Court Opinion

ID: 9574215
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:03:24.545527+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:14.911631
License: Public Domain

*200Birdsong, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
Although I concur fully with all that is said in the majority opinion, I write separately to express my disagreement with the view stated in Judge Eldridge’s special concurrence that Lau’s Corp. v. Haskins, 261 Ga. 491 (405 SE2d 474) is no longer applicable to summary judgment in slip and fall cases because of our Supreme Court’s recent Robinson v. Kroger Co., 268 Ga. 735 (493 SE2d 403), decision. Even the most cursory reading of the Robinson opinion plainly shows that the special concurrence is contrary to that decision, and, moreover, these views are contrary to the recent seven member whole court decision in Sharfuddin v. Drug Emporium, 230 Ga. App. 679 (498 SE2d 749). As much as anyone may disagree with the Sharfuddin decision or wish that Robinson had gone further than it did, these opinions are nevertheless binding precedent and must be followed until they are modified, overruled, or reversed. Under our system of precedent, we are not free to act as if the Sharfuddin decision does not exist.
The special concurrence’s quotation from Robinson quoting Hilsman v. Kroger Co., 187 Ga. App. 570 (370 SE2d 755) is misleading: Robinson quoted Hilsman to show what the law was prior to Lau’s Corp., and not what the law would be after Robinson. See Robinson, supra at 747.
Additionally, except for cases under the second prong of the elements of a foreign substance slip and fall case under Alterman Foods v. Ligón, 246 Ga. 620, 623-624 (272 SE2d 327) (see Sharfuddin, supra at 680) nothing in Robinson states that a defendant-movant can no longer discharge its burden by pointing out the absence of evidence to support the non-moving party’s case. If our Supreme Court had intended such a result, that court certainly could easily have done so by stating merely what the special concurrence alleges that it did. Instead, the Supreme Court crafted an opinion that elected to modify the application of Lau’s Corp. as it concerned the second prong of a slip and fall case under Alterman Foods and nothing more.
Therefore, I cannot agree with the views stated in Judge Eldridge’s special concurrence.