Court Opinion

ID: 9598993
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:13:43.824599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:10.161298
License: Public Domain

*471Ruffin, Judge,
concurring specially.
Once again this Court enters the bottomless and ugly abyss of “slip and fall.” It is as though we have encountered a slippery slope and cannot regain our proper footing. Our decisions in this area oftentimes raise more questions than they settle, or more graphically, they cause a thirst which they cannot quench; they spawn a hunger which they cannot satisfy. A review of our past decisions offers neither retrospective understanding nor current comfort.
Summary judgment, once thought to be the cure, is now the disease. It is now a problem masquerading as a solution. But it is not the fault of our trial judges; it is not that trial judges have not caught up with our instructions; and it is not that trial judges have exceeded our instructions. Rather, the infirmity is in our instructions. But one instruction is quite clear to the trial judges in slip and fall cases on a motion for summary judgment:
You can and you can’t,
You shall and you shan’t,
You will and you won’t,
You’ll be damned if you do,
And you’ll be damned if you don’t.1
The issue of whether an owner has breached a duty of care is generally to be decided by a jury. Lau’s Corp v. Haskins, 261 Ga. 491, 493 (2) (405 SE2d 474) (1991). Summary judgment is appropriate only when the court, (1) viewing all the facts, (2) and the reasonable inferences from those facts, (3) in a light most favorable to the non-moving party, (4) concludes that the evidence does not create a triable issue as to any essential element of the case. Id. at 495. It is only in “plain and palpable cases where ‘reasonable minds cannot differ as to the conclusion to be reached’ ” that the court may decide such an issue without a jury. (Citation omitted.) Id. at 493 (2).
That principle is good law, succinctly stated, but is apparently difficult to apply. The facts in the instant case, and our inability to form a consensus as to the propriety of summary judgment, demonstrate precisely why the issue at hand should be decided by a jury. The critical question here is, “what substance caused Williams to slip and fall?”
1. Not surprisingly, the facts are not in dispute. It rained the day before Williams’ fall. Rainwater from the canopy over the gasoline pumps flowed out of a down spout and onto the paved surface where Williams fell. The temperature overnight reached about 20 degrees. Williams slipped and fell, never actually seeing any ice, but recalling the sensation of a slick surface beneath his feet. Following his fall, *472Williams did not notice that his clothes were wet. Although Williams did not know the outside temperature when he fell, the person who assisted him noted icicles hanging above Williams and stated that he assisted him from the iced area.
2. We must construe in Williams’ favor all the reasonable inferences from these facts. Id. A jury could reasonably infer that the rainwater from the previous evening flowed out the downspout onto the ground where Williams was standing and, like the water turned to icicles on the canopy, froze to form a slick icy surface. Williams slipped on this ice, accounting for his recollection of a slick surface and the evidence showing he was assisted from an iced area. Williams’ clothes were not wet because, like the ice on the canopy, the ice where he fell had not melted sufficiently to form water which could cause his clothes to become wet.
3. We must view the foregoing facts and inferences in a light most favorable to Williams. Clearly, as pointed out by the dissent, there are numerous other substances on which Williams might have slipped. But by speculating that Williams did in fact slip on some other substance, the dissent does not view the evidence and the reasonable inferences in Williams’ favor, as required on a motion for summary judgment.
4. Contrary to the findings of the dissent, the majority has not relied on speculation or shifted the burden from Williams to show what caused him to slip. Rather, the majority, pursuant to Lau’s Corp., has relied on the reasonable inferences discussed in Division 2 of this special concurrence, in a light most favorable to Williams as stated in Division 3.
Furthermore, it is not the majority that has shifted the burden; rather, it is the dissent. The majority has properly found that summary judgment was inappropriate because there remained a fact question to be resolved by a jury. Contrary to the dissent’s position, Williams, as the respondent, was not required to point to evidence “demanding] a conclusion that ice caused [his] slip and fall.” Williams was required only to “point to specific evidence giving rise to a triable issue.” Id. at 491. This Williams did.
As is evidenced by the differing minds of the judges of this Court, the facts before us concerning the substance on which Williams slipped are not plain and palpable. See id. at 493. Reasonable minds have differed as to the conclusion to be reached. See id. Thus, this is not a case where the court may decide the issue without a jury. See id. Accordingly, I concur with the majority.

 Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834), revivalist preacher denouncing orthodox Calvinism.