Court Opinion

ID: 9577921
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:39:26.596639+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:29.452528
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
dissenting.
1. I do not disagree with the majority’s discussion in Division 1. The common law has developed over the centuries on a case-by-case approach. It has concerned itself with actual controversies between parties in court, rather than with the formulation of relational structures. The common law reflects the experience of the past through its respect for precedents. Yet it has always advanced new rules when circumstances change.
We could, therefore, conclude that these plaintiffs would not *95have suffered their alleged injuries but for the selection by the owners of a management company, which in turn selected a security agency, which in turn hired agents, who were the alleged tortfeasors, as the chain of causality links the property owners to the plaintiffs. The question is whether it should be our policy to link the owners to the plaintiffs by liability, as well. See dissent, McAuley v. Wills, 251 Ga. 3, 7 (303 SE2d 258) (1983). That is a policy matter.
Decided March 14, 1985.
Greene, Buckley, DeRieux & Jones, Alfred B. Adams III, Schaune C. Griffin, for appellants.
Ragsdale, Beals, Hooper & Seigler, D. Kent Beals, L. Penn Spell, Jr., Cynthia B. Somervill, for appellees (case nos. 40959 and 40960).
Dwight L. Thomas, for appellee (case no. 40961).
2. In my opinion, the majority makes an error in going beyond the scope of OCGA §§ 51-2-4 and 51-2-5. Consider the following suppositions:
(a) A householder telephones a pizzeria for home delivery. The deliveryman who fills the order intentionally runs over a dog. The dog’s owner may recover from the householder.
(b) A homeowner retains a broker to sell his house. The broker hires a roofing company to replace a loose shingle. The roofer becomes engaged in an altercation with a neighbor and strikes him with a hammer. The homeowner is now liable for the injury.
(c) A bank hires an armored car company to transport cash. The driver of the armored car robs another bank. The first bank is now responsible for all damages arising out of the robbery.
We make a mistake to discard clear principles, based upon sound reasoning, which have been our law for many decades.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Justice Marshall joins in this dissent.