Court Opinion

ID: 9584846
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:53:14.663883+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:53.821653
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Chief Judge,
concurring specially.
1. There are a number of material factual disputes in this case, so we must take the evidence in favor of the verdict and assume that those disputes were resolved in accordance with plaintiff’s version of the event. Warren v. Cox, 168 Ga. App. 818, 819 (3) (310 SE2d 569) (1983). The trial took several days, making it impractical to recite all of this evidence in an opinion. However, several aspects of it are particularly notable.
A young woman in the cafeteria line paid the cashier for her food and went to get a cup of soup adjacent to the coffee machines at the end of the counter. Two men were behind her in the line with their trays, which slide along metal bars parallel to the serving line. As she *180picked up the cup of soup, it slipped from her hand and fell on the floor right in front of the cash register. She picked up the cup but left the soup. The two men who had seen this happen stepped over it and told the cashier that it had to be cleaned up so no one would slip on it, but that was not immediately done. The cashier admitted that, she was supposed to warn people of spills and get them up as soon as possible. She did tell some people coming through the line, but she did not warn plaintiff. Plaintiff was behind several people down the line from the men who saw the spill occur. It is not clear from the record whether this was plaintiff’s first trip through the line, when she brought her tray and the carryout box and paid for her own food before taking it to a table and leaving the box, or whether it was the second time, when she went back to pay for the carryout box and fell. That is, the soup may not have been there the first time she went through the line. Nor is it clear when the paper towels were put on top of the soup or who put them there.
At any rate, plaintiff watched for the cashier to motion her forward to make the second payment, and when she moved ahead, she slipped and fell on soup not covered by the paper towels. The cafeteria was very crowded and the soup was in a shaded area next to a floor baseboard. The jury had the benefit of diagrams which several witnesses referred to in their testimony, but we do not have them. The location and the physical conditions existing at the location when the incident occurred were thus better discernible by its members. They also observed and listened to the witnesses, which we cannot do. The jurors could thus better understand the testimony. This is not like summary judgment, where we review the identical record on which the trial court based its decision and reach our own decision de novo.
The court did not charge on the distraction theory as such, but it did charge on the general principles applicable to slip and fall cases, plain view, the plaintiff’s duty to exercise ordinary care for her own safety, and comparative negligence. The jury, which comprehended the evidence far better than we can and determined the facts which we must accept, by its verdict found no negligence on plaintiff’s part in that it did not reduce the claimed damages by any amount whatsoever. This is a close case factually and I find no authority to reverse the judgment as to liability.
2. I join in Division 2 of the majority opinion, with respect to damages.
I am authorized to state that Judge Johnson and Judge Blackburn join in this special concurrence.