Court Opinion

ID: 9851370
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:11:32.07181+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:54.605841
License: Public Domain

Pope, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. First, contrary to the majority’s conclusion, I think the Clantons did preserve the arguments raised for review by this Court. Though they did not specifically except to the court’s recitation of OCGA § 51-1-5, the Clantons repeatedly argued that the jury should be instructed that Jimmy Clanton was incapable of contributory negligence. Both at the charge conference and again when asked for exceptions to the charge, the Clantons argued that the jury should have been charged that a child under six was conclusively presumed incapable of contributory negligence.
Furthermore, although I am mindful of our Supreme Court’s decision in Ashbaugh v. Trotter, 237 Ga. 46 (226 SE2d 736) (1976), Ashbaugh must be narrowly construed. The determination from Ashbaugh that a plaintiff age six years and three months may be capable of contributory negligence should not be extended to a child who is five years and ten and one-half months old, as Jimmy Clanton was at the time of the accident here. In this case, the court should have concluded as a matter of law that Jimmy Clanton was too young to be contributorily negligent.
This conclusion is supported by those cases which were not explicitly overruled by Ashbaugh. See, e.g., Christian v. Smith, 78 Ga. App. 603 (51 SE2d 857) (1949) (child under six years of age not chargeable with negligence). In Crawford v. Southern R. Co., 106 Ga. 870 (2) (33 SE 826) (1899), which was not directly overruled by Ash*348baugh, the Supreme Court stated: “[w]here from the age of the child there can be no doubt as to its want of capacity to avoid danger, the court will decide this question as a matter of law. ... We think that there can be no doubt as to the soundness of the proposition that a child only four and a half years of age is incapable of being guilty of contributory negligence.” Id. at 877-878.
Decided December 5, 1995
Weinstock & Scavo, Michael Weinstock, J. Bertram Levy, for appellants.
Gorby & Reeves, Michael J. Gorby, Blakely H. Frye, Thompson & Sweeny, E. Victoria Sweeny, for appellees.
Similarly here, there can be no doubt as to the soundness of the proposition that Jimmy Clanton, who was less than six years old, was incapable of being guilty of contributory negligence. Although the recognition that children naturally mature and develop their faculties and capacities at different speeds and ages is sound, it is also true that there is an age under which children are not deemed capable of contributing to their own injuries. The majority recognizes this principle, stating that “[i]t is doubtless that at some early stages of infancy the issue of negligence will be a matter of law for the court.” Nonetheless, the majority concludes that a jury should resolve the question when the injured party is a child five years and ten and one-half months old. Unlike the majority, I conclude that a child younger than six years old is too young for the jury to resolve this issue. In other words, a child under six years old is presumptively incapable of contributory negligence.
Accordingly, the court should have instructed the jury that Jimmy Clanton was presumed to be incapable of contributory negligence. See, e.g., Commerce Prop. v. Linthicum, 209 Ga. App. 853 (434 SE2d 769) (1993); Valdosta Housing Auth. v. Finnessee, 160 Ga. App. 552 (1) (287 SE2d 569) (1981); Reed v. Dixon, 153 Ga. App. 604 (1) (266 SE2d 286) (1980). In my opinion, the court’s failure to do so was reversible error.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge McMurray and Judge Ruffin join in this dissent.