Court Opinion

ID: 9780745
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 02:44:27.55444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:12.428808
License: Public Domain

ANDREWS, Judge,
concurring dubitante.
This Court is again confronted with a slip and fall premises liability claim where: (1) an essential element of the claim is that the foreign substance which caused the plaintiff to slip and fall had been on the floor of the premises for a length of time sufficient for constructive knowledge of the substance to be imputed to the premises owner; and (2) there is no evidence in the record as to how long the foreign substance had been on the floor. Again, in contravention of Lau’s Corp. v. Haskins, 261 Ga. 491 (405 SE2d 474) (1991), this Court refuses to consider the premises owner’s right to summary judgment on the basis that there is an absence of evidence in the record to establish an essential element of the plaintiffs claim. Instead, in contravention of Lau’s Corp., this Court again imposes on the premises owner a duty on summary judgment to produce evidence of adherence to reasonable inspection procedures before this Court will recognize the absence of evidence to support the plaintiffs claim. It continues to escape this Court’s attention that, even if the premises owner failed to inspect the premises, in the absence of any evidence that the substance had been on the floor long enough to have been discovered by a reasonable inspection, no jury can find that the owner had constructive knowledge, and no jury can *764find that the owner’s failure to inspect was a proximate cause of the slip and fall.
Decided February 24, 2012
Reconsideration denied March 13, 2012
Fred J. Rushing, Jr., for appellant.
Skedsvold & White, Craig R. White, Bryce W. Mowbray III, for appellee.
Nevertheless, because this Court has previously refused to even address these arguments (see Straughter v. J. H. Harvey Co., 232 Ga. App. 29 (500 SE2d 353) (1998) (Andrews, C. J., dissenting) and J. H. Harvey Co. v. Reddick, 240 Ga. App. 466 (522 SE2d 749) (1999) (Andrews, E J., dissenting)), I conclude that another dissent at this time would be futile. In the hope that our Supreme Court may soon grant certiorari to address the application of Lau’s Corp. in this kind of premises liability claim, I concur dubitante. See Benefield v. Tominich, 308 Ga. App. 605 (708 SE2d 563) (2011) (Blackwell, J., joined by Dillard, J., concurring dubitante in a similar premises liability claim).