October 23, 2024.  The Georgia Court of Appeals Affirmed the grant of Summary Judgment won by Partner Joseph Kaiser and Senior Associate Attorney Davis Lackey in the State Court of DeKalb County.

This case arose out of an incident that occurred on or about July 1, 2020 in which the Plaintiff alleged that he was riding his bicycle when the front wheel came off, causing Plaintiff to sustain serious injuries. The Plaintiff purchased the bicycle from a sporting goods store in April 2020.  A month later, on May 13, 2020 he took the bicycle to Mr. Kaiser and Mr. Lackey’s client’s bicycle shop BKLYN Tech Bicycles for a tune-up and a rear derailleur replacement.  Plaintiff contended that the Defendant was the only person to have worked on the bike or had possession of it other than himself, so the incident must have been the result of a faulty repair by BKLYN Tech.  Following the incident, the Plaintiff discarded the bicycle so it was unavailable for physical inspection.  Plaintiff brought claims based upon ordinary negligence, negligence per se and Res Ipsa Loquitor.  Judge Wayne Purdom of the State Court of DeKalb County granted summary judgment in favor of Mr. Kaiser & Mr. Lackey’s client.

The Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Purdom’s grant of Summary Judgment, finding specifically that the claims of negligence per se brought under 16 CFR 1512 fail because the CFR only pertains to manufacturers of bicycles, not business repairing bicycles after they have been released to the consumer by the manufacturer.  The Court also affirmed that the claims of ordinary negligence were not supported by any evidence of negligence and that the Res Ipsa Loquitor claims were defeated by the plaintiff’s own testimony that six weeks had passed between the date the Plaintiff picked up his bike from BKLYN Tech and the date of the alleged incident.

The State Court case is Kevin Lamar Crawford v. BKLYN Tech Bicycles and Howard Dunbar, State Court of DeKalb County, CAFN 22A:02446-3.

The Court of Appeals Case number is A24A1007, the Opinion can be downloaded here.

Read more about Partner Joseph Kaiser here.

Read more about Attorney Davis Lackey here.

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