Court Opinion

ID: 9623379
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:32:17.535236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:29.041762
License: Public Domain

Blackburn, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur specially to respond to the dissent’s misconstruction of Barentine v. Kroger Co., 264 Ga. 224 (443 SE2d 485) (1994), on the issue of Banks’ exercise of reasonable care. Because the record shows that McDonald’s agents knew of the hazardous condition, the dispositive issue in this case is whether Banks exercised ordinary care for her own safety. Hardin v. Super Discount Market, 205 Ga. App. 646, 647-648 (423 SE2d 18) (1992).
Barentine specifically addresses this issue. In Barentine, the Supreme Court found that the plaintiff’s admitted failure to look at the floor when he fell failed to justify a directed verdict because his explanation, that he was looking at the cashier standing a distance away from the cash register to tell him he was ready to check out, provided some evidence that he had exercised reasonable care, thereby raising a jury question. Barentine, 264 Ga. at 225. Notwithstanding the dissent’s statement to the contrary, Barentine makes no reference to the distraction doctrine. Its holding did not excuse a distraction, but simply recognized that under some circumstances, the exercise of ordinary care demands a focus away from the floor. “Looking continuously, without intermission, for defects in a floor is not required in all circumstances. What is a ‘reasonable lookout’ depends on all the circumstances at the time and place.” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Food Giant v. Cooke, 186 Ga. App. 253, 257 (366 SE2d 781) (1988).
Banks testified that just as she fell her attention was on avoiding other patrons who were moving toward the door to leave the McDonald’s and ordering at the check-out counter, rather than the floor. These demands on Banks’ attention were more compelling than those in Barentine, where the cashier’s location was no surprise because he had been standing in the same place when the plaintiff entered the store. As in Barentine, Banks’ focus beyond the floor provided some evidence that she was exercising reasonable care for her own safety. The sufficiency of this evidence should be determined by a jury.
*670Moreover, even if Banks’ focus on the crowd and the check-out counter were analyzed as distractions, they were not of her own making. The evidence that the distractions were “of such nature as naturally to divert the plaintiff, and also of such nature that the defendant might naturally have anticipated it” is sufficient to preclude summary judgment. Stenhouse v. Winn Dixie Stores, 147 Ga. App. 473, 475 (249 SE2d 276) (1978).
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge McMurray, Presiding Judge Pope, and Judge Ruffin join in this special concurrence.