Court Opinion

ID: 9589634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:47:01.719494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:37.920429
License: Public Domain

McMurray, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent as it is my view that the case sub judice is not one of those rare instances where the trial court may side-step a jury and resolve issues of negligence, contributory negligence or assumption of the risk as a matter of law. Further, it is my view that the majority erroneously adopts the trial court’s construction of proof and thereby fails to adhere to the requirement that, upon summary adjudication, the evidence must be viewed in a light which most favorably supports an opposing party’s claims. Salmon v. Pearson & Assoc., 214 Ga. App. 11 (446 SE2d 762). To this extent, there is no conclusive testimony which authorizes the trial court’s finding that Carolyn Harmon knowingly stepped into “water, which [was] rapidly moving near or into a drainage ditch. . . .” In fact, it is my view the same eyewitness testimony which appears to be the basis of this find*139ing of fact would more likely authorize a finding that Carolyn Harmon slipped from an area of still waters and fell into a submerged drainage ditch while she was negotiating one of only two paths of egress (sidewalks) along the edge of the flood zone.
“ ‘ “(Q)uestions of negligence, diligence, contributory negligence, and proximate cause are peculiarly matters for the jury, and a court should not take the place of the jury in solving them, except in plain and indisputable cases.” (Cit.) Added to that list are related issues of assumption of risk, lack of ordinary care for one’s safety, lack of ordinary care in failing to foresee a condition which could cause injury (cit.), and even where there is no dispute as to the facts, it is usually for the jury to say whether the conduct in question met the standard of the reasonable man. (Cit.) “Unless no other conclusion is permissible, questions of negligence are matters for jury resolution and are not ordinarily susceptible to summary adjudication.” (Cit.)’ Cunningham v. Nat. Svc. Indus., 174 Ga. App. 832, 836 (331 SE2d 899) (1985).” Showalter v. Villa Prado Assoc., 182 Ga. App. 705 (356 SE2d 895).
In the case sub judice, the trial court found that genuine issues of material fact remain as to the City of College Park’s responsibility for maintaining a nuisance over the Pichons’ property, and to this extent, there is proof that the City of College Park and the Pichons were aware, long before Carolyn Harmon’s death, of the drainage defects and the resulting flash flooding and whirlpool which dragged the victim to an unknown watery grave. Further, there are indications that neither the City of College Park nor the Pichons did anything to remedy the danger before the drowning, foisting responsibility for the hazard by insisting that the burden of curing the defect rested with the opposite party.3 In either case, there is no question that genuine issues of material fact remain as to the liability of both the City of College Park and the Pichons for failing to abate the alleged nuisance. See Town of Fort Oglethorpe v. Phillips, 224 Ga. 834, 838 (165 SE2d 141); OCGA § 51-3-1.4 Nonetheless, the trial court pretermitted issues relating to any wrongdoing on the part of defendants, finding (as a matter of law) that Carolyn Harmon’s action in traversing “a body of rapidly moving waist high water” was the sole proximate cause of her *140death.
“ ‘(I)t is a plaintiffs knowledge of the specific hazard which precipitates the slip and fall which is determinative, not merely his knowledge of the generally prevailing hazardous conditions or of the hazardous conditions which he observes and avoids.’ Telligman v. Monumental Properties, 161 Ga. App. 13, 16 (288 SE2d 846) (1982). See also Nicholson v. MARTA, 179 Ga. App. 173, 175 (345 SE2d 679) (1986); Burkhead v. American Legion, 175 Ga. App. 56, 57 (332 SE2d 311) (1985); Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Reid, 132 Ga. App. 136, 138 (207 SE2d 532) (1974).” (Emphasis supplied.) Showalter v. Villa Prado Assoc., 182 Ga. App. 705, 706, supra. In the case sub judice, there is no dispositive proof that Carolyn Harmon was familiar with the specific area she was traversing at the time of her death, and it appears to be undisputed that the drainage ditch into which she fell was concealed by flood waters at the time of the fatal incident. Indeed, while Carolyn Harmon was obviously aware that she was walking through waist-high water before her death, I do not think that it can be said (as a matter of law) that Ms. Harmon was aware of just how precariously close the submerged drainage ditch was to the sidewalk she was traversing moments before her death.5 Further, while Carolyn Harmon had crossed the strong currents of the drainage ditch earlier in the evening before her death, there is no indication that she had ever before traversed the pooled waters in the area near where she drowned. Moreover, at the time Carolyn Harmon crossed the footbridge with her companion, the terrain was different and the scene presented flooding conditions (i.e., rapidly flowing water) which appeared to be far more dangerous than the still waters of the alternative route chosen by the decedent and her companion. Most persuasively, however, is the absence of proof that Carolyn Harmon was aware of the powerful suction at the narrow drain pipes which ultimately dragged the victim underwater and jettisoned her body to some obscure location within the City’s sewer system. Under these circumstances, I cannot go along with the majority in saying that the evidence demands a finding that Carolyn Harmon had a full appreciation of the specific danger which caused her death or that Ms. Harmon, in the exercise of ordinary care, should have avoided any at*141tempt to escape the flood which separated the victim from her companion’s home. It is my view that any such conclusions are for a jury.
Decided July 12, 1995
Reconsideration denied July 26, 1995
Bauer, Deitch & Raines, Henry R. Bauer, Jr., Gilbert H. Deitch, for appellants.
Swift, Currie, McGhee & Hiers, John W. Campbell, Jenkins & Eells, Kirk R. Fjelstul, for appellees.

 It would thus not be unreasonable (for a jury) to conclude that the cost and burden of curing the alleged nuisance sounded much louder to the City of College Park and the Pichons than ongoing complaints of residents who had been victimized by recurrent episodes of flash flooding in the area where Carolyn Harmon died.

 The trial court also concluded (as a matter of law) that Carolyn Harmon was a licensee on the Pichons’ property at the time of her death. I do not believe such a conclusion is demanded by the evidence. On the contrary, it appears to be undisputed that Ms. Harmon was invited as a guest by one of the landlords’ tenants just before the fatal incident, thus placing her within the status of invitee with regard to measuring the Pichons’ liability. Moon v. Homeowners’ Assn. of Sibley Forest, 202 Ga. App. 821, 822 (2) (415 SE2d 654).

 The majority points out that Ms. Harmon and her companion failed to hold onto the chain link fence along the left side of the sidewalk in apparent support of the view that the victim failed to exercise ordinary care for her own safety. This is good advocacy, but like most evidentiary arguments, there almost always remains more than one reasonable perspective. For example, it can just as persuasively be asserted that locating the fence on the opposite side of the sidewalk from the drainage ditch did nothing to protect pedestrians from falling into a hazardous area and even blocked any possible chance of giving the dangerous canal a wide berth during conditions of flash flooding, thereby constituting a hard element of the alleged nuisance.