Court Opinion

ID: 9855254
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:21:49.53628+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:25:23.083384
License: Public Domain

Stone, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The statements made by Irvin to the ticket agent of defendant Travel, Inc. (which, in turn, was ticket agent in Augusta for Southeastern Stages, Inc.) while purchasing a ticket to ride a Southeastern bus en route from Augusta to Atlanta, that “probably there would be an undercover cop . . . looking for him” and that the ticket agent should “tell them he hadn’t seen [Irvin],” that Irvin later returned to the ticket agent and reminded him not to “forget what I told you” were sufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact for the jury to resolve, particularly in light of the evidence of previous violent attacks with weapons on defendants’ busses, and the common-place occurrence of various dangerous and anti-social acts afflicting our society in recent years.
Whether Irvin was, on the one hand, a jokester or harmless ec*645centric, or on the other hand, an armed and dangerous fugitive from justice or escapee from a high-security mental hospital, who might endanger other bus passengers, and what if any action should have been taken by the ticket agent in consequence of Irvin’s statement and actions, in the exercise of extraordinary care by defendants for the safety of the other bus passengers, are genuine issues of material fact which should be resolved by a jury and summary judgment should not have been granted. Additionally, while the evidence did not show whether or not the “undercover cop” was in search of Irvin to arrest him as a criminal or escaped mental defective, or merely to interview him as a possible witness in a criminal investigation, the issue of what should have been the appropriate response of the ticket agent upon being informed by Irvin that Irvin was being sought by a police officer for whatever purpose is a matter for resolution by a jury.
Decided December 2, 1993
Reconsideration denied December 16, 1993.
Webb, Carlock, Copeland, Semler & Stair, Thomas S. Carlock, Brian R. Neary, Chambers, Mabry, McClelland & Brooks, Douglas F. Aholt, Beth L. Singletary, Lokey & Bowden, Malcolm P. Smith, G. Melton Mobley, for appellants.
Butler, Wooten, Overby & Cheeley, James E. Butler, Jr., C. Frederick Overby, Peter J. Daughtery, Jones, Boykin & Associates, John Wright Jones, Noble L. Boykin, for appellees.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals that the trial court erred in granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment, although not on any basis of the law relative to criminal attacks occurring on real property, which I do not consider applicable in this case.