Court Opinion

ID: 9579524
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:55:55.904345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:34.367015
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellee has argued in part on motion for rehearing that this court has adopted an “objective” standard for determining the applicability of assumption of the risk to product liability actions. This is a misinterpretation of our holding in this case. As we have pointed out, it is appellee’s admitted knowledge of the alleged product defect and his admitted appreciation of the danger associated therewith that bar him from recovery against Whirlpool. It is appellee’s admitted knowledge, and not the obviousness, from an objective standpoint, of the hazard resulting in the subject incident that forms the basis of our holding^
The application of the assumption of the risk doctrine has been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in Deere & Co. v. Brooks, 250 Ga. 517 (299 SE2d 704), which overruled Division 1 of Brooks v. Douglas, cited in Division 5 above. Although Deere & Co. involved a different form of assumption of the risk, the Supreme Court recognized that “[i]n most product-liability cases, the manufacturer’s defense will be that the plaintiff assumed the risk that the defect in the product would produce the injury sustained by using it with actual knowledge *104of the defect.” Id., p. 520. Since the record in this case establishes without genuine issue such knowledge on the part of appellee, he is precluded from recovery.