Steven E. Williams v. QUIKTRIP Corporation

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 19-13719
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:18-cv-01332-MHC

STEVEN E. WILLIAMS,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

QUIKTRIP CORPORATION,

Defendant-Appellee.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
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(June 2, 2020)
Before WILSON, JORDAN, and NEWSOM, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:
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After he slipped and fell while pumping gas, Steven Williams filed suit
against QuikTrip Corporation, alleging that his injuries were the result of
QuikTrip’s failure to exercise ordinary care. The district court granted QuikTrip’s
motion for summary judgment, holding that Williams failed to present enough
evidence to create a disputed issue of material fact over whether a hazardous
condition caused his injures. Williams now appeals. Because guesses and
speculations about what caused his fall are not enough to create a disputed issue of
material fact, we affirm.
I.
We assume the parties’ familiarity with the facts and will thus dive into the
merits. We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing
all evidence and factual inferences reasonably drawn from the evidence in the light
most favorable to the non-moving party. Burton v. Tampa Hous. Auth., 271 F.3d
1274, 1276–77 (11th Cir. 2001). Summary judgment is appropriate “if the movant
shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is
entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). “By its very terms,
this standard provides that the mere existence of some alleged factual dispute
between the parties will not defeat an otherwise properly supported motion for
summary judgment; the requirement is that there be no genuine issue of material
fact.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 247–48 (1986).
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Under Georgia law, when “an owner or occupier of land, by express or
implied invitation, induces or leads others to come upon his premises for any
lawful purpose, he is liable in damages to such persons for injuries caused by his
failure to exercise ordinary care in keeping the premises and approaches safe.”
1

O.C.G.A.
§ 51-3-1. To prevail, plaintiffs in premises-liability actions must show
“(i) the existence of a defective or hazardous condition on the premises; (ii) that
the defendant had either actual or constructive knowledge of this condition; and
(iii) that the plaintiff had no knowledge of the condition, despite the exercise of
ordinary care.” Warner v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 741 S.E.2d 270, 273 (Ga. Ct.
App. 2013).
When a “plaintiff cannot show the existence of a hazardous condition, []he
cannot prove the cause of h[is] injuries and there can be no recovery because an
essential element of negligence cannot be proven.” Glynn-Brunswick Mem. Hosp.
Auth. v. Benton, 693 S.E.2d 566, 568 (Ga. Ct. App. 2010) (internal quotation mark
omitted). “[P]roof of a fall, without more, does not give rise to liability on the part
of a proprietor.” Sunlink Health Sys., Inc. v. Pettigrew, 649 S.E.2d 532, 534 (Ga.
Ct. App. 2007). A plaintiff must at least offer some evidence that the condition of
the location where the incident occurred “constituted an unreasonable risk of
harm.” Flagstar Enters., Inc. v. Burch, 600 S.E.2d 834, 836 (Ga. Ct. App. 2004).

1
The district court had jurisdiction in this case under 28 U.S.C. § 1332. Georgia’s law applies.
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And he must do such without using “[g]uesses or speculation” that “raise merely a
conjecture or possibility,” as they “are not sufficient to create even an inference of
fact for consideration on summary judgment.” Brown v. Amerson, 469 S.E.2d 723,
725 (Ga. Ct. App. 1996).
Here, none of the evidence to which Williams points is sufficient to create a
question of fact over the existence of a hazardous condition. We consider the
purported evidence separately. First, in his deposition, Williams testified that,
though he was undistracted and concentrating on his surroundings, he did not
notice any substance on the ground before his fall. Specifically, Williams averred
that the area “was slippery,” but when probed on this point, he testified that he
thought there was a substance that caused him to slip but could not identify the
substance and did not notice any substance on his clothing after his fall. At one
point in his deposition, Williams admitted that he could not name any reason for
why he fell aside from “gravity.” This deposition testimony shows that Williams
is relying on impermissible “guesses or speculation,” as his statements raise only
the possibility of a hazard or unsafe condition. See Burch, 600 S.E.2d at 836;
Benton, 693 S.E.2d at 569 (holding that plaintiff—who testified that the floor on
which she slipped and fell was slick, but who could not say why she slipped and
fell, did not see any hazardous substance on the floor, and did not feel anything wet
on her clothing after her fall—could not defeat summary judgment because her
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“testimony was insufficient to create an inference that a hazardous condition, in
fact, existed”).
Second, Williams contends that a photograph, taken at the scene but after his
fall, clearly depicts discoloring of the concrete surface and shows faint footprints.
Even if we agreed that the photograph depicts a hazardous condition, the
photograph was taken some time after Williams’s fall, and Williams provides no
evidence about how soon after the fall the photograph was taken. The photograph,
standing alone, cannot create a genuine dispute of material fact. See City of Macon
v. Brown, 807 S. E.2d 34, 36 (Ga. App. Ct. 2017) (holding that photographs taken
“at one point in time” after an accident could not, without “additional evidence,”
create a genuine issue of material fact).
Finally, Williams also argues that a report written by a QuikTrip employee
on the day of his fall, proves the existence of a hazardous condition. The employee
wrote:
Customer came inside and told me that a[nother] customer had fallen at
the pump. I went outside and asked the gentleman [Williams] what
exactly happened. He said he had been pumping his gas and was going
to get back into the car when he fell. He doesn’t know what exactly
caused him to fall. I noticed there was some water on the ground and I
asked him about that. He said the water wasn’t there before he fell but
it was there now.

We fail to see how this report establishes a hazardous condition. If water
was present after Williams’s fall, that is not proof that it was there before or even
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that it was the cause of his injury. Moreover, consistent with his later deposition
testimony, Williams told the QuikTrip employee that he did not know what caused
him to slip and fall and said that the water was not on the ground before his fall.
This report, then, like the photograph and Williams’s deposition testimony, is pure
conjecture and cannot be “sufficient to create even an inference of fact for
consideration on summary judgment.” Brown, 469 S.E.2d at 725.
II.
Williams offers three other reasons to reverse the district court’s grant of
summary judgment. First, he argues that the district court erred in finding that his
motion for leave to take the deposition of a QuikTrip store manager was moot.
The manager, Reuben Harrison, attested through affidavit to the authenticity of
certain business records which purported to establish routine inspection of the area
where Williams slipped and fell. QuikTrip presented these business records to
support its argument that it did not have constructive knowledge of a hazardous
condition. The district court, recognizing that actual or constructive knowledge is
the second prong of a premises-liability claim under Georgia law, reasoned that it
need not consider Williams’s motion as he failed to meet the threshold prong—
sufficient evidence of a hazardous condition.
That was the right decision. “[A] district court’s decision to rule on a
summary-judgment motion before all discovery disputes have been resolved” is
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reviewed “for abuse of discretion.” Urquilla-Diaz v. Kaplan Univ., 780 F.3d 1039,
1050 (11th Cir. 2015). When a “plaintiff cannot show the existence of a hazardous
condition, []he cannot prove the cause of h[is] injuries and there can be no
recovery because an essential element of negligence cannot be proven.” Benton,
693 S.E.2d at 568 (internal quotation mark omitted). Since the evidence here was
insufficient to create a question of fact over the threshold existence of a hazardous
condition, the district court did not need to address the latter prongs, and thus did
not abuse its discretion in granting summary judgment for QuikTrip and deeming
Williams’s motion for leave moot.
Second, Williams claims the district court abused its discretion when it
denied his request to delay, postpone, or defer its decision to grant summary
judgment. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(d). We affirm on this issue too because
Williams’s request to defer was part of his motion for leave to take Harrison’s
deposition. In fact, his request to delay was to “allow the parties to resolve any
unresolved discovery issues” related to Harrison’s deposition. Since the business
records were inconsequential, and the issue of whether to depose Harrison was
moot, the court need not have considered whether to defer its decision on summary
judgment.
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Finally, Williams argues that the district court erred in denying his motion
for reconsideration.
2
We review the denial of a motion for reconsideration for
abuse of discretion. Region 8 Forest Serv. Timber Purchasers Council v. Alcock,
993 F.2d 800, 805–06 (11th Cir. 1993). “The only grounds for granting [a motion
for reconsideration] are newly-discovered evidence or manifest errors of law or
fact.” In re Kellogg, 197 F.3d 1116, 1119 (11th Cir. 1999). Parties “cannot use a
. . . motion [for reconsideration] to relitigate old matters, raise argument or present
evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment.” Michael
Linet, Inc. v. Vill. of Wellington, 408 F.3d 757, 763 (11th Cir. 2005). Here, the
district court did not abuse its discretion, as Williams merely sought to relitigate
matters already addressed by the district court and the district court did not commit
errors of law or fact. See id.
* * *
For the reasons stated above, the district court committed no reversible error.
Its decision to grant summary judgment for QuikTrip is therefore AFFIRMED.

2
We treat Williams’s motion for reconsideration as a motion to alter or amend the judgment
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), which he cited in his motion. See, e.g., Inglese v.
Warden, 687 F.2d 362, 363 n.1 (11th Cir. 1982).

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