Court Opinion

ID: 9845707
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:26:37.586614+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:19.053079
License: Public Domain

McMurray, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
As I cannot agree with the majority’s application in this case of the principles stated in Stenhouse v. Winn Dixie Stores, 147 Ga. App. 473 (249 SE2d 276), I respectfully dissent. In my view, a jury could reasonably conclude from the evidence presented at trial that a distraction was caused by appellee’s arrangement of the fixtures in its store. While the majority concludes that “any distraction was caused by appellant’s handling of her shopping cart,” this view focuses on *17the effect rather than the cause. Appellant’s testimony shows that the reason for her high level of attention to maneuvering the shopping cart, at the expense of not closely watching the floor, was the congested placement of the store’s fixtures including a display table. “I started on this way, which this area is a very small area in here to get your cart through, and my only thing that I did, and I can remember this vividly, this is a free standing table with legs on it here, and I had to move this way a little to keep from bumping. My primary thing was get away and go around the table, which I had to do, and at that point, whatever it was was right here, and I moved the cart around the right of the table to get around that. . . . And my foot — well, I didn’t know what had happened because the next thing I knew I was going down. . . .”
Decided December 1, 1992
Reconsideration denied December 18, 1992
Charles H. Hyatt, John M. Hyatt, for appellant.
Sullivan, Hall, Booth & Smith, Alexander H. Booth, Eleanor L. Martel, for appellee.
Appellant’s requested charge on the issue of distraction is a correct statement of the law and properly adjusted to the evidence at trial. The trial court’s refusal to include the requested charge in its instructions to the jury was harmful error, particularly so since the charge given included the plain view doctrine, and should result in the reversal of the judgment on appeal.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Carley, Judge Pope and Judge Johnson join in this dissent.