## Facts

- Nathaniel Williams stopped at a convenience store and gas station operated by EMRO Marketing Company on a day when temperatures were at or below freezing after earlier rainfall.
- After paying inside and returning to the pumps, Williams slipped and fell on the paved area near the gas pumps.
- Williams did not see what caused the fall but recalled that the surface felt slick.
- A regular customer, Gregory Perkins, assisted Williams and observed that water from a downspout had pooled and frozen in the area where Williams fell.
- Perkins saw ice hanging above the area and, after helping Williams up, picked up a large chunk of ice from the same spot.
- Perkins testified he had often seen the same area become icy on prior visits due to the downspout’s drainage pattern.
- Williams and his wife sued EMRO for negligence under premises-liability theories, alleging the icy condition caused Williams’s injuries.

## Issues

1. Whether the plaintiffs presented sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact that ice was the cause in fact of Williams’s fall, defeating summary judgment on that element.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Georgia reversed the grant of summary judgment for EMRO and remanded.
- The court held the plaintiffs presented enough circumstantial evidence for a jury to find that ice caused the fall.
- The court limited its review to causation because EMRO’s motion attacked only that element; other premises-liability issues were not addressed.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant is entitled to summary judgment only if the record shows no genuine issue of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, including by showing an absence of evidence on an essential element of the plaintiff’s claim.
- On summary judgment, a plaintiff need respond only to the grounds actually raised in the motion, not to unraised elements or the entire case.
- Cause in fact may be proven by circumstantial evidence when the facts support a reasonable, non-speculative inference that the identified condition caused the injury.
- Evidence that a hazardous condition existed at the precise location of the fall immediately before or after the incident may permit a jury inference of causation even if the plaintiff did not personally observe the substance at the moment of the fall.

## Conclusion

The court held that witness observations of ice at the exact spot of the fall, made immediately after the incident and supported by weather and recurring drainage conditions, created a triable issue on causation; summary judgment for the premises owner on “no evidence of cause in fact” was improper.


Williams v. EMRO Mktg. Co., 229 Ga. App. 468, 494 S.E.2d 218 (Ct. App. Ga. 1997)