a premises-liability case, issues of “the defendant’s negligence, the plaintiff’s negligence, and the plaintiff’s lack of ordinary care for his own safety are generally not susceptible of summary adjudication.”[14] But when the evidence is “plain, palpable, and undisputable . . . the trial court [can] conclude that a party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”[15] This is such a case. Here, there is no dispute that VSU had actual or constructive knowledge of the lofted bed in Davis’s dorm room. But the uncontroverted evidence also shows that Davis had equal knowledge that the lofted bed was raised off the ground and lacked guardrails before she fell.[16] Indeed, Davis slept in the bed for approximately three months prior to her fall in late October 2016. Moreover, soon after arriving at school, she submitted a request to VSU to have the bed lowered, which shows that (1) the lofted bed was an open and obvious static condition of which Davis had actual knowledge, and (2) the danger posed by falling from the bed was both apparent and avoidable by the exercise of reasonable care. Davis also installed a safety rail on the bed when she returned to school for the Spring semester, presumably to prevent her from falling again. And significantly, we have repeatedly held—in the context of assumption-of-the-risk cases—that “no danger is more commonly realized or risk appreciated than that of falling.”[17] As a result, under these circumstances, even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Davis, the trial court erred in denying VSU’s motion for summary judgment because her lofted bed constituted an “open and obvious” condition, and therefore, she was barred from recovery as a matter of law. [18] For all these reasons, we reverse the trial court’s denial of VSU’s motion for summary judgment. Judgment reversed. Rickman and Brown, JJ., concur.
