What duty does a Georgia property owner owe to a customer or invited guest?

· 2 min read

A customer or invited guest stands in the most protected position Georgia premises law recognizes. To this class of visitor, called an invitee, the owner owes the highest standard of care that the state’s tiered system provides: a duty of ordinary care to keep the property safe.

The ordinary-care standard for invitees

Georgia codifies this duty in O.C.G.A. § 51-3-1. When an owner or occupier of land, by express or implied invitation, induces or leads others to come onto the premises for any lawful purpose, the owner is liable for injuries caused by a failure to exercise ordinary care in keeping the premises and approaches safe. A retail shopper, a restaurant patron, a paying client, and a guest invited for the owner’s benefit all generally qualify as invitees.

Ordinary care has two practical parts:

  • Inspection. The owner must take reasonable steps to discover hazards, not merely react to ones already known. This is why constructive knowledge, meaning a danger the owner should have found through reasonable inspection, can support liability.
  • Correction or warning. Once a hazard is known or should be known, the owner must repair it, guard against it, or warn invitees within a reasonable time.

The duty reaches the “approaches” as well, so parking lots, entryways, and walkways customers must use are included, not just the interior.

What the duty is not

Ordinary care is not a guarantee of safety. A Georgia business is not an insurer of its visitors, so an injury alone does not prove a breach. Liability generally requires that the owner’s knowledge of the hazard be superior to the visitor’s. When a danger is open and obvious, and an invitee exercising ordinary care for her own safety would have seen and avoided it, the owner’s advantage shrinks and the claim weakens.

Even after an owner breaches this duty, an invitee’s compensation is not fixed: O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33 subtracts the invitee’s own percentage of fault from the award and withholds it completely once that percentage reaches half.

The bottom line

To a customer or invited guest, a Georgia owner owes ordinary care to inspect for, fix, or warn about hazards on the premises and approaches. That is the strongest protection in Georgia’s premises framework, but it requires the owner’s superior knowledge of the danger and is still measured against the invitee’s own care.

This article is for general educational and informational purposes only and is not legal advice. It does not create an attorney-client relationship, and Georgia law may change. For advice about a specific situation, consult a licensed Georgia personal injury attorney.

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