## Facts

- Potts, an employee of Colonial Stores, was unloading a shipment of bananas when he was bitten by a spider and alleged personal injuries.
- The bananas had been distributed locally by Fidelity Fruit & Produce Co., Inc.; a separate company transported the shipment.
- Potts sued Fidelity asserting (1) ordinary negligence and (2) negligence per se based on alleged violations of the Georgia Food Act (food adulteration/misbranding provisions).
- During litigation, Potts conceded the evidence could not support ordinary negligence, leaving only negligence per se against Fidelity.
- The trial court granted summary judgment to Fidelity, concluding Potts was not within the class protected by the Georgia Food Act.
- Potts appealed the summary judgment ruling.

## Issues

1. Whether an alleged violation of the Georgia Food Act can constitute negligence per se for a worker injured by a spider bite while unloading bananas.
2. Whether Potts was within the class of persons the Georgia Food Act was intended to protect and whether his injury was the type of harm the Act was intended to prevent.

## Decision

- The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for Fidelity.
- The court held the Georgia Food Act is a consumer-protection statute aimed at preventing sale and distribution of adulterated or misbranded food to consumers, not at workplace safety.
- Potts, injured while handling produce at work and not in connection with consuming the bananas, was outside the statute’s protected class and suffered a harm outside the statute’s scope.
- Because the statute did not apply to Potts’s situation, any statutory violation could not support negligence per se as a matter of law.

## Legal Principles

- A statutory or ordinance violation constitutes negligence per se only if (1) the plaintiff is within the class the legislation intended to protect and (2) the injury is the type of harm the legislation intended to prevent.
- The purpose of the Georgia Food Act is to protect consumers from adulterated or misbranded foods entering commerce; it does not create workplace-safety duties to workers handling food products.
- When the plaintiff’s harm is unrelated to the statute’s consumer-focused aim (e.g., a workplace injury not incident to consumption), the statute cannot supply the duty element for negligence per se, supporting summary judgment.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed summary judgment for the distributor because the Georgia Food Act’s consumer-protection purpose did not extend to a grocery worker’s spider-bite injury incurred while unloading produce, so the Act could not serve as the basis for negligence per se.


Potts v. Fidelity Fruit & Produce Co., 165 Ga. App. 546, 301 S.E.2d 903 (Ga. Ct. App. 1983)