Background
Spray Properties leased a Quitman, Georgia, house to Shirly Hollis in September 2019. Robert Washington, the decedent, later lived there with Hollis. A February 2022 fire destroyed the house and killed Washington and another occupant.
Washington’s son sued the landlord for negligence, negligence per se, and wrongful death, alleging that the house lacked smoke detectors. A fire investigator reported finding no smoke detectors during an investigation conducted months after the fire. Spray Properties presented an affidavit from its maintenance worker stating that he installed two detectors before Hollis moved in, along with Hollis’s signed lease acknowledgment and separate battery-replacement form. The trial court denied summary judgment.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals reversed. The unrefuted direct evidence showed that Spray Properties installed two smoke detectors when it turned the home over to Hollis. The investigator’s post-fire finding that no detectors were found nearly three years later did not reasonably support an inference that the landlord had failed to install them in 2019.
The court held that the investigator’s report invited speculation rather than creating a genuine fact issue. Because Washington’s claims rested on an alleged failure to install detectors, and the record did not create a triable issue on that alleged breach, Spray Properties was entitled to summary judgment. The court did not decide whether the decedent was an invitee, licensee, or tenant.
Key Takeaways
- Post-fire evidence that detectors were not found may be too remote to prove they were never installed.
- Unrefuted installation testimony and tenant-signed acknowledgments can establish the absence of a triable issue on breach.
- Georgia law bars using a failure to maintain a smoke detector as evidence of negligence in a civil case.
Why It Matters
The decision distinguishes evidence that a detector was absent after a fire from evidence that a landlord failed to install one at the start of a tenancy. It also reinforces that a nonmovant cannot defeat summary judgment with an inference resting only on conjecture.