Court Opinion

ID: 9583824
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:42:25.95424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:55.241706
License: Public Domain

McMurray, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the affirmance of summary judgment in this premises liability action as I feel the issues involved should be resolved by a jury. According to the affidavit of Jim Sheffield, the “Stockroom and Maintenance Manager for J. C. Penney Co., Inc.,” defendant’s “routine cleaning and maintenance does not include an *727inspection of the ‘privacy latch,’ ” yet when Sheffield “inspected the restroom [the following] day, [he] found one stall, which had a broken ‘privacy latch.’ ” This is tantamount to an admission that, if J. C. Penney’s inspection routine included an inspection to assure that privacy latches were in proper working order, this broken latch would have been discovered. Plaintiff’s testimony that she placed her purse in the front of the stall to alert patrons to her presence is evidence that she exercised ordinary diligence for her own safety. Keaton v. A. B. C. Drug Co., 266 Ga. 385, 386 (1) (c), 387 (467 SE2d 558); Barentine v. Kroger Co., 264 Ga. 224, 225 (443 SE2d 485). The storekeeper is not relieved of the consequences of any negligence by an intervening act which he should have anticipated. Colonial Stores v. Donovan, 115 Ga. App. 330, 331 (2) (154 SE2d 659).
Decided July 11, 1997
Reconsideration denied July 29, 1997.
Diane M. Zimmerman & Associates, Charles P. Taylor, for appellants.
Anderson, Walker & Reichert, Robert A. B. Reichert, for appellee.
A privacy latch in a public restroom protects dual privacy aspects, namely, one’s personal privacy within a defined and limited space, and one’s right to exclusive temporary possession of that space. Plaintiff was injured when another patron failed to spot plaintiff’s purse as an emblem of her possession and opened the unlatch-able door, striking plaintiff as she struggled to dress herself. In my view, that physical injury is precisely the type of injury a properly working privacy latch was designed to prevent. Consequently, this case falls within the general rule that questions of foreseeability and proximate cause are for the jury to determine. The majority’s rationale begs that very question of foreseeability by denigrating the actual flaw here observed as theoretical. As my colleagues in the majority would affirm the grant of summary judgment despite the existence of material fact questions, I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Judge Eldridge joins in this dissent.