SMRE Roswell SPE, LLC v. Melgar (Off-Duty Officer's Mistaken Unit Raid Revives Premises-Liability Claims)

Premises Liability Ruling Issued
Date
November 3, 2026
Added to tracker
November 4, 2026
Court or forum
Court of Appeals of Georgia
State
Georgia
Presiding judge
Jeffrey R. Davis
Property type
Multifamily
Amount / scale
Not stated; punitive damages and attorney-fee claims reinstated for two plaintiffs
Parties
Owner/Defendant: SMRE Roswell SPE, LLC

Georgia's Court of Appeals revived premises-liability and punitive-damages claims against apartment owner SMRE Roswell SPE after an off-duty officer working as the complex's security wrongly raided an occupied unit using an outdated vacancy list.

The Georgia Court of Appeals on November 3, 2026 partially reversed summary judgment that had favored apartment owner SMRE Roswell SPE, LLC in a suit arising from a June 2022 incident in which an off-duty Roswell police officer, moonlighting as the Roswell Creek Apartments' part-time security guard, used an outdated vacancy list to mistakenly identify an occupied, rented unit as vacant, prompting fellow officers to force entry with weapons drawn and detain two residents. In three companion decisions, the court revived premises-liability and punitive-damages claims for two of the three plaintiffs while affirming dismissal of battery, trespass and contract-based negligence claims, and left intact the trial court's refusal to dismiss a false-imprisonment claim against the ownership.

Why it matters

The ruling shows multifamily owners who staff off-duty police officers for complex security remain exposed to premises-liability and punitive-damages claims when the occupancy information those officers rely on turns out to be wrong, regardless of the officer's separate law-enforcement status. It signals that Georgia courts will let punitive-damages exposure reach a jury once evidence shows the owner's own records, not just the responding officers' conduct, caused the harm.

Original source ↗
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The Georgia Court of Appeals has partially revived a multifamily owner's premises-liability and punitive-damages exposure arising from a security arrangement that relied on the property's own outdated records. In a trio of companion opinions issued November 3, 2026 in SMRE Roswell SPE, LLC v. Melgar, Case Nos. A26A1353, A26A1354 and A26A1355, the court reversed summary judgment the trial court had granted the owner of the Roswell Creek Apartments on two residents' premises-liability and punitive-damages claims, affirmed dismissal of their battery, trespass and contract-based negligence claims, and left standing the trial court's separate refusal to dismiss a false-imprisonment claim, which proceeds to trial regardless of the outcome on the other counts.

Case timeline · 2 entries Latest: November 3, 2026 — Georgia Court of Appeals revives premises-liability and punitive-damages claims for two plaintiffs and keeps the false-imprisonment claim alive, remanding the case

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