Court Opinion

ID: 9607288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:57:03.444867+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:37.833919
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Frankum, Judge.
In a well reasoned motion for a rehearing the defendant in error contends that this court has overlooked *504the fact that the petition fails to allege that the plaintiff’s son did not know of the custom and habit of the defendant’s patrons sf throwing objects into the high grass around defendant’s pool, and, therefore, giving the petition a strict construction against the pleader that it must be construed as alleging that the plaintiff’s son did know of this custom and that in walking in the high grass he was heedless of the danger occasioned by the presence of objects known by him to have been thrown therein.
It is fundamental that in an ordinary case the plaintiff’s contributory negligence is a defensive matter; he is not required to negative, in his pleadings, his own negligence, and unless the petition affirmatively shows that the plaintiff by the exercise of ordinary care could have avoided the defendant’s negligence, it is good as against a general demurrer, for such questions are, except in plain, palpable and indisputable cases, always for the jury. Townley v. Rich’s, Inc., 84 Ga. App. 772 (67 SE2d 403). What the movant would have this court do in this case is give the petition a strained and unnatural construction, neither required nor authorized by the language thereof, and thus require the plaintiff, contrary to the general rule, to negative his own negligence. This is somewhat analogous to requiring a plaintiff in a suit against a railroad for injuries inflicted upon him while crossing or walking along its track to affirmatively allege that he did not know that the railroad track was a place of danger. This, of course, is not and never has been the law, and this court will not now formulate such a rule contrary to the fundamental rule above stated.
Conceding, therefore, for the sake of argument that the construction of the petition urged by the movant is required, this still does not require the further conclusion urged that the petition thus affirmatively shows that the plaintiff was so contributorily negligent as to be barred of a recovery. As stated in the original opinion, the defendant had a duty to exercise ordinary care in affording the plaintiff a reasonably safe place to walk. The plaintiff had a right to rely upon the defendant's performance of this duty. He alleges that the defendant failed to inspect and rake the grass and to remove the objects therefrom (alleging knowledge by the defendant of the custom on the part of its *505patrons of throwing dangerous objects in the grass merely to raise the duty to inspect and rake) and that in omitting to do this the defendant was negligent. If the plaintiff did know of the custom, it should still be left to a jury to determine whether the plaintiff would be barred from a recovery by his failure to exercise ordinary care.

Rehearing denied.