Court Opinion

ID: 9574691
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:07:12.995235+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:50.325904
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
We have read vyith interest the forceful argument presented to us in the plaintiff in error’s motion for rehearing, spendidly urging that the cases of Washburn Storage Co. v. General Motors Corp., 90 Ga. App. 380 (83 S. E. 2d 26), and Brooks v. Arnold, 89 Ga. App. 782 (81 S. E. 2d 289) are controlling. It is held in those cases: “We are aware that, when a pleading is considered on general demurrer, if there are inferences unfavorable to the rights of the plaintiff which may be fairly drawn from the allegations of the petition, this ought to be done. In such a case the petition must be construed in the light of omission as well as averments.”
“It is an elementary rule of construction, as applied to a pleading, that it is to be construed most strongly against the pleader; and that if an inference unfavorable to the right of a party claiming a right under such a pleading may be fairly drawn from the facts stated therein, such inference will prevail in determining the rights of the parties.” Brooks v. Arnold, supra.
The principle is sound and its pronouncement is, we hope, clearly stated in the decisions referred to by the plaintiff in error. Those cases, however, are distinguishable on their facts from the instant case, in that in them the conditions or circumstances referred to in the pleadings are in the course of human experience so uniformly obvious that it can be safely presumed that they would not escape the notice of one who the pleadings showed had the opportunity to observe them. In this case the pleadings relate a condition as to the physical state of a person that is not necessarily apparent to an ordinarily observant person. So, by the same parity of reason as that employed in the Washburn and Brooks cases, the conclusion is logically arrived at in this case.