Slip & Fall Lawyer in Georgia

Georgia's two-year personal injury statute of limitations under OCGA § 9-3-33 runs from the date of the injury. In premises liability cases, the evidence that determines whether the landowner had actual or constructive knowledge of the hazard — the specific requirement in Georgia invitee claims under Lau's Corp. v. Haskins, 261 Ga. 491 (1991) — is exclusively in the landowner's possession: maintenance logs, inspection records, prior incident reports, cleaning schedules, and surveillance video. That surveillance video is typically overwritten in 24 to 72 hours on commercial properties. An attorney who issues a preservation demand within the first 24 hours of engagement locks that footage. An attorney who waits even a week will find the recording overwritten and the maintenance staff's recollection of their inspection schedule formed by time and hindsight.

The first legal task in a Georgia slip-and-fall case is establishing invitee status. Unlike Massachusetts (which abolished the distinction) or Montana (which abolished it for all entrants including trespassers), Georgia strictly enforces the three tiers. A business visitor — a customer, a patient, a hotel guest — is a business invitee owed the full duty of ordinary care under OCGA § 51-3-1. A person entering for a purely personal reason without invitation — a friend of an employee, someone using an unlocked back entrance — may be classified as a licensee, reducing the owner's duty to known-hazard warnings only. Establishing the specific nature and purpose of the entry is critical, and witness statements documenting the reason for the visit should be collected before defense investigators conduct their own witness interviews.

Robinson v. Kroger Co., 268 Ga. 735 (1997) changed the assumption-of-risk analysis in Georgia commercial premises cases. Before Robinson, Georgia courts had broadly applied a "voluntary assumption of obvious risk" defense that effectively barred claims where the plaintiff "should have known" of the hazard. The Georgia Supreme Court in Robinson required that the defense show the plaintiff had actual knowledge of the specific hazard that caused the fall — not just general awareness that wet floors, uneven surfaces, or dim corridors exist. This distinction is particularly important in grocery store and retail premises claims: a plaintiff who walks through a store without knowing a particular section had a recently mopped floor does not assume the risk of that specific spill simply by entering the store. Medical documentation of the mechanism of injury, photographs of the hazard taken immediately after the fall, and witness statements about the hazard's location and visibility are the tools that hold the Robinson actual-knowledge standard in the plaintiff's favor.

Government premises liability in Georgia requires navigating two separate notice systems depending on which government entity owns the property. For municipal property — city sidewalks, county parks, public transit facilities, MARTA stations — written ante litem notice under OCGA § 36-33-5 must be given within six months of the injury. For state property — state office buildings, Georgia DOT highway rest areas, state university facilities — written notice under OCGA § 50-21-26 must be given within 12 months. Both notice requirements are jurisdictional: missing the deadline is not a procedural default that can be waived — it eliminates the claim against that government defendant entirely. An attorney identifies the property owner within the first days after the injury and files timely ante litem notice while securing the surveillance video and maintenance records that will establish the government defendant's prior knowledge of the hazard.