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Brad Bradford Realty11/15/2005
SMITH, P. J., ELLINGTON and ADAMS, JJ.
After falling outside her son's apartment, Marilyn Virginia Callaway filed a premises liability action against Brad Bradford Realty, Inc. d/b/a Cobblestone Fayette Apartments, and Parkway Fayette, L. P. (collectively "Cobblestone"). After a bench trial, the trial court entered judgment for Callaway. Cobblestone contends that the court erred in reaching that result.
In reviewing a judgment entered in a bench trial, we construe the evidence in favor of the judgment and the court's factual findings will not be disturbed when supported by any evidence. See Hosp. Auth. of Houston County v. Bohannon, 272 Ga. App. 96 (611 SE2d 663) (2005). We owe no deference, however, to the court's legal analysis which is subject to de novo review. See id.
Construed in favor of the judgment, the evidence shows that front doors of the apartments at Cobblestone, including the apartment of Callaway's son, were accessible by means of paved sidewalks and breezeways. But many of the ground-floor units, including Callaway's son's unit, had patio doors located close to the complex parking lots; and Callaway's patio door could clearly be seen from the adjacent parking lot. Callaway's son always used the patio door for ingress and egress to his apartment.
One day, with her husband driving, Callaway came to visit her son, and they parked in the parking lot somewhere between her son's patio door and the sidewalk that led to his front door; her son was standing at his patio door when they arrived. The parking spaces were lined straight out from the curb, so the front bumper of the car was somewhere near the curb. Callaway's husband parked the car and walked no more than a few steps past the curb to the patio door of the ground level unit without incident. Although Callaway had the choice of using the paved concrete sidewalk located some distance to her right and proceeding toward the front door, she decided to go to the patio door by going around the front of the car. She described the next moments this way: "I got out of the car and I walked around the front of the car and I stepped up across his yard. When I stepped across his yard, I stepped in a hole and I went down to the ground."
Callaway and others testified that the hole she stepped in was hidden by pine straw, which the evidence showed had recently been spread by agents of Cobblestone but not tidied up as was customary. Later inspection revealed that the hole she fell in was a cut in the curb, which was added to improve drainage during the construction of the apartment complex in 1992. At that time, a v-notch or curb cut approximately twenty-eight inches long at the top and six inches deep with sloping sides was made in the concrete curb on the edge of the parking lot. Michael Sims of Cobblestone, who had designed dozens of drainage systems, explained that the purpose was to allow rainwater runoff to drain into the parking lot rather than to accumulate on the ground adjacent to the buildings. Although Sims had not designed this v- notch, he testified that this "is exactly the place I would've placed it." He admitted that the v-notch would be a hazard to pedestrians if it had been placed in an area of ingress or egress even if it was not covered with pine straw, but he explained that " t's not intended for anybody to be walking on the back of that curb. It is not in the path of travel. It is nowhere near even where people should be walking."
But testimony was introduced to show that Cobblestone had actual notice that tenants, guests and Cobblestone employees who were residents were taking shortcuts to their own and this patio door, even through hedges, and that some had added
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