Court Opinion

ID: 9846180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:36:17.038519+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:34.768827
License: Public Domain

Hall, Presiding Judge,
dissenting to the judgment of reversal. In my opinion the judgment should be affirmed.1 The objection to the charge in the trial court was that it required the plaintiff to exercise "ordinary care” for his own safety and that in view of the fact this Was a rescue operation the plaintiff’s duty was that "of slight care.” Until this case that had never been the law.
The court charged that the jury "would not be authorized to find negligence on the part of the plaintiff, unless you first find *261his actions were either rash, reckless or wanton.” It defined ordinary care as "that reasonable care and caution which an ordinarily cautious person would exercise under the same or similar circumstances.” (Emphasis supplied.) It then charged that the plaintiff must "exercise ordinary care and diligence for his own safety.” Considering the charge as a whole I see no reversible error. "We should not assume that the jury paid no attention to some portions of the charge; but on the contrary the presumption is that the jury pays attention to and correctly applies all the charge.” Stanley v. Squadrito, 107 Ga. App. 651, 658 (131 SE2d 227). "A charge torn to pieces and scattered in disjointed fragments may seem objectionable, although when put together and considered as a whole, it may be perfectly sound.” Mendel v. Pinkard, 108 Ga. App. 128, 134 (132 SE2d 217). As Justice Bleckley said in a criminal case some ninety years ago: "The charge of the court, like all other deliverances in the human language, is to be construed together as one whole, and when one part of it plainly tempers and modifies another, and the ultimate sense and impression are correct, the true standard of practical sufficiency is attained.” Cox v. State, 64 Ga. 375 (12).
The case relied upon in the majority opinion (Walker Hauling Co. v. Johnson, 110 Ga. App. 620, 624 (139 SE2d 496) recognized that the duty is that of "ordinary” rather than "slight” care under the circumstances: "Ordinary care for their own safety under the circumstances, short of rashness and recklessness.” See also Slappy v. Ga. Power Co., 109 Ga. App. 850, 854 (137 SE2d 537): the standard of conduct of a reasonable man in like circumstances. Code § 105-201.
The full test is as follows: "one is not guilty of contributory negligence in exposing himself to danger of injury in order to rescue another from imminent danger of personal injury or death if, under the same or similar circumstances, an ordinarily prudent person might so expose himself, or, as often expressed, if the act of intervention is not performed under such circumstances as would make it rash or reckless in the judgment of ordinarily prudent persons . . . Both an impulsive rescuer and a deliberate rescuer are required to comply with the standard of care of a reasonably prudent person in order to recover for injuries sus*262tained in the attempted rescue. In determining whether one making or attempting such a rescue exercised ordinary care, all the surrounding circumstances are to be considered, including the existing emergency, the alarm, excitement, and confusion usually present, the uncertainty as to the means to be employed, the necessity for immediate action, and the liability to err in the choice of the best course to pursue.” 65A CJS 83, 84, Negligence, § 124. See also 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts, § 16.11. The same point has been made by Judge Powell: the jury must "compare his conduct with the conduct of an ordinarily prudent man under similar circumstances . . . Such questions are for the jury.” Atlantic C. L. R. Co. v. Daniels, 8 Ga. App. 775, 782 (70 SE 203).
The majority opinion now rejects the above test on the ground that it loads the charge in favor of the defendant. Does this mean that the above cited cases have been overruled? Have the words "ordinary care under the circumstances” been prohibited in all cases involving the doctrine of rescue and emergency?
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Bell and Judges Eberhardt and Whitman concur in this dissent.

 While not involved in this judgment of reversal, it is important also to caveat the statement in the majority opinion that since it appeared from the evidence that an employee of the company visited the house approximately once a month, the defendant was on notice of the high mast on the roof with the four-foot horizontal antenna at the end. The only evidence in the record relative to visits to the house by an employee relate to trips made for the purpose of collecting the monthly bills for current used. Notice to an employee in that frame of reference is not notice to the company. It has been so held relative to one whose duties were to collect in Camp v. Southern Bkg. &c. Co., 97 Ga. 582 (3) (25 SE 362); to the motorman and conductor on a street car who knew of a live sagging wire in Read v. City &c. R. Co., 115 Ga. 366 (2) (41 SE 629); a meter reader and line foreman having knowledge of a defective switch in Georgia Power Co. v. Kinard, 47 Ga. App. 483, 487 (170 SE 688); a railroad section-master having knowledge that the bridge-keeper’s wife stayed with her husband in a small house provided to protect him from the weather and had to cross a trestle to get there, in Comer v. Hill, 101 Ga. 340 (28 SE 856); a policeman having knowledge of defective street conditions, in City of Columbus v. Ogletree, 96 Ga. 177 (2) (22 SE 709); an employee of the railroad who had knowledge of a defective culvert, but whose duties did not encompass the repairing, maintenance, etc., of the road, in Central of Ga. R. Co. v. Americus Const. Co., 133 Ga. 392 (2) (65 SE 855); a railroad doctor who had treated an injured party with whom the railroad made settlement before suit was filed, in Lumpkin v. L. & N. R. Co., 136 Ga. 135 (70 SE 1101).