Court Opinion

ID: 9576066
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:20:32.788575+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:57:24.061052
License: Public Domain

Webb, Judge,
dissenting.
There appears to be little or no difference between Judge Quillian and myself as to the facts of this case and the controlling principles. We both proceed under the test approved by this court in Evans v. Caldwell, 52 Ga. App. 475 (184 SE 440) (1936), Porter v. Jack’s Cookie Co., 106 Ga. App. 497 (127 SE2d 313) (1962), and Gann v. Mills, 124 Ga. App. 238, 240 (183 SE2d 523) (1971), that "if the act is within the class of service which the employee has the authority from the employer to perform, the employer is bound though the employee is forbidden to perform the particular act. If the act is not within the class of service, the employer is not bound.”
The difficulty comes in applying the test to the undisputed facts; and the question before the court is how closely the employer may circumscribe the class of authorized acts. On the one hand we can safely say that instructions not to perform negligent acts would be too *306narrow, and this classification is universally held ineffectual. But on the other hand it seems no answer simply to say, though superficially appearing to do so, that the employers’ business was plumbing, that the employees were plumbers and were engaged in plumbing work at the time of the fire.
It is clear that two classes of plumbing work were involved here — (1) installation of original plumbing in new buildings under construction under written contract for a fixed price, and (2) repair and maintenance work, when requested by the owner, on existing buildings on a labor and materials per-job basis, but only under close supervision and with the employers’ prior specific approval of the employee in each instance. This distinction between unsupervised installation work and supervised repair work is neither arbitrary nor an afterthought to escape liability. The evidence is that use of a torch to make repairs on enclosed pipes in the completed and occupied buildings, where insulation, wiring, and other flammable and potentially hazardous materials were present, was more dangerous than the original installation of pipe in the framework of the buildings under construction; and for that reason the employees, at a meeting called for that very purpose, were instructed not to do that type of work without the employers’ personal supervision or express authorization in each instance.
Thus it is my view that there was a reasonable basis for the classification here and that the employers should have been allowed to select the servants to perform this hazardous work. That principle finds expression in the cases holding an employer not liable for the negligence of an unauthorized substitute servant. As stated in Carter v. Bishop, 209 Ga. 919, 928 (76 SE2d 784) (1953), quoting from Cowart v. Jordan, 75 Ga. App. 855, 860 (44 SE2d 804) (1947): "The relationship of master and servant can not be imposed upon a person without his consent, express or implied. The defendant was free to select his own servant.” And as this court said in Cooper v. Lowery, 4 Ga. App. 120, 121 (60 SE 1015) (1908): " 'Under the doctrine of respondeat superior, a master, however careful in the selection of his servant, is responsible to strangers for *307their negligence committed in the course of their employment. The doctrine is at best somewhat severe, and, if a man is to be held liable for the acts of his servants, he certainly should have the exclusive right to determine who they shall be.’ ”
Since the employers were denied this right, they should not be held accountable for the very negligence which their broken rule was designed to prevent. I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Bell and Judge Clark concur in this dissent.