## Facts

- Marguerite G. Coggin, a 68-year-old tenant, leased an apartment in Montgomery, Alabama, beginning in June 1978.
- The apartment’s back steps were part of a common area used by tenants and were steep, narrow, and lacked a handrail.
- After moving in, Coggin observed long iron railings leaning against the exterior walls of the building.
- Coggin initially used the front steps most of the time but began using the back steps more frequently after a theft from her car parked in front of the building.
- On February 8, 1979, Coggin fell down the back steps and suffered a broken arm and other injuries requiring hospitalization.
- Coggin alleged the defendants, as landlord/property manager and owner, knew or should have known the steps were dangerous and failed to correct the condition.

## Issues

1. Whether the landlord owed a duty to use reasonable care to maintain the common-area back steps in a reasonably safe condition for tenants.
2. Whether the evidence created a genuine issue of material fact (under Alabama’s scintilla rule) that the landlord breached that duty and that the breach proximately caused Coggin’s injuries, making summary judgment improper.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Alabama reversed the summary judgment for the defendants and remanded.
- The court held Coggin presented at least a scintilla of evidence on duty, breach, and proximate cause.
- The condition of the stairs (steep, narrow, and without a handrail), together with the presence of unused railings on the premises, permitted reasonable inferences that the landlord failed to exercise reasonable care in maintaining a common area.
- Although Coggin could not identify a precise triggering mechanism for the fall, circumstantial evidence permitted a jury to find the absence of a handrail and the stair condition were a proximate cause of the fall and resulting injuries.

## Legal Principles

- A landlord retaining control over common areas has a duty to exercise reasonable care to keep those areas reasonably safe for tenants and others lawfully on the premises.
- To defeat summary judgment in Alabama negligence actions, a plaintiff must produce at least a scintilla of evidence supporting essential elements, including duty, breach, and proximate cause.
- Proximate cause in premises cases may be shown through circumstantial evidence; direct proof of the exact initiating event is not always required when the condition itself supports a reasonable inference of causation.
- Summary judgment is improper when reasonable inferences from the record could support the nonmovant on a material factual question.

## Conclusion

The court held that evidence of dangerous common-area stairs lacking a handrail—along with indications the landlord recognized the need for a railing—was sufficient under the scintilla standard to require a jury determination on landlord negligence and causation.


Coggin v. Starke Bros. Realty Co., 391 So. 2d 111 (Ala. 1980)