Court Opinion

ID: 9593344
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:21:46.16628+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:20.566990
License: Public Domain

Jordan, Judge,
dissenting. It is apparent from reading the majority opinion that the evidence is conflicting in several particulars, yet the jury in considering the entire testimony of all the witnesses was authorized to conclude that the plaintiff’s tractor fell into a hole which could have been a stump hole and that such was within the knowledge of the defendant and unknown to the plaintiff; that the plaintiff had been driving this tractor at a slower speed which he considered to be safe and that the defendant expressly directed him to drive the tractor at a faster speed over this particular field after protestation *125from the plaintiff; and that the defendant also knew of the wet and boggy condition of a portion of this field due to recent heavy rains.
Such authorized conclusions from the evidence clearly bring this case within the holding in Bush v. West Yellow Pine Co., 2 Ga. App. 295 (58 SE 529), Headnote 2 which reads as follows: "While ordinarily the law reads into contracts of employment an agreement on the servant’s part to assume the known risks of the employment, so far as he has the capacity to realize and comprehend them, yet this implication may be abrogated by an express or implied contract to the contrary; if the servant complains to the master that the instrumentality appears to be dangerous, and thereupon the master commands him to proceed with the work and assures him there is no danger the law implies a quasi new agreement whereby the master relieves the servant of his former assumption of the risk and places responsibility for resulting injuries upon the master.” This case was followed in Smith v. Southern R. Co., 8 Ga. App. 822 (70 SE 158), the principle being more explicitly stated in the following language: “If the servant states to his master that the performance of a duty in a certain way is likely to be dangerous and to render the place where he is working unsafe, and thereupon the master assures him that the act which he requires him to do is not attended with danger, and the servant, upon this assurance and the implicit command of the master, attempts to do the act which the master suggested could’ safely be done, and, in doing it, is injured, the master is liable, because the law implies a new agreement, superseding the agreement to assume the risk, whereby the master relieves the servant of .his former assumption of the risk, and places the responsibility for the results of his command upon himself.” It was again followed in Massee & Felton Lumber Co. v. Ivey, 12 Ga. App. 583 (77 SE 1130) in which the court expressly declined to overrule the Bush and Smith cases, supra. This court in Borochoff v. Fowler, 98 Ga. App. 411 (105 SE2d 764) again following this line of cases, said at page 416: “Thus, if the servant complains to the master that the instrumentality appears to be dangerous, and thereupon the master commands him to proceed with the work *126and assures him there is no danger, then, unless the danger be so obvious and manifest that no prudent man would expose himself thereto, the law implies a quasi new agreement whereby the master relieves the servant from his former assumption of risk, and places responsibility for resulting injuries upon the master.”
It is one of the absolute, continuous, and non-assignable duties of the master to refrain from giving negligent orders. Pappadea v. Clifton, 96 Ga. App. 115, 122 (99 SE2d 455). While here, there is a conflict in the testimony as to the date on which the defendant gave the plaintiff instructions relative to the speed of the tractor, the jury was authorized to find that such instructions were in fact given and that the speed at which the tractor was being driven as directed by the defendant was the proximate cause of the injury to the plaintiff.
Under my view of the evidence, jury questions were presented as to whether or not the assumption of risk by the servant was abrogated by express direction of the master and whether or not the defendant failed to furnish the plaintiff a safe place in which to work. The trial court therefore erred in sustaining the defendant’s motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
I am authorized to state that Nichols, P. J., Bell, P. J., and Hall, J., concur in this dissent.