# Coggin v. Starke Bros. Realty Co., Inc.

> Supreme Court of Alabama · December 2, 1980 · 391 So. 2d 111

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9936578

## Case

- **Full name:** Marguerite G. Coggin v. Starke Brothers Realty Company, Inc., and Bragg Apartments.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Alabama
- **Decided:** December 2, 1980
- **Citations:** 391 So. 2d 111
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Maddox
- **Judges:** Jones, Maddox
- **Cited by:** 30 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9936578

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- noting that tenants are invitees of the landlord while using common areas on the landlord's property

## Opinion text

Deciding these summary judgment cases involving negligence claims, in which the *Page 114
scintilla rule must be applied, and in which summary judgment is rarely appropriate, is like steering the ship of justice on a course between the rocky shore of Scylla and the whirlpool of Charybdis. The law says that a plaintiff should be able to state what actually caused the injury. Folmar v. Montgomery Fair Company, Inc. , 293 Ala. 686 , 309 So.2d 818 (1975), (Maddox, J., dissenting). On the other hand, a plaintiff who shows a condition which a jury could find was unsafe, and who further shows the relationship of the parties and other evidence from which a jury could find a lack of due care, and that the alleged injury was proximately caused thereby, is entitled to have a jury, which has been properly instructed on the law by the court, decide the issues in the case. Winn-Dixie v. Godwin , Ala., 349 So.2d 37 (1977).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9936578. Public record. Not legal advice.