Court Opinion

ID: 9851054
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:06:39.985304+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:47.879599
License: Public Domain

Jordan, Presiding Judge,
dissenting. The rule is well established that “where the injured party, by the use of ordinary care, could have avoided the consequences to himself of the defendant’s negligence, he is not entitled to recover. His failure in this respect does not stop with reducing the amount of damages, but defeats a recovery altogether.” Southland Butane Gas Co. v. Blackwell, 211 Ga. 665, 669 (88 SE2d 6). In applying the rule the Supreme Court has stated that “[w]hen it would be impossible for the jury to arrive at but one conclusion, the court is not bound to take the opinion of a jury, even upon a question of negligence.” Smith v. Central R. & Bkg. Co., 82 Ga. 801, 807 (10 SE 111). I have no quarrel with the general principles of law stated in the majority opinion. I dissent from the holding based on the facts of this particular case, which in effect abolishes the rule that a plaintiff is not entitled to recover where it can be said as a matter of law that he failed to exercise ordinary care for his own safety.
The fall occurred during daylight, whatever defects or dangers existed were clearly visible, and the plaintiff admits that by looking in the direction of his movement, and nothing appears which would have prevented this action, he could have avoided falling into the open stairwell. Could the jury, under the facts disclosed by the plaintiff, have reached any other conclusion except that, whatever the negligence of the defendant, the prox*266imate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries was his failure to look where he was walking, without any justifiable explanation for his conduct? We think not.
We see no substantial difference in the facts here disclosed and that of a plaintiff cameraman who stepped backward into an excavation while endeavoring to focus his camera, as supporting a judgment n.o.v. for the defendant (Nechtman v. B. Thorpe & Co., 99 Ga. App. 626 (109 SE2d 633)), or that of a plaintiff who, in her own home, stepped into an open hole left by the removal of a floor furnace, who testified, “Well, I guess I wasn’t looking, because I fell into it,” as supporting a summary judgment for the defendant (Harris v. Bethel Air Conditioning &c. Co., 114 Ga. App. 255 (150 SE2d 710), and cit.)
I am authorized to state that Judge Eberhardt concurs in this dissent.