Court Opinion

ID: 9586757
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:14:36.136629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:49.960510
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
While concurring fully with the majority opinion, which decides the case on the question of agency, additional comments should be made with regard to the direction of the verdict in favor of the defendant.
Many of the customers of the nightclub were young people 18,19, and 20 years of age attracted by live bands and the pushing of strong drinks; the nightclub to some extent catered to a young, “punk-rock”type clientele. Compare Levangie v. Dunn, 182 Ga. App. 439 (356 SE2d 88) (1987), where music, drink, drugs, porn photos, and headbanging were part of the attraction. In the instant case, the plaintiff had already had five or six drinks before he got to the nightclub, “where beer and other species of ‘fire water’ are dispensed.” Harrell v. State, 34 S2d 241, 242 (Fla. 1948). Upon his arrival at the bar, he consumed another beer and became “silly drunk,” or “skunk drunk,” as well as bombed on “two B-52 shooters.”
The first Chief Judge of our court, Benjamin H. Hill, spoke on this subject and observed in a related-type case many years ago that three-fourths of all crime is due directly or indirectly to the excessive use of intoxicants. Chief Judge Hill eloquently observed: “The facts of this case present another of the daily occurring instances showing the monstrous and measureless evil of intoxicating liquors. This hy*621dra-headed and remorseless monster, with ceaseless and tireless energy, wastes the substance of the poor, manufactures burdensome taxes for the public, monopolizes the valuable time of the courts, fills jails, penitentiaries, and asylums, ruins homes, destroys manhood, terrorizes helpless women and innocent children, baffles the church, and mocks the law, and, answering its inexorable demands, ‘each new morn new widows mourn, new orphans cry, new wrongs strike Heaven in the face.’ ” Langston v. State, 10 Ga. App. 82 (72 SE 532) (1911). Unfortunately, the passage of time may have borne out the verity of Chief Judge Hill’s attitude, as those observations seem even more applicable in our present state of society.
Articulate appellate advocate arduously argues that where one becomes noticeably intoxicated and inebriated and rough, rude, riotous and rowdy as a result, he is entitled to perhaps a higher standard of care than the other, more sober patrons. See Southern Bell Tel. &c. Co. v. Altman, 183 Ga. App. 611 (359 SE2d 385) (1987), where the employer had several co-workers take another, inebriated employee home following an employer-sponsored banquet. In that case, the employer satisfied its duty to the intoxicated employee, although the employee subsequently left home and was killed in an automobile collision. In the instant case, we are concerned with the standard of care of a commercial owner. Appellant argues that one who is drunk is no less entitled to protection than one who is sober, relying on a venerable California case, Robinson v. Pioche, Bayerque & Co., 5 Cal. 460 (1855). In Robinson, an intoxicated person fell into a hole in the sidewalk, and the court ruled, “A drunken man is as much entitled to a safe street as a sober one, and much more in need of it.” Id. at 461.
In the case sub judice, we don’t have a drunk falling into a hole in the sidewalk, but a drunk having a door slammed on his hand as he was wrongfully attempting to re-enter an establishment from which he had justifiably been ejected. When the plaintiff first arrived at the nightclub, of course, he was an invitee. Thereafter, a micro-adaptation or mini-evolution occurred, gradually turning him into a licensee and then into a trespasser. Because of his behavior, the police were eventually called and took custody of him. When he later got away from the police, he again went back into the bar; at this point in time, he was a trespasser. He may have a cause of action as in Robinson v. Pioche, Bayerque & Co., supra, but it would be against the unidentified patron who slammed the door on his hand. The bar satisfied its duty to him, as did the employer in Southern Bell Tel. &c. Co. v. Altman, supra, and, therefore, the trial court did not err in directing a verdict in favor of appellee.
*622Decided June 30, 1987.
Michael M. Calabro, for appellant.
Thomas S. Carlock, Johannes S. Kingma, for appellee.