News this week from Georgia in Double View v. Polite
In the Court's decision, the panel ruled in favor of the owner and
manager of a defendant apartment complex who had lost a $5.25 million
jury verdict to a consumer who was injured in a criminal attack as he walked
between the complex and a nearby convenience store. The appellate court wrote that the
apartment complex should have been allowed - under Georgia's apportionment statute (OCGA 51-12-33) - to question the jury to apportion
some of the responsibility for what the plaintiff claimed was negligent
security to the nearby convenience store, though it was unclear who owned it. The attackers also were included on the jury form, but the jury
assigned no responsibility for the plaintiff's injuries to them. The convenience store, according to facts discovered prior to trial, had been the site of at least nine robberies.
