Court Opinion

ID: 9569376
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:13:14.509122+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:53:09.002730
License: Public Domain

Blackburn, Judge,
concurring specially.
Although I generally concur with the majority opinion that summary judgment for the defendant was improper, some additional comments may be appropriate.
In this case, the defendant’s superior knowledge of the hazard in question actually appears to be unrefuted. Specifically, after the plaintiff fell, the attendant on duty admitted knowing that an earlier customer had spilled kerosene where the water hose was, and that the combination of kerosene and water was like “wet ice.” Further, although she feared that somebody would slip and fall on the mixture, she did not have time to clean it up. Compared to that attendant’s informed knowledge of the particularly slippery substance, and fear of the specific danger it presented to the station’s patrons, was the plaintiff’s awareness of a wet spot that looked “oily.”
In Flood v. Camp Oil Co., 201 Ga. App. 451 (411 SE2d 348) (1991), where the attendant’s constructive knowledge of the mixture of diesel fuel and rain water on the pavement was compared to the plaintiff’s awareness of wet pavement due to the rain, this court found that a jury question existed as to whether the plaintiff’s knowledge of the hazard was equal to or greater than the defendant’s. Flood is so similar to the instant case as to be indistinguishable.
In my view, the attendant’s specific knowledge of the especially *746slippery mixture of kerosene and water on the pavement near the fuel pumps, her awareness of the risk it presented to customers, along with her deliberately subjecting patrons to that risk by not taking the time to clean up the substance, comes close to the “clear and convincing evidence” of an entire want of care that raises a presumption of conscious indifference to consequences sufficient to authorize imposition of punitive damages under OCGA § 51-12-5.1. At the minimum, however, when compared to the plaintiff’s knowledge in this case, it certainly cannot be said as a matter of law to be equal to or less than the plaintiff’s knowledge of the hazard. For that reason, summary judgment for the defendant was improper.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge McMurray joins in this special concurrence.