Fulfill Duty of Extraordinary Care for Elevator Passengers

Be especially diligent about maintaining and repairing elevators in your building. Accidents caused by malfunctioning elevators may expose you to greater liability than typical accidents on your property. That's because the “reasonableness” standard doesn't apply; rather, a heightened standard applies. This means that you must frequently check elevators on your property for problems and repair them immediately. You can be held liable for elevator defects that you knew or should have known about.

Consider the following Georgia case: Two employees were trapped and repeatedly bounced up and down uncontrollably for almost an hour and a half in a malfunctioning elevator in an office building that was owned and managed by a commercial property management company. Both employees needed surgery for injuries they had suffered from the bouncing. They sued the property management company, claiming that it had negligently maintained the elevator.

The property management company contended that the employees had failed to present any evidence that it knew about any defect that may have caused the elevator to malfunction. It argued that it could not be held liable for the injuries because it “had inspection and repair procedures in place and used all reasonable precautions to protect its passengers from harm.”

However, elevator-equipped building owners and managers must exercise extraordinary diligence to protect their passengers or guests. Moreover, an owner and manager could be held liable for even slight negligence in maintaining an elevator in a case like this one.

Here, several witnesses’ testimony that they had reported problems with the elevator, evidence showing repeated incidents with the elevators, and the property management company's records presented questions as to whether the property management company knew or should have known that the elevator was dangerous and failed or neglected to take the proper precautions to prevent or mitigate the employees’ injuries.

• Beach v. B. F. Saul Property Co., March 2010