Man Stabbed While Fighting Ex-Girlfriend Can't Sue Apartment Owners, Appeals Court Rules
ALM Media
Updated
The Georgia Court of Appeals has affirmed a DeKalb County judge's dismissal of a premises liability suit brought by a man stabbed repeatedly during a dustup with his ex-girlfriend.
The plaintiff was stabbed by the woman's male companion, and the courts held that the plaintiff's actions in engaging in the predawn argument left him more at fault for his injuries than the apartment complex's owner and management company.
Insley & Race partner James Myers, who defended Edgewater Apartments-Atlanta and First Communities Management with firm partner Brynda Insley, said that he was surprised the case didn't resolve earlier, given that the plaintiff should have known he was walking into trouble when he approached the screaming woman.
"One of the things that struck us all while working on this case was that we felt [the plaintiff's] superior knowledge of the danger was very clear," Myers said.
The attorneys for the plaintiff, Atlanta solos James Ford Sr. and Mitchell McGough, said Wednesday that they would ask the appeals court to reconsider its June 27 ruling.
As described by Myers and the appellate opinion, the case began in the early morning hours of Oct. 8, 2011, when Darryl Burgess was visiting a nightclub. Sometime after midnight, he "inadvertently answered a cellphone call from former girlfriend Rasheeda Poindexter."
During the call, Poindexter heard Burgess speaking to another woman and, over the course of the next four hours, she repeatedly called and texted Burgess. One message said: "I know u see me calling you[:] you probably with one of your bitches."
Unable to reach Burgess, Poindexter and another man, Craig Salters, drove to the Edgewater Apartments in Decatur where Burgess lived on the third floor with another woman to "expose" Burgess, according to the opinion. At around 4 a.m. the pair used the call box at the apartments' gate to reach Burgess , but they received no response. Even so, Poindexter and Salters accessed the apartments "through an open or malfunctioning gate," the opinion said.
Burgess left the club and got home at about 5 a.m. As he approached his apartment building, Burgess saw and heard Poindexter standing on the third floor on the staircase "[s]creaming and yelling to the top of her lungs."
Burgess kept approaching the breezeway and stairs, encountering Salters and asking who he was.
"I don't know why she brought me out[;] I don't have anything to do with this," Salters is said to have responded.
Burgess asked Poindexter to come down to the parking lot, but she replied that they would handle the matter "at your f***king door."
Burgess climbed to reach Poindexter, who continued to shout and bang on apartment doors trying to find his.
Burgess turned and went back down to the second floor with Poindexter behind him. He then turned and called her a "stupid bitch," and she later testified that he had hit her; Burgess said he had slapped her hand away.
At that point Salters stabbed Burgess repeatedly, causing "serious and permanent injuries."
Poindexter then begged Salters to stop, the opinion said, and she apologized to Burgess after the attack. She would testify against Salters during his criminal trial, and she also stated that the visitor's gate had been open when the pair entered the apartment complex.
Burgess, whom Myers said is now 47, incurred medical bills of $260,000. Grady Memorial Hospital "patched him up pretty good," said Myers, but he claims that he has permanent injuries from the stabbing.
According to the Georgia Department of Corrections website, Salters is currently serving 20 years in prison for aggravated assault.
Evidence showed that Edgewater was located in a high-crime area, with neighboring hotels frequented by prostitutes and drug users, the opinion said. A DeKalb County police officer who served as a courtesy officer at the complex testified that an adjacent complex had experienced armed robberies and assaults, and an officer who arrived on the scene at about 4:30 a.m. reported that an entry gate was "stuck in the open position at that time."
Myers said the company that provided the entry gate settled pretrial for a "nominal" sum.
In 2015, Burgess sued the apartment owner, management company and manager for negligence, claiming they failed to maintain the premises, failed to adequately warn their residents about criminal activity in the area, and failed to provide adequate security measures.
Last year, DeKalb State Court Judge Stacey Hydrick dismissed the case on summary judgment. She ruled that Burgess had "superior knowledge of any danger posed by Poindexter and Salters by virtue of his private relationship" with Poindexter; that the "defendants had no actual or constructive knowledge of any similar criminal activity" at the apartments; and that Burgess failed to "exercise ordinary care when he voluntarily engaged with Poindexter and Salters rather than notifying the police or management of their unauthorized presence."
At the appeals court, Judge Elizabeth Branch with the concurrence of Judges Christopher McFadden and Charlie Bethel, agreed.
Branch rejected Burgess' argument that whether he possessed superior knowledge of the threat Salters presented was a jury question.
"In the specific context of criminal assault against an invitee such as Burgess, this court has held that a property owner is 'under no duty to anticipate' such an assault unless the owner 'has reasonable grounds for knowing that such a criminal act would be committed,'" Branch wrote, citing Reid v. Augusta-Richmond County Coliseum Author., 203 Ga. App 235 (1992).
"Consistent with these principles, this court has repeatedly held that a plaintiff injured in an attack by a person with whom the plaintiff has a 'specific private relationship' has, as a matter of law, knowledge of the risks posed by that attacker superior to that of the property owner," Branch wrote.
Burgess, she wrote, "made a conscious decision to climb three flights of stairs to engage with an obviously irate Poindexter rather than to call management or police as to any threat posed by her or Salters, whom he had also seen on the property, and Salters began his attack only after Burgess and Poindexter engaged in a physical altercation in the course of a confrontation lasting several minutes. Under such circumstances, we must conclude as a matter of law that Burgess did not exercise ordinary caution for his own safety."
