Court Opinion

ID: 9584943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:54:08.851066+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:47.728022
License: Public Domain

Deen, Judge,
concurring specially. The plaintiff here is a
night watchman employed by Burns Detective Agency under contract with the defendant. In the course of his duties the plaintiff was walking over the defendant’s premises when he fell into a hole, the existence of which was unknown to him but had been placed there by the defendant. It was nighttime and there was no light or warning of the existence of the hole.
I agree with what is held in the majority opinion. Additionally, insofar as the duty of care owing to. the plaintiff, and the issue of contributory negligence, are concerned, a jury question on simple negligence should have been submitted to the jury under the decision in Wakefield v. A. R. Winter Co., 121 Ga. App. 259 (174 SE2d 178), where the plaintiff was an employee of a subcontractor and the circumstances of his fall through an open stairwell in daylight were held insufficient to support a summary judgment in favor of the defendant builder. If this is true, the jury instruction on mantraps and pitfalls discussed in the third division of the opinion actually puts a greater burden on the plaintiff to show wilful misconduct than the law requires, and if error would be harmless to the defendant. A dangerous hole on premises where there is no warning of any kind may, under the decision in MacKenna v. Jordan, 123 Ga. App. 801 (182 SE2d 550), constitute "a hidden peril, mantrap or pitfall.” Also see Burton v. Western & A. R. Co., 98 Ga. 783 (25 SE 736) and Central of Ga. R. Co. v. *703Ledbetter, 46 Ga. App. 500 (168 SE 81). If the plaintiff was not, as a night watchman on the premises, an invitee, he was at the very least a licensee whose presence would be anticipated, and "it is usually wilful or wanton not to exercise ordinary care to prevent injuring a licensee who is reasonably expected to be within the range” of a dangerous instrumentality. Murray Biscuit Co. v. Hutto, 119 Ga. App. 377, 386 (167 SE2d 182), and see Patterson v. Thomas, 118 Ga. App. 326 (163 SE2d 331).
As to Division 4, I agree that the charge on assumption of risk was correct as given. To assume a risk of danger involves volition — the decision to take the risk after it is known, not simply negligence in failing to take precautions by means of which it could have been discovered. Negligence in failing to discover a danger is one thing; negligence in failing to avoid it after it is discovered is another, and assumption of risk generally refers only to the latter. "One who knowingly and voluntarily takes a risk to his person, the danger of which is so obvious that the act of taking such risk in and of itself amounts to a failure to exercise ordinary diligence for his own safety cannot hold another liable for damages for injuries thus occasioned.” Smith v. American Oil Co., 77 Ga. App. 463 (2a) (49 SE2d 90); and see S. C. Jones Co. v. Yawn, 54 Ga. App. 826 (1) (188 SE 603). This is not contrary to what is held in Gray v. Garrison, 49 Ga. App. 472, 480 (176 SE 412). That was a master and servant case which points out that the servant assumes the risks naturally and normally incident to his occupation, whether known or not, in an action against the master, but not those arising from failure to keep the premises safe, which latter he does not assume until he becomes aware of the defect or disrepair. One remaining exception is where the defect is so obvious that one could not help but be aware of it, in which case knowledge of its existence is in effect presumed, but that is not the case here.
I am authorized to state that Judge Pannell concurs in this special concurrence.