Court Opinion

ID: 9571797
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:35:17.450525+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:56.912515
License: Public Domain

Hunt, Presiding Justice,
dissenting.
The majority bases its decision in this case on a definition of “approaches” that turns on a measurement of physical distance. Because I do not believe that distance is the, or even a, determinative factor in the resolution of this case, I must respectfully dissent.
In Todd v. F. W. Woolworth Co., 258 Ga. 194 (366 SE2d 674) (1988), we stated that the question of what constitutes an approach to premises has both factual and legal elements. Primary among those elements is the nature of the owner’s relationship to the approach and rights in that approach; implicit in these considerations is the relationship between the business, the approach and the invitee’s reason for using the approach. In this case, the motel is located where it is because of its proximity to the beach. The motel capitalizes on this proximity to attract invitees, and the invitees pay for access to and use of the beach. Access to the beach is controlled by the motel and is *488by way of the path at issue here, and the motel not only can foresee but expects that its invitees will use this path to reach the beach. Because the use of the path to the beach was an integral part of the motel business and because the motel invited its patrons to use this path, the motel owed a duty to Miller as its business invitee to exercise ordinary care to keep the path safe for his use. Scoggins v. Campbellton Plaza Corp., 114 Ga. App. 23, 26 (150 SE2d 179) (1966).
Strictly speaking, the property on which Miller was injured is “contiguous, adjacent to, and touching” the motel’s property since no intervening property lies between the two pieces of land. The majority, however, limits our holding in Todd by defining property “contiguous, adjacent to, and touching” as “property within the last few steps taken by invitees” as they enter or exit the premises. While distance may be a legitimate consideration in some cases, it cannot be the sole determinative factor, and in this case, because of the nature of the approach, distance is actually irrelevant. The path to the beach leads only to and from the motel and is used, for all practical purposes, only by people going to and from the motel; that part of the path which crosses public land exists for the benefit of the motel and use of the path is public in name only. It is the fact that one who leaves the motel on this path can have only one destination that makes distance irrelevant. Distance is a proper element for consideration in cases, such as Todd, where distance tends to dissipate liability by expanding the field of causation and those subject to liability. A landowner has a duty to keep approaches within a few steps of its business safe because it has knowledge of and control over possible hazards on these approaches, even though these approaches may be part of a public way. The prospective invitee uses these approaches at the landowner’s invitation. However, once a departing invitee has entered a public way and gone beyond this limited area of liability, that invitee ceases to be an invitee and the landowner’s duty ends. The range of possible destinations for the departed invitee is limitless, the departed invitee is acting in his or her own interest, and a landowner cannot, nor is it required to, foresee where that individual will go; further, the landowner has no control over possible hazards on the premises of other landowners. In the present case, distance does nothing to diminish the duty the landowner owes to its patrons; regardless of whether the distance to the beach is two or two hundred feet from its premises, the invitee remains its invitee, in the sense that the invitee is using an avenue of access the landowner has used to induce the invitee onto its property; it knows, indeed has induced, the invitee to use this avenue of access, and it can foresee that injury may occur through use of this access. This is markedly different from a situation in which an invitee uses avenues of access to other destinations (thus ceasing to be the invitee of the motel) because the motel owner has no *489interest which he can control in those other destinations and has done nothing to induce the invitee to enter upon another’s premises. It is for a jury to decide whether the motel breached its duty to Miller; the trial court properly denied summary judgment.
Decided November 1, 1993.
Forbes & Bowman, Morton G. Forbes, Johnny A. Foster, for appellant.
Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Roland F. Matson, Senior Assistant Attorney General, John P. Batson, for appellee.
I am authorized to state that Justice Sears-Collins and Judge C. Cloud Morgan join in this dissent.