Court Opinion

ID: 9560026
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:41:38.151487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:59.927160
License: Public Domain

Carley, Judge,
dissenting.
I believe that the trial court correctly granted appellees’ motion for judgment n.o.v. I am also of the opinion that the trial court correctly directed a verdict in favor of appellee as to appellants’ contract claim. Therefore, I must respectfully dissent.
1. “ ‘Actionable negligence does not exist in the absence of the breach of some legal duty. [Cit.]’ [Cits.]” (Emphasis supplied.) Holcombe v. Harris, 143 Ga. App. 173, 176 (237 SE2d 677) (1977). The majority holds that these two elements of duty and breach are sufficiently shown in the instant case. However, actionable negligence cannot be shown by the mere fact that the defendant has failed to com*864ply with his own previous standard of conduct. An act of “negligence” which the law renders actionable is the failure of an individual to conform his conduct to an objective rather than personal standard. “The whole theory of negligence presupposes some uniform standard of behavior .... ‘[T]he standard of conduct which the community demands must be an external and objective one, rather than the individual judgment, good or bad, of the particular actor, and it must be, so far as possible, the same for all persons, since the law can have no favorites.’ ” McNeely v. M. & M. Supermarkets, 154 Ga. App. 675, 676 (269 SE2d 483) (1980). One’s own previous standard of personal conduct may be greater than that demanded by the community, in which case a deviation from that standard would not necessarily demonstrate the existence of negligence. On the other hand, one’s own personal standard may be less than that demanded by the community, in which case adherence to that standard would not demonstrate the absence of negligence.
The objective and uniform standard applicable to appellees in the instant case is as follows: “ ‘The law imposes upon persons performing architectural, engineering, and other professional and skilled services the obligation to exercise a reasonable degree of care, skill and ability, which generally is taken and considered to be such a degree of care and skill as, under similar conditions and like surrounding circumstances, is ordinarily employed by their respective professions’ (Cit.) (Cits.) This standard of care properly is the subject of expert opinion. By analogy with other cases in which recovery has been sought against persons for their negligence in performing skilled services, it was necessary here that plaintiffs establish the standard of care applicable to defendant [s] by the introduction of expert opinion evidence. (Cits.) (Cit.) Expert testimony is required because the court and jury are not permitted to speculate as to the standard against which to measure the acts of the professional in determining whether he exercised a reasonable degree of care. [Cits.]” (Emphasis supplied.) H. Elton Thompson & Assoc. v. Williams, 164 Ga. App. 571, 572 (298 SE2d 539) (1982). As conceded by the majority, there was no evidence of such a standard in the instant case. “If this standard [is] not established by the necessary proof, the trial court [is] justified in the grant of a [directed verdict or judgment n.o.v.] [Cit.]” Covil v. Robert & Co. Assoc., 112 Ga. App. 163, 167 (144 SE2d 450) (1965), rev’d on other grounds, Hagan v. Robert & Co. Assoc., 222 Ga. 469 (150 SE2d 663) (1966).
In my opinion, the majority erroneously equates the bare showing of a causal connection between a defendant-builder’s act and a certain result with a sufficient showing of his negligence. It is true that there was evidence that, contrary to appellees’ assertions, rebar was not used in constructing appellants’ house and that had rebar been *865used, the house would not have cracked. However, without the requisite evidence to authorize the additional finding that, under similar conditions and like circumstances, rebar would ordinarily have been employed by the building profession, there is simply no evidence to authorize a finding that the failure to use rebar in the construction was a deviation from the applicable objective standard and was, therefore, an act of negligence. H. Elton Thompson & Assoc. v. Williams, supra. Appellee Bacon’s testimony that he personally used rebar in previously constructing buildings is not sufficient to show the requisite uniform and objective standard which was breached by his failure to use rebar in appellant’s home. McNeely v. M. & M. Supermarkets, supra. Nor is this a case of “clear and palpable” negligence. A house may have “defects” which are not attributable to its negligent construction. There was evidence in the instant case that the condition of appellants’ house was the result of “expansive soil” rather than negligence in its construction. Accordingly, the mere fact that appellants’ house had “defects” is not evidence of the “clear and palpable” negligence of its builders. Compare Killingsworth v. Poon, 167 Ga. App. 653 (307 SE2d 123) (1983). This being so, absent expert testimony that the failure to employ rebar was, under similar conditions and circumstances, a breach of the requisite standard of care, the jury in the instant case was erroneously permitted “to speculate” as to the correct standard against which to measure appellees’ performance. H. Elton Thompson & Assoc. v. Williams, supra. In my opinion, this erroneous allowance of jury “speculation” was properly rectified by the trial court’s grant of judgment n.o.v.
I do not interpret Holmes v. Worthey, 159 Ga. App. 262 (282 SE2d 919) (1981) as creating a new cause of action against a builder in which it is no longer necessary to show the existence of the first two elements of negligence, to wit: The defendant-builder’s breach of the duty to employ that degree of care and skill as, under similar conditions and like circumstances, would ordinarily be employed by the building profession. “We conclude there is no reason that builders . . . of dwellings should not be held liable for negligence in the proper case.” (Emphasis supplied.) Holmes v. Worthey, supra at 271. In my opinion, to recover under the “passive concealment doctrine” it is still necessary to show the defendant-builder’s “negligent disregard of an obligation to use ordinary care." (Emphasis supplied.) Worthey v. Holmes, 249 Ga. 104, 106 (287 SE2d 9) (1982). If a defendant-builder is liable for the initial failure to disclose a subsequently manifested “defect” in a building even absent any evidence whatsoever that the “defect” is attributable to his failure to exercise ordinary care in the construction of the building, every builder becomes an insurer of his product against all “defects” which the building may subsequently develop. This is not the law. If a builder “ ‘has fully com*866plied with his obligation under the contract both as to materials used and the manner of doing the work, he is not to be accountable for unsatisfactory results.’ ” Kent v. Hunt & Assoc., 165 Ga. App. 169, 170 (299 SE2d 123) (1983).
As I construe the “passive concealment doctrine,” if there is a negligent disregard of the defendant-builder’s duty to exercise ordinary care in the construction of a building and he either actually knew or should have known of this “defect” but the plaintiff-purchaser did not or could not have discovered it, the purchaser may recover for the damage resulting from the builder’s failure to disclose the “defect.” The defendant-builder’s actual knowledge of the “defect” occasioned by his negligent construction is not a prerequisite to a plaintiff-purchaser’s recovery, since caveat emptor is no longer a viable defense to an action for such “latent building construction defects.” Worthey v. Holmes, 249 Ga. at 105. There is, in the instant case, simply no evidence whatsoever that the use of rebar in the construction of appellants’ house was, under the circumstances, the ordinarily reasonable construction technique as would have been employed by the building profession generally.
I cannot construe Holmes v. Worthey as authority for the proposition that a defendant-builder has a duty to disclose his failure to employ any and all possible construction techniques regardless of whether those techniques would have ordinarily been utilized by the building profession generally. For purposes of determining a builder’s negligence, a building is “defective” if ordinary care was not employed in its construction. It is not “defective” simply because another technique, even one previously employed by the defendant-builder, was not utilized. The result of the majority’s decision is that a defendant-builder may now be held liable for the failure to disclose a “defect” in his product, which “defect” results from the mere failure to re-employ a technique of construction, the utilization of which is nowhere shown to be in the exercise of ordinary care and may in fact be in excess of that standard. I must dissent from the majority’s unwarranted use of Holmes v. Worthey to reach this result.
2. Likewise, I must dissent from the reversal of the directed verdict as to the contract claim. Regardless of the correctness of the trial court’s exclusion of the contract from evidence and regardless of whether we should properly reach the issue of its exclusion as the majority opines, the majority holds there was only evidence of a breach of the contractual provision regarding appellees’ obligation to build the house “in a good workmanlike manner.” As the majority correctly points out, the showing necessary to demonstrate the breach of the contractual duty to construct a building in a “workmanlike manner” is essentially the same as that necessary to demonstrate negligent construction. Howell v. Ayers, 129 Ga. App. 899, 900 (1a) (202 *867SE2d 189) (1973). However, as noted above, there simply is no evidence that appellants’ home was not constructed with that same degree of care as would have been employed under the circumstances by the building profession generally. Thus, even if the contract had been admitted into evidence, there was no other evidence that the “workmanlike manner” provision had been breached. Compare Francis v. Cook, 248 Ga. 225 (281 SE2d 548) (1981). Accordingly, I believe that the trial court correctly granted a directed verdict as to the contract claim. The judgment of the trial court should be affirmed in its entirety.
I am authorized to state that Judge Sognier joins in this dissent.