Court Opinion

ID: 9847501
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:00:55.39576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:17.842410
License: Public Domain

Deen, Judge,
dissenting. The defendant was the owner of a large tract of land on which it had erected a number of apartment houses, and at the time of the child’s death was engaged in erecting other apartments at the rear of the tract facing Springdale Road. Workmen were in the process of clearing the land; they would dig a large hole into which they shoveled debris, and then fill it up and dig another one. The one in question measured some 13 by 40 feet and sloped in depth from one foot to 12 or 14 feet. It had been raining steadily for several days; run-off water from the hill filled the hole to the brim over a mucky *342bottom, at the southeast corner of the tract facing Springdale Road and 45 feet from the property line dividing it from the decedent’s home. A chain link fence partly divided the properties but was discontinuous and, according to the father "you could go right to it [the excavation]. You don’t have to go around the fence from my yard. What you mean is some part of my yard you have to go around. I am talking about right where the children play in front there. You go straight to the place.” In other words, from the plaintiffs front yard to the excavation, 45 feet away, in a straight line, there was no barrier, either because there was a gap in the fence or because the fence did not extend all the way to the corner. Further, the decedent was used to going on the defendant’s property in this area because the defendant had allowed his grandparents to maintain a vegetable garden there. The boy drowned while attempting to rescue his five-year-old sister who had fallen into the recently dug, recently waterfilled excavation hole. Although he could swim, he apparently became stuck in the viscous matter at the bottom, since he did not surface after diving and there was mud in his lungs.
The dangers inherent in the builder’s penchant for digging holes had on more than one occasion been called to the attention of the president of the defendant company prior to the tragedy by one of the employees who told him that he should either put a fence around the property or fill up the holes; that the children wouldn’t stay away from the property, and that if it weren’t fenced or guarded or lights put up there would be problems. There were no "Keep Off’ or "No Trespassing” signs.
The above is a fair statement of the evidence on behalf of the plaintiff and as this appeal involves the denial of summary judgment the inferences must be in the plaintiffs favor. Burnette Ford v. Hayes, 227 Ga. 551 (181 SE2d 866).
In deciding the case two elements must be considered. *343The first is the status of the children; the second the degree of negligence. In my opinion the children were licensees, both because of the permission previously extended as to the garden area and because the defendant, with knowledge of their usual or frequent presence, impliedly acquiesced therein and is "under a duty to take such precautions to prevent injury to such persons as would meet the requirements of ordinary care and diligence” even though they are technically trespassers. Western & A. R. v. Michael, 44 Ga. App. 503 (2) (162 SE 294).
The plaintiff, however, does not rest her case on this premise but alleges that the act of the defendant in digging the hole almost at the edge of the property line and leaving it filled with water with actual knowledge of the daily presence of children and after being warned by an employee that they were likely to be injured was guilty of a wilful and wanton act, in reckless disregard of the inherent dangers of such a temporary excavation to children which it knew had a habit of playing in the vicinity.
The decedent was 12 years old and could swim; he was attempting a rescue of a five-year-old sister who had slipped in the treacherous mud surrounding the excavation and had fallen into the water in the late twilight after the workmen had left the site. These facts are of legal importance, not in raising any duty of care on the part of the defendant, but because they show no negligence on the part of the decedent who stood in the shoes of the five-year-old infant. All of this was less than 100 feet from the child’s front door and in an area where she was accustomed to go, in a newly dug pit which had only in the last few days filled with water. "One aware of the custom of children to play around a potentially dangerous structure on its premises is bound to use ordinary care to avoid injuring them after their presence is known or reasonably to be anticipated.” Perry Bros. *344Transportation Co. v. Rankin, 120 Ga. App. 798 (172 SE2d 154), citing Clinton v. Gunn-Willis Lumber Co., 77 Ga. App. 643 (49 SE2d 143), and see McCall v. McCallie, 48 Ga. App. 99 (1) (171 SE 843); Central of Ga. R. Co. v. Ledbetter, 46 Ga. App. 500, 504 (168 SE 81). If the children were licensees or trespassers in whose presence the defendant had acquiesced, after being warned of their presence and the danger of the unguarded hole, it might well be wilful and wanton to take no action, and the rain-filled hole may well, in the opinion of the jury, constitute a pitfall. It has been held that an incompleted porch on the premises may be such a hidden peril. McKenna v. Jordan, 123 Ga. App. 801 (182 SE2d 550). See also Whittle v. Johnston, 124 Ga. App. 785 (186 SE2d 129).
Prosser’s Law of Torts (3d Ed.) p. 372, Ch. 11, § 59, "Trespassing Children” sheds much light on the subject, pointing out, passim., that while in cases such as this the attractive nuisance doctrine is not involved, and while there is and should be no duty on a landowner to make the premises completely "childproof,” the four conditions of liability set up in the Restatement, Law of Torts, are now generally applied. They are (1) the owner knows the children are likely to trespass in the area; (2) he knows or should know that the condition which causes the injury does in fact involve an unreasonable risk of harm to such children; (3) the danger is of such a character that the infant, because of its immaturity, would not be expected to comprehend it, and (4) the risk of harm outweighs the utility to the landowner. Other considerations are that this land was in a thickly settled residential area rather than being a country pond or lake; that it was a temporary pit and temporarily filled with water rather than a familiar and permanent structure such as a lake or swimming pool, and that the owner had both been apprised of the presence of the children and warned of the danger.
In support of the Restatement criteria as related to *345trespassing children, and the citation of cases from many jurisdictions showing this to be the prevailing trend, see the excellent article "Tort Liability of Occupiers of Land; Duties Owed to Trespassers” by Fleming James, Jr., 63 Yale Law Journal, pp. 144, 161 et seq. "Where a duty of care is owed, the likelihood of the presence of children has great bearing on deciding whether or not conduct is reasonable. Under the older theory here, no duty of care was owed to trespassers and such a duty was not created by the likelihood that children — or anybody else — would trespass. . . . The feeling grew, however, that the real basis [of liability] was not the spurious invitation but the 'value of child life to the community’ and the great probability of harm to that interest from dangerous conditions of land left exposed beyond the needs of their use; especially as an increasingly industrial society multiplied both the dangers and the devices which might reduce them.” Id., pp. 163, 164. This article, like the Restatement,, discusses liability to child trespassers generally, but it must be remembered that the case at hand goes much further in that it shows actual notice to the defendant of danger inherent in the pits and of the children’s presence coupled with a warning that if steps were not taken harm was likely to befall, plus an allegation that in such circumstances the failure to act was wilful and wanton. Certainly the failure to take action gives rise to a jury question as to acquiescence in the children continuing to come on the land. And Georgia has always been among those states which adopt the more liberal view and hold, that even as to trespassers, knowledge may imply acquiescence and acquiescence may imply a greater duty of care. This was well stated as far back as 1896 in Burton v. W. & A. R. Co., 98 Ga. 783, 785 (25 SE 736): "While an acquiescence by an owner of land in the use by others of a road or pathway thereon, under circumstances which do not amount to an invitation, does not impose upon him the duty of keeping *346the premises in suitable condition for such use, yet if he digs a dangerous hole into which persons passing along the way are liable to fall if not warned of it, he is under the duty of warning them or of guarding against such an occurrence.”
No case cited in the majority opinion is sufficiently analogous to demand a different conclusion. The opinion in Atlantic C. L. R. Co. v. O’Neal, 180 Ga. 153 (178 SE 451), specifically points out (page 156) that the case is on demurrer and construed against the plaintiff. Here on summary judgment it must be construed in his favor. Crosby v. Savannah Elec. &c. Co., 114 Ga. App. 193 (150 SE2d 563) was also decided on demurrer and involved a child climbing a power pole; there was no knowledge on the part of the owner, and in such a case the utility of high uninsulated lines is greater than the probable danger from a trespasser climbing the pole. Fickling v. City Council of Augusta, 110 Ga. App. 330 (138 SE2d 437) was decided on demurrer, and involved a city pond which had existed for over 20 years. We are not concerned with the attractive nuisance doctrine, as was Southern Cotton Oil Co. v. Pierce, 145 Ga. 130 (88 SE 672) and other cases cited on p. 335. Bowers v. Texas Co., 65 Ga. App. 874 (16 SE2d 765) was decided on demurrer and involved a heavy tire which did no damage until the child went over and moved it. In Washington v. Trend Mills, 121 Ga. App. 659 (175 SE2d 111), no knowledge or reasonable anticipation appears of the presence of a child who ran into a conveyor belt while chasing a ball. Savannah, F. & W. R. Co. v. Beavers, 113 Ga. 398 (39 SE 82) and Crews v. Slappey, 110 Ga. App. 496 (138 SE2d 919) were actions relying on proof of attractive nuisance to establish ordinary negligence. Here wilful and wanton misconduct is charged and there is. no attempt to base the case on attractive nuisance; so far as appears, the child simply slipped in the mud and fell into the newly dug pit, where she drowned because it had filled with rainwater. Crawford v. Pollard, 55 Ga. *347App. 702 (191 SE 162), was decided on demurrer, after proceeding on the theory that the defendant railway, in allowing fish to accumulate in its water cisterns, was creating an attractive nuisance. McCall v. McCallie, 48 Ga. App. 99, supra, has been quoted above in the interest of this dissent; it was decided on demurrer, but it draws a clear distinction between situations where the defendant knows of the presence of children and the danger of the condition, and those where he does not. The quotation from Ryan v. Towar, 87 NW 644, is hardly apt, since it discusses the right of a landowner "to believe that its premises would only be invaded by those whom it should choose to invite,” who has no duty to "warn some possible rescuer of an imaginary trespasser.” Here the defendant did not have to imagine the "invasion”; it had been several times warned of the actual situation.
My position, briefly, is this: Where in a residential area the defendant has allowed members of a contiguous landowner’s family (licensees) to garden on its land, and has acquiesced in children playing thereon, and digs a large temporary hole which is muddy and filled with water, and where after actual notice that it is dangerous to children and that children are playing there it makes no effort whatever either to reduce the danger or eliminate their presence, I would leave it to a jury to decide both the degree of care owed and the negligence, if any, of the defendant.
I am authorized to state that Judges Pannell, Evans and Clark concur in this dissent.