Court Opinion

ID: 9606432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:49:40.09048+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:34.515394
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion, inasmuch as it appears that the instant case is factually distinguishable from such cases as Carrion v. Smokey, Inc., 164 Ga. App. 790 (298 SE2d 584), and Lovelace v. Figure Salon, 179 Ga. App. 51 (345 SE2d 139), cited by the majority. If in Smokey, instead of falling from a horse (a distinguishing feature of a stable and clearly a recreational “facility”), the plaintiff had slipped on straw or some other substance and fallen as he entered or exited the horse’s stall, that case would have been more nearly on point with that sub judice. Similarly, if Mrs. Lovelace, instead of being injured by the spa employee’s allegedly incorrect use of certain “testing equipment,” had tripped over the threshold of the spa’s entrance and fallen, or perhaps lost her footing on a stair, that case, too, would be on point with the instant case. Conversely, if Ms. Harris, plaintiff/appellee here, had tripped over or fallen from a Nautilus machine or other object that was distinctively “sporting or recreational” equipment (or “facility”), rather than losing her footing on a wet floor adjacent to the shower (something she might equally well have done in her own home), her case might, arguendo, have been controlled by Lovelace or Smokey, and a grant of summary judgment to My Fair Lady might have been appropriate. The factual distinctions between the instant case and those two cases are significant, however.
Our analysis of the record sub judice persuades us that the fact situation of the instant case fits more nearly into the “slip and fall” line of cases than into that category turning upon the waiver of rights when contracting to use “facilities” peculiar to “sporting or recreational” use. Carrion v. Smokey, supra. This being so, then summary judgment would have been inappropriate either under the “assumption of risk/waiver” theory or under the theory of ordinary negligence, since questions of ordinary care, negligence, and diligence traditionally are not considered amenable to summary adjudication but present issues of fact which require resolution by the jury. It would seem that, in the fact situation of the instant case, this court would have no *462choice but to affirm the trial court’s denial of summary judgment on any of the theories advocated by defendant/appellant. OCGA § 9-11-56.
Decided November 30, 1987
Rehearing denied January 4, 1988
H. Andrew Owen, Jr., Perry A. Phillips, for appellant.
William A. Hazleton, for appellee.
I therefore respectfully dissent.