Is the maintenance company or the owner responsible for a Georgia elevator failure?

· 3 min read

Both can be responsible for a Georgia elevator failure, and which one bears more of the blame depends on the cause. The building owner cannot escape liability merely by pointing to a service contract, while the maintenance company answers for its own negligent work. Georgia’s apportionment rules then let a jury divide the fault.

The owner cannot delegate away the duty

Georgia holds an owner to a duty of extraordinary care toward passengers using an elevator, and that duty is non-delegable. Hiring an outside maintenance firm does not transfer the legal responsibility for safe operation to that firm. So even when an owner has a service company under contract, the owner remains answerable to an injured passenger if a discoverable or known defect went unaddressed. The owner must keep the device maintained and inspected, respond to known problems, and warn passengers or remove the elevator from service when a defect appears.

That said, the owner is not automatically liable. An elevator failure does not create a presumption of negligence. The injured person must show the owner could have discovered the defect before the failure, or knew of a malfunction and neither repaired it nor warned of it.

When the maintenance company is at fault

A service company that contracts to inspect, service, or repair an elevator owes its own duty to perform that work with reasonable care. It can be liable when:

  • A negligent inspection missed a defect it should have caught.
  • A faulty repair created or worsened the dangerous condition.
  • It failed to flag a hazard or recommend the device be taken out of service.

Because the owner’s duty is non-delegable while the maintenance firm has its own independent duty, an injured passenger can pursue both. Their respective shares are then sorted out.

How Georgia divides the blame

This is where O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33 earns its keep: a jury hands each responsible actor a percentage, the maker of a defective component included even if it never appears as a defendant. The owner and the service firm may wind up sharing the load in whatever ratio the proof justifies. Any fault traced to the claimant comes off the top of the award and forecloses it once it reaches 50%.

The bottom line

In a Georgia elevator failure, the owner stays responsible because the extraordinary-care duty cannot be delegated, while the maintenance company answers for negligent inspection or repair. Rather than an either-or answer, both can be liable, and Georgia’s apportionment system divides the fault according to what each party’s negligence contributed.

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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