Court Opinion

ID: 9582307
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:24:59.840059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:38.132615
License: Public Domain

*637On Rehearing
The decision in this case constitutes an adjudication that each count of the petition is sufficient to state a cause of action against the defendant for failure of the latter to exercise extraordinary care for the safety of one of its passengers, and that neither count is subject to general demurrer on the ground that the petition shows on its face that the plaintiff failed to exercise ordinary care for her own safety. Both counts show the same factual situation—that the plaintiff, attempting to alight from the rear door, pushed twice and the door failed to open; that she pushed a third time “with all her strength” and the door flew wide open, causing her to fall out onto the curb. Negligence in maintaining a defective mechanism is alleged as the cause of injury in one count and negligence of the operator in opening the door is alleged as the cause of injury in the other count. If the injury is shown to have happened as alleged, the plaintiff might recover upon proof of either or both of these acts of negligence.
It is strongly contended that had the plaintiff not pushed three times, and pushed so hard, she would not have been injured, andi that this constituted a lack of due care on her part and also constituted the proximate cause of her injuries to the exclusion of any negligence on the part of the defendant, notwithstanding the allegation in both counts of the petition that there was a sign above the door directing passengers seeking to leave the bus to so push. Both of these positions, however, may be true as a matter of fact but this court cannot hold either to be true as a matter of law. If one pushes against a door which is supposed to yield and does not, whether an ordinarily prudent person would simply think the door was hard to move and use greater force to move it, or whether such person would expect it to suddenly yield and spring back is an issue of fact under all the circumstances of the case. Of the Georgia cases cited by the plaintiff in error, Pacetti v. Central of Ga. Ry Co., 6 Ga. App. 97 (64 S. E. 302), a “door case,” supports the position taken here. There the plaintiff was crowded against a gate at the moment when the gatekeeper was about to open it; he proceeded to unlatch the gate and thereby injured the plaintiff’s hand, and it was held that whether the plaintiff in the exercise *638of ordinary care should have placed her hand on the gate at the time when the keeper was unlatching it was a jury question. Here the duty to push the door open was on the plaintiff herself, but the door gave way under her pressure in an unexpected manner, allegedly the result either of the driver in fact opening the door himself through a release mechanism, or because of a faulty condition of the door itself. No case cited by the plaintiff in error is so similar on its facts as to be controlling here. The rule in negligence cases is that each must stand on its own bottom, and that where reasonable minds might differ, either as to the proximate cause, the degree of negligence of the defendant, or the contributory negligence of the plaintiff, such case should be decided by a jury and not by the court. Townley v. Rich’s, Inc., 84 Ga. App. 772 (67 S. E. 2d 403); Southern Stages v. Clements, 71 Ga. App. 169 (30 S. E. 2d 429); Ga. Power Co. v. Blum, 80 Ga. App. 618 (57 S. E. 2d 18).