Court Opinion

ID: 9582282
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:24:42.566221+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:36.681744
License: Public Domain

Deen, Judge,
dissenting. "Where the owner or occupier of land, by express or implied invitation, induces or leads others to come upon his premises for any lawful purpose, he is liable in damages to such persons for injuries occasioned by his failure to exercise ordinary care in keeping the premises and approaches safe.” Code § 105-401. The beauty parlor here could be approached only by a platform leading to the front door. There was one step up from *706ground level to the platform and one step up from the platform through the front door to the front room. Thus, a person leaving had to open the door and immediately take a step down. The plaintiff testified: "I put my coat on and put the baby’s coat and hat on and then I stepped to the door and opened it and stepped one foot out and I was kind of . . . back to the left a little bit and I reached back and picked the baby up and stepped my other foot out the door and turned around and closed the door and then when I started to take another step is when I . . . slid down.” I do not think this testimony shows, as the majority opinion states, that plaintiff "actually stood outside a few seconds on the platform before she ventured forth.” The argument is used to show contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff and I fail to see how it bars her, as a matter of law. To do so it would have to show that the mere fact of stepping down one step from the door to the platform while picking up a baby and closing the door was sufficient in and of itself to give her equal or superior knowledge that the rainwater on the platform was icing over. Anyone who ever walked out a door under these conditions knows this is not necessarily so. I therefore do not think the motion for summary judgment should be granted because of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff. Where reasonable minds might differ as to whether the plaintiff’s negligence was such as to bar her from recovery the question is for the jury. Stapleton v. Amerson, 96 Ga. App. 471 (100 SE2d 628).
As to the defendant’s negligence, the question is not only whether the employees of the store should have kept the entrance platform free from ice, which they well might not have been able to do, but whether they should have been chargeable under the facts alleged with knowledge that the wet platform was in fact freezing over, and with knowledge that the plaintiff was stepping down onto an icy area with an infant in her arms, and with a duty to warn her of the hazard of leaving by the only possible exit from the room. A duty rests on the proprietor to warn the customer of defects in the premises of which he knows or should know in the exercise of ordinary care. Fulton Ice &c. Co. v. Pece, 29 Ga. App. 507 (116 SE 57), aff. 157 Ga. 105 (120 SE 636); Hickman v. Toole, 35 Ga. App. 697 (134 SE 635); Mortgage Comm. *707Serv. Corp. v. Brock, 60 Ga. App. 695 (4 SE2d 669); Freeman v. Levy, 60 Ga. App. 861 (5 SE2d 61); United Theatre Enterprises v. Carpenter, 68 Ga. App. 438 (23 SE2d 189); Sheffield Co. v. Phillips, 69 Ga. App. 41 (24 SE2d 834); Goldsmith v. Hazelwood, 93 Ga. App. 466 (92 SE2d 48). Where the danger is not apparent the proprietor has a duty to exercise ordinary care to discover it and "to give a warning adequate to enable the invitee upon the premises to avoid harm.” Knowles v. LaRue, 102 Ga. App. 350 (116 SE2d 248). The depositions and affidavits here show, at the very least, that the plaintiff did not sit in a location where she could see out the window during her stay in the beauty parlor, and that ice had not formed when she went in and had formed when she came out. On the other hand, one employee of the beauty parlor at least was sitting in a position where she could look out and another actually went outside during this time. To me this creates a jury issue as to whether the proprietor should have known of the icy condition outside and therefore owed a duty to the plaintiff to give her warning of the slippery platform.
I am authorized to state that Judges Pannell, Whitman and Evans concur in this dissent.