Court Opinion

ID: 9582185
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:23:36.770107+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:30.886180
License: Public Domain

McMurray, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur in the judgment of affirmance but not for the reasons stated in the majority opinion.
However, I do agree fully with the majority that the language of the lease or rental contract is not ambiguous. But I simply do not agree that the law of Georgia should be changed drastically by the overruling of the various cases therein mentioned so as to create public policy different from that already established. However, I in no degree accept the opinions expressed in the dissents.
We are no longer involved in issue pleadings but are now concerned with notice pleadings. We cannot simply decide the petition is subject to general demurrer and dismiss the complaint. Construing the pleadings against the pleader is now obsolete since the enactment of the Civil Practice Act. Ellington v. Tolar Const. Co., 237 Ga. 235, 237 (227 SE2d 336). It is true that in no less than four or five instances the plaintiff pleads positively that the defendant was lacking in ordinary care and diligence in the rental of this apartment. Yet it is quite evident from the facts alleged that the plaintiff may be (that is, if the jury so finds) able to prove that the defendant has failed to exercise slight care for the protection of the tenants. It could be that the defendant was guilty of wilful and wanton conduct in the rental of this defective and dangerous *222apartment to the plaintiff so as to amount to a greater degree of culpability than that of mere gross negligence. The pleadings, by the facts, imply this even though the pleader again and again refers to defendant’s conduct as mere simple negligence or as a failure to exercise ordinary care. See such cases as Frye v. Pyron, 51 Ga. App. 613 (3) (181 SE 142); Brady v. Glosson, 87 Ga. App. 476, 480 (74 SE2d 253), and cases cited therein. We must look at the substance of the pleadings and not mere nomenclature. Girtman v. Girtman, 191 Ga. 173, 180 (4) (11 SE2d 782); Chance v. Planters Rural Tel. Cooperative, 219 Ga. 1, 5 (131 SE2d 541), and cits. Issues of negligence, simple or gross, or wilful and wanton conduct, all lie peculiarly within the province of the jury to determine. See Powell v. Berry, 145 Ga. 696, 697 (2-c) (89 SE 753); Hanchey v. Hart, 120 Ga. App. 677, 680 (171 SE2d 918).
The trial court did not err in denying the motion for judgment on the pleadings. I would affirm the judgment, and to this degree I concur in the judgment reached by the majority.
I, therefore, concur in the judgment only.