## Facts

- Elizabeth Crankshaw dined at a private club operated by Piedmont Driving Club, Inc., with a group that included Arlene Harris.
- Harris ate shrimp that allegedly had a peculiar odor, became nauseated, and went to the ladies’ restroom.
- Harris vomited just inside the restroom entrance.
- Crankshaw went to the restroom to check on Harris, stepped in the vomit, slipped, and fell, breaking her hip.
- Crankshaw sued the Club for negligence, alleging (1) the Club served unwholesome food to Harris causing the vomiting, and (2) the Club failed to remove or warn of the vomit on the restroom floor.
- The petition did not allege the Club had actual or constructive notice of the vomit; on appeal, Crankshaw effectively abandoned the clean-up/warn theory.
- The trial court sustained the Club’s general demurrer and dismissed the petition.

## Issues

1. Whether the petition stated a negligence claim by alleging that serving unwholesome food to a third person was the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s subsequent slip-and-fall injury.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed the dismissal.
- The court held that the alleged negligence in serving unwholesome food to Harris was not the proximate cause of Crankshaw’s injury.
- The injury was legally too remote because it depended on intervening, contingent events between the food service and Crankshaw’s fall.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant is liable only for damages that are the legal, natural, and probable result of the alleged negligent act; damages that are merely possible and depend on contingent circumstances are too remote.
- Proximate cause fails as a matter of law where the causal chain requires multiple intervening steps such that the plaintiff’s injury is not a natural and probable consequence of the defendant’s conduct.
- A premises-liability theory based on a transient floor hazard generally requires allegations of the proprietor’s actual or constructive notice of the hazard to state a claim.

## Conclusion

The court limited negligence liability to harms that follow as natural and probable consequences of the defendant’s conduct, holding that a patron’s slip and fall on another diner’s vomit was too remote to be proximately caused by the club’s alleged service of unwholesome food to the diner.


Crankshaw v. Piedmont Driving Club, Inc., 115 Ga. App. 820, 156 S.E.2d 208 (Ga. Ct. App. 1967)