Court Opinion

ID: 9570325
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:22:19.732859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:44.299401
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
While concurring fully with the majority opinion, it might be added the better practice, in cases as here, would be for installer-repairman employees who are required to enter into homes of customers be more closely checked, observed, screened and interviewed by employers as to any outward manifestation of dangerous propensities relating to aggression or violence. We know of no requirement of compulsory psychological periodic blanket testing and counseling of all of one’s employees. In fact, were this to be done by employers, without the employees’ consent, serious First Amendment individual rights of privacy and other employee *669constitutional and civil rights1 might be at issue.
Even an owner of a dog is not liable for an injury to another unless knowledge of prior propensities or a penchant to bite or attack by the dog exists. See Turner v. Irvin, 146 Ga. App. 218 (246 SE2d 127) (1978). The same type theory or a form of negligent entrustment obtains here with respect to hiring or retaining an employee without any prior knowledge of overaggressiveness, violent or criminal propensities or tendencies. Unless there exists present knowledge by the employer (owner) of prior propensities, aggression and violence (to bite), there can be no liability.
In psychological interviews seeking to pinpoint the origin and sources of negative, antisocial, violent propensities of aggression2 of humans, most alleged experts usually concentrate in only two areas: Nature (instinctivism — heredity — innateness) or Nurture (behaviorism — environment — society). While nature-nurture-norms may well influence what happens to us, the criminal law of Georgia, OCGA § 16-2-4 (Code Ann. § 26-603), recognizes a third area it considers of prime importance, that is, a consideration of and the presumption of voluntary free will and the resulting responsibility of paying the penalty for our wrongful criminal acts committed. Many times psychological testing by alleged experts obscures and ignores any reference to the latter area since the voluntary free will of humans is considered and thought by many as unpredictable and, therefore, empirically unscientific. The law presumes, on the other hand, that all humans know right from wrong, as to their acts committed; therefore, the latter area of voluntary will under our criminal code needs to be again emphasized, that the actor is to blame, in all psychological counseling as to aggression, and the former two nature-nurture-norms need to be deemphasized, as they suggest someone else is to blame other than the actor. Concentrating only on nature and nurture norms in psychological testing is counter productive to encouraging all citizens in upholding restrictions that certain conduct is wrong as set forth in *670our juvenile and criminal code and in the reduction of criminal acts of violence and aggression.

 20 USCA§ 1232h, prohibits required psychological testing of students without written parental consent where the primary purpose seeks to reveal family political, economic, sexual, mental and other privileged information; and see “Manipulation and the New Elite,” How Should We Then Live?, Francis A. Schaeffer, 1976, Fleming Revell Co., Old Tappan, N. J., p. 228.

 “The Aggression Syndrome,” Georgia State Bar Journal, Vol. 9, May 1973, Number 4, p. 451, by H. Newcomb Morse; The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, 1973, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, N. Y., by Erich Fromm; and On Aggression by Dr. Konrad Lorenz, 1966.