Court Opinion

ID: 9576713
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:27:27.004231+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:13:04.629044
License: Public Domain

McMurray, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent as I believe the trial court correctly decided that genuine issues of material fact remain as to both Kathleen Stewart’s and L. E. Sidre, Jr.’s liability for jointly deciding to leave ten-year-old Louis Sidre at home alone — knowing that Louis’ regular (daily) playmate, eight-year-old Scott Harvard, would likely be visiting. To this extent, I cannot go along with the majority’s premises liability analysis with regard to Kathleen Stewart’s liability because she was not L. E. Sidre, Jr.’s landlord.5 She was his fiancé *398and was residing together with Sidre and his son as a family. I believe that a jury would therefore be authorized in finding that Kathleen Stewart stood in loco parentis to ten-year-old Louis Sidre on the day of the fatal fire and that she, as a consequence, should be judged by a jury, along with L. E. Sidre, Jr., for deciding to leave ten-year-old Louis Sidre at home alone for an entire day — with no adult contact or supervision.
Scott Harvard died from smoke and heat inhalation because he and Louis Sidre were, in the absence of adult supervision, playing with carelessly placed matches near a dry Christmas tree in a home with a defective fire extinguisher and a front door dead bolted from the inside. After the tree caught fife and the boys failed to put it out with the fire extinguisher, they attempted to escape through the front door, but the door was locked from the inside and the key could not be found through the smoke of the developing fire. Ten-year-old Louis Sidre discovered an escape route through a back bedroom window, but eight-year-old Scott Harvard could not find his way. Frightened and lost in the smoke, young Scott Harvard hid under a bed. The child’s body was discovered after the fire.
While I agree the law does not require constant vigil over children in all cases, absent circumstances requiring such action (Hill v. Morrison, 160 Ga. App. 151 (286 SE2d 467); Scarboro v. Lauk, 133 Ga. App. 359, 361 (2) (210 SE2d 848)), I believe Georgia demands adult accountability for any alleged failure to provide basic care and supervision to children of tender years. For instance, in Davis v. Gavalas, 37 Ga. App. 242 (139 SE 577), this Court held parents accountable for allowing their five-year-old child to ride a velocipede at night. And in Herrin v. Lamar, 106 Ga. App. 91 (126 SE2d 454), this Court held a mother accountable for allowing her ten-year-old daughter to operate a riding lawnmower. Unlike the majority’s analysis in the case sub judice, these decisions are not based upon a foreseeable risk of harm stemming from a specific activity, nor upon the absence of proof regarding parental knowledge of a child’s alleged careless or reckless nature. Davis and Herrin are based upon the general notion of adult responsibility for basic care and supervision of young children. The same logic persuades me to reject the majority’s “known hazard” and “premises liability” rationale and to voice support for a view which would hold adults answerable for the conduct and activity of unsupervised children of tender years to whom they are charged with care. I thus believe a jury should decide whether Kathleen Stewart and L. E. Sidre, Jr. are responsible for the *399consequences of leaving young Louis Sidre at home alone, without adult supervision, control, or protection. Scott Harvard’s parents’ alleged negligent supervision of their son would, in my view, be but another factor for jury resolution.
Decided July 14, 1999
Reconsideration denied July 29, 1999
Gray, Hedrick & Edenfield, L. Bruce Hedrick, for appellants (case no. A99A0634).
Kenneth C. Pollock, for appellant (case no. A99A0635).
Mills, Moraitakis & Kushel, Nicholas C. Moraitakis, for appel-lees.
I am authorized to state that Judge Eldridge joins in this dissent.

 But even assuming premises liability is the appropriate standard, I do not agree that eight-year-old Scott Harvard was a licensee to whom Stewart owed only a duty not to act wilfully and wantonly. Because there is proof that this child was a daily guest inside and outside Kathleen Stewart’s home, I believe a jury would be authorized in finding that she knew or should have' known that Scott Harvard would be in her home on the day in question and that she thus had a duty to exercise ordinary care in watching out for his safety. After a proprietor becomes aware of a person’s presence, the duty to exercise ordinary care is owed *398whether the person is a licensee or an invitee. Herrin v. Lamar, 106 Ga. App. 91, 92 (1) (126 SE2d 454).