Court Opinion

ID: 9848420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:19:16.886491+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:17.342726
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
OCGA § 51-3-1 places upon the owner or occupier of land the duty “to exercise ordinary care in keeping the premises and ap*198proaches safe” with regard to invitees. In this case, the injury did not occur on “the premises,” as the invitee fell on land of another, adjacent to the premises. Hence, the issue in the case is the meaning of the term “approaches.”
Decided April 7, 1988
Reconsideration denied April 27, 1988.
Leigh R. Bodner, for appellant.
Thurbert E. Baker, for appellee.
The statute in question came into being as § 3824 of the Civil Code of 1895, and remains unchanged. Viewing the statute in the light of its context, I suggest that, in order to avoid an obvious absurdity, we must understand “premises” to mean property onto which others are invited for specific purposes; and “approaches” to mean that segment of property — owned or occupied by the invitor — that is utilized to enter upon the “premises.” Thus, the owner of a very large tract of land may operate, on a small sector of it, a general store. It is to the store that the public is invited (and not into every sector of the tract), and, in such a case, it is the landowner’s duty to exercise due care in keeping safe that portion of his property through which his customers must approach his business premises.
I say that such an interpretation is necessary to avoid absurdity. An old Chinese proverb holds: “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” And the liability of the invitor, alike, would extend for a thousand miles (or more) to anyone who might come to grief along the way, i.e., along the approaches, however distant, that lead, however remotely, to his premises.
We should not impose upon invitors an unknowable and impossible burden for maintaining an undefined circumference of properties, that, being owned by others, are beyond their legal or physical powers to maintain.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Marshall joins in this dissent.