Court Opinion

ID: 9587817
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:26:41.91206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:33.380307
License: Public Domain

Hall, Judge,
concurring specially. I concur with the judgment of the majority that the plaintiff, an invitee, is not precluded as a matter of law from recovering damages against the defendant by' the mere fact that she walked in darkness. I am in agreement with my brother Eberhardt that some of the decisions of this court collected in his dissent do hold that “One who chooses to walk in the darkness assumes the risk of dangers attendant thereon and that he does not exercise ordinary care for his own safety.”1 I further agree with both him and Justice Quillian, that “We are bound to follow the precedents of this court” until they are overruled. However, I am of the opinion that the majority, while protesting that these cases are somewhat different on their facts, has in effect overruled them as to invitees2 and as far as I am concerned I shall treat them in the future as being now overruled.
*439I cannot completely agree with the major premise of the majority that “each negligence case must rest upon its own facts.” To me this Would mean we will just decide the result in each case, i.e., administer, rather than law, justice based upon our independent discretion in each negligence case before us. To follow this premise would subject the court to the charge that it is being too result-minded in its decisions. In a free democratic society there must be equality before the law for those who engage in comparable legal transactions and enterprises. In order to assure equality among our citizens and improve the predictability of appellate decisions there must be legal predicates uniformly applied to all negligence cases, until changed by proper authority, rather than ad hoc notions of what is right or wrong in a particular case. This is the classic common-law approach and when followed in daily transactions and as to prospective litigation each person can know where he or it stands.
Negligence law deals with human life and our civilization is rapidly changing. There will always be progress, and, the common law must move forward to keep pace with our advancing civilization. American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres v. Simpson, 106 Ga. App. 230, 237-238 (126 SE2d 873). As each advance is made, there must be a corresponding re-examination. The desire for a well ordered society based on a common sense of fairness and justice has led our people and the courts that serve them to regard conduct involving an unreasonable risk of harm as antisocial conduct. This is the essence of negligence law. We have a duty in some situations to protect others against an unreasonable risk of harm; what is an unreasonable risk and what one must do or refrain from doing to discharge this duty depends on the relationship between the parties in any transaction. Negligence is exposing another to whom one owes a duty, or exposing one’s self, to a foreseeable unreasonable probability of harm.
In the past the court’s approach to the plaintiff’s negligence has often been but a reflection of its attitude toward the reasonableness of the’defendant’s conduct, and the issue of the defendant’s duty and the plaintiff’s negligence have been confused. The court hereafter should painstakingly avoid such confusion and should *440decide the issue of the negligence of each party according to the reasonableness of his conduct. There is indeed justification for further re-examination of the doctrine of liability for negligence in the light of present day thought and conditions. Today we are dependent on others for food, clothing and a multitude of other necessities and facilities of modem life. Those offering goods and services compete to induce consumers to come to their market places. Merchants should offer their goods and services to their invitees under conditions that are as safe as the ordinary man would make them. Invitees should have the right to reasonable safety in using offered services and facilities, and, at least in the absence of warning, to use the premises with the expectation that they are reasonably safe. When a proprietor offers his premises for the reception of the public or some segment of it, his duty to keep the premises reasonably safe for his invitees may include a duty to inspect and remove or warn of unreasonably dangerous conditions. Such a duty has been said to be based on the proprietor’s superior opportunity to discover and guard against a dangerous condition as compared with the opportunity of his invitee. Belk-Gallant Co. v. Cordell, 107 Ga. App. 785, 788 (131 SE2d 575). An invitee should not be forced into the dilemma of either accepting the risks of unnecessarily dangerous services or doing without these services altogether; he simply cannot go about in life adequately guarding against dangers that occupiers of business property have unreasonably put up to him.
Under modem conditions, it might be said that there is generally no satisfactory justification for inadequate lighting in those parts of business premises which are frequented by the general public. But when darkness is a necessary condition in the use of a socially acceptable facility, such as a theatre which is normally offered and accepted for use in darkness, the darkness itself does not constitute an unreasonable risk. Perhaps no duty should be placed on proprietors of such facilities to protect patrons from dangers inherent in the darkness itself; but this should not alter the duty to keep the premises reasonably safe from other dangers present in the darkness. Hence no duty is breached nor negligence committed merely from maintenance or use of the premises in darkness, and no liability arises for injury to an *441invitee caused solely by use of the premises in darkness. This is not to say that the invitee has been negligent in using the premises, but merely that no unreasonable risk was taken by either party; the cause of the injury was not anti-social conduct by either party and it is not compensable. However, the existence of a defect in darkened premises may indeed create an unreasonable risk to an invitee, who in using the premises without knowledge of such defect still takes no unreasonable risk and is not negligent, and should not be precluded from recovery for the proprietor’s negligence. So in the present case I would not say as a matter of law that the plaintiff in walking on the dock in the darkness took a foreseeable unreasonable risk and was thereby negligent; or that findings by the jury that the defendant exposed the plaintiff invitee to an unreasonable risk and was negligent, and that the plaintiff took an unreasonable risk and was also negligent, would preclude any recovery.
The judgment in this case represents a new concept for darkness cases involving invitees in Georgia. As an example of natural transition in the law it is a laudatory step in the right direction. It is proper that courts from time to time revalue past concepts and decisions in the common law tradition. The judge’s continual questioning and weighing of results is the creative and evolutionary force in the law, and without it there would not be growth toward the ideal of perfect justice. Transition to the application of new concepts is likely to follow numerous changes in the membership of a court. However, the task of revaluation should be performed always with candor and forthrightness.
Negligence law began in this State, and still persists in some jurisdictions, to allow a defendant, though a wrongdoer himself, to escape responsibility on account of the contributing unreasonable conduct of the plaintiff. The rule was called “contributory negligence,” and it threw the whole risk on the negligent plaintiff, while it let the defendant, also a wrongdoer, go' free. In other words, the plaintiff who was in any manner negligent was an outlaw deprived of the protection afforded him by other rules of law designed for his benefit. Georgia, like many of the States, has abolished the common law rule that contributory negligence *442by a plaintiff prevents a recovery. Macon & Western R. Co. v. Johnson, 38 Ga. 409; City of Ocilla v. Luke, 28 Ga. App. 234 (110 SE 757). However, it could be argued that this principle still rules from its grave under the doctrine of “volenti non fit injuria” (assumption of risk) or the rule of “avoidable consequences.” All of these rules are in essence an expression of the highly individualistic attitude of the common law, that the duty of self-protection rested primarily on each participant in most transactions.
The rule is in full force in Georgia that the plaintiff cannot recover if by ordinary care he could have avoided the consequences to himself of the defendant’s negligence, which he was aware of or could reasonably have discovered (Code § 105-603), as is the rule that to voluntarily encounter known danger amounts to a failure to exercise ordinary care for one’s own safety and bars recovery for another’s negligence. E.g., Moorman v. Williams, 103 Ga. App. 726 (120 SE2d 312); Underwood v. Atlanta & W. P. R. Co., 105 Ga. App. 340, 361 (124 SE2d 758); Youngblood v. Henry C. Beck Co., 93 Ga. App. 451 (91 SE2d 796); DeWinne v. Waldrep, 101 Ga. App. 570 (114 SE2d 455); Staples v. Brown, 96 Ga. App. 176 (99 SE2d 526). Thus when both the defendant and the plaintiff are negligent, whether the plaintiff can recover under the comparative negligence rule, or is barred from recovery by the rule of avoidance of consequences or the rule of voluntarily encountering a known danger, depends on the character and time of plaintiff’s negligence. I question whether this is fair. The common law contributory negligence rule was simple, but unfair. If the present rules are complex and difficult for judges, one can imagine their impact upon a jury when charged orally by a trial judge. We might ask, therefore, whether there is equality before the law under such complex rules which purport, when a plaintiff’s negligence contributes to his injuries, in some circumstances to make a negligent defendant responsible for apportioned damages and in other circumstances to relieve the negligent defendant of all responsibility.

Hendricks v. Jones, 28 Ga. App. 335 (111 SE 81); Macon Savings Bank v. Geoghegan, 48 Ga. App. 1 (171 SE 853); Srochi v. Hightower, 57 Ga. App. 322 (159 SE 323); Dacus v. Dickinson Trust Co., 65 Ga. App. 872 (16 SE2d 786); Mattox v. Atlanta Enterprises, 91 Ga. App. 847 (87 SE2d 432); Watson v. McCrory Stores, 97 Ga. App. 516 (103 SE2d 648); Braun v. Wright, 100 Ga. App. 295 (3) (111 SE2d 100); Malone v. Lombard Ponds, Inc., 105 Ga. App. 828 (125 SE2d 697); Hardigree v. Housing Authority of the City of Atlanta, 107 Ga. App. 406 (130 SE2d 275).

Like Julia in Lord Byron’s Don Juan who “. . . whispering,'I will ne’er consent,’—consented.”