By: Russell Keener  —  February 9, 2012
 

A Geor­gia wrong­ful death law­suit brought by the rel­a­tives of a woman who was par­tially eaten by an alli­ga­tor at an exclu­sive res­i­den­tial and golf resort near Savan­nah, ques­tions the extent of landowner lia­bil­ity for the actions of wild animals.

Heirs of Gwyneth Williams, a woman who died in 2007, filed a wrong­ful death law­suit against The Land­ings, a golf and res­i­den­tial resort on Ski­d­away Island near Savan­nah, the Atlanta Jour­nal Con­sti­tu­tion reported.

The Supreme Court of Geor­gia has been hear­ing the case this week, includ­ing the grue­some details of the victim’s death. An autopsy found she died of mas­sive bleed­ing caused by an attack from the 130-pound alli­ga­tor. Williams’ heirs asked the Geor­gia Supreme Court on Feb. 6, 2012, to rule that the asso­ci­a­tion should have taken steps to remove the alli­ga­tor from the community.

The counter argu­ment put for­ward by the home­own­ers asso­ci­a­tion and the golf course, is that they should not be held liable for wild ani­mals that wan­der onto their prop­erty. Lawyers for the landown­ers argued it would be almost impos­si­ble to reg­u­late wild ani­mals get­ting onto the property.

As expe­ri­enced Geor­gia (GA) wrong­ful death lawyers, we are appalled by the cir­cum­stances of this case and our thoughts are with the fam­ily mem­bers who have taken on this upscale prop­erty in the court room.

This Savan­nah wrong­ful death law­suit that has made head­lines, goes beyond the claim that staff were lax in allow­ing gators onto the prop­erty.  Ms Williams’ fam­ily claimed the own­ers of the island cre­ated a sys­tem of more than 150 lagoons and water­ways to drain the water from low-lying areas. While this may have allowed hun­dreds of peo­ple to live in the area, it also made it a pop­u­lar haunt for gators. Were they putting res­i­dents and vis­i­tors in peril?

Lawyers act­ing for the fam­ily argued gators sun­ning them­selves  and prowl­ing around were a com­mon sight, and the resort failed to take action.

The landown­ers say they are pro­tected by a long-held legal doc­trine that pro­tects landown­ers from a wild ani­mal that wan­ders onto the prop­erty. They argued aggres­sive alli­ga­tors were removed.

As an Atlanta wrong­ful death attor­ney, I am watch­ing this case closely. In recent weeks we have seen the issue of lia­bil­ity of a landowner or the man­ager of a real estate com­plex for actions that take place on the prop­erty, come under the microscope.

In another wrong­ful death case in Ten­nessee, for exam­ple, the fam­ily of slain bas­ket­ball star Tina Stew­art has added the Raiders Cross­ing Apart­ments as well as its man­age­ment com­pany to a $20 mil­lion wrong­ful death law­suit it filed against the woman accused of killing her, WSMV reported.

Lawyers act­ing for Stewart’s fam­ily say an off duty police offi­cer who was work­ing at the apart­ment com­plex failed to get the police involved when the defen­dant was caught smok­ing mar­i­juana before the killing.

Both of these cases have the poten­tial to test the bound­aries of the degree of lia­bil­ity on landown­ers or prop­erty man­agers in their respec­tive states.