Court Opinion

ID: 9621922
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:09:16.738901+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:23:36.344019
License: Public Domain

BARNES, Judge,
concurring specially.
While I agree that the trial court properly granted summary judgment to the contractor and architect in this case, I do not agree with all that is said, and thus I concur specially.1 The fact that the plaintiff did not know how she came to fall through the ceiling tiles is not dispositive here. The law cannot require someone who sustained brain damage after falling ten feet because there was no safety rail to prove she fell because there was no safety rail. The cause of her injuries was clearly her fall through the ceiling and it is irrelevant that she did not know if she “slipped, tripped, or fell.” If the architect had included a guard rail in the design and if the design had been completed, the rail would have prevented her from ever reaching the suspended ceiling. And while the absence of the guard rail was obvious and open, the need for one was not, and thus the equal knowledge rule does not apply.
I agree, however, that the trial court did not err in granting summary judgment to Lyman Davidson Dooley because regardless of how the architectural plans were drafted, the contractor did not finish building out the space. To find Lyman Davidson Dooley liable we would have to assume that the structure would have been built to the architect’s specifications and also assume that no one would have recognized the need for safety features before construction ended. But the contractor never got to the point where someone might have addressed the safety issue because he was fired or withdrew before the job was finished. Under these peculiar facts, because Zeimaran cannot show that Lyman Davidson Dooley’s design proximately *452caused or allowed her to fall, I agree that Lyman Davidson Dooley was entitled to summary judgment.
Decided February 16, 2010
Reconsideration denied April 7, 2010
Henry, Spiegel & Milling, Roberts C. Milling II, Marla M. Eastwood, for appellant.
Mabry & McClelland, Walter B. McClelland, Greenfield, Bost & Kliros, Michael W Lord, Todd C. Gould, for appellees.
We need not reach the issue of proximate cause or equal access in considering the summary judgment granted to Commercial Concepts because Zeimaran released any claims against the contractor. While Zeimaran argues that she only released existing claims, not claims arising after she signed the release, the document by its terms applies to “any and all claims . . . and future claims or causes of action” against Commercial Concepts. This is a sufficiently general release to cover both contractual and negligence claims, and thus the contractor is entitled to summary judgment on that ground.
For these reasons, I concur specially in the majority opinion.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Miller joins in this opinion.

 Because I do not agree with all that is said, this opinion is physical precedent only. Court of Appeals Rule 33 (a).