Court Opinion

ID: 9579502
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:55:47.691909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:33.351984
License: Public Domain

Mikell, Judge,
concurring specially.
Although I agree generally with the majority, I write separately because the rule in Prophecy Corp. v. Charles Rossignol, Inc.11 applies only to “self-contradictory, vague or equivocal” testimony and only to testimony given by the plaintiff. It does not apply when a plaintiff’s testimony conflicts with discovery furnished by the plaintiff or with other evidence in the record.
Testimony means words spoken or written under oath.12 Evidence is a broader, generic term which includes testimony but also includes exhibits, documents, etc. Answers to interrogatories could be the sworn testimony of a party. If so, they would fall within the rule of Prophecy Corp. and could be compared with that party’s deposition or that party’s affidavit in a search for contradictions, vagueness, or equivocation. In the case at bar, however, the plaintiff’s answers to the defendant’s interrogatories are not testimony at all. They are not under oath. Moreover, they do not even purport to be the words of the party plaintiff. They are signed by her attorney rather than by the party, as required by OCGA § 9-11-33.13 The only testimony by the plaintiff in the record seems to be her affidavit of August 9, 2001, submitted in opposition to the motion for summary judgment. There is no other testimony by her with which to compare it in order to invoke the rule in Prophecy Corp.
*42The trial court was correct that the contemporaneous, documentary evidence, including the hospital records and the business records of the defendant, establishes that the fall occurred on July 11, 1998. That objective evidence, some of which bears the signatures of the plaintiff or her husband, combined with the affidavit testimony submitted by the defendant, including the affidavit of the emergency room physician, seems convincing evidence as to the date of the injuries. The only evidence in favor of the plaintiff is her subjective recollection, in an affidavit prepared three years after the event, that the fall occurred on July 14, 1998. Nonetheless, under our longstanding tradition in Georgia civil practice, that affidavit is adequate to defeat a motion for summary judgment, unless the Prophecy Corp. rule applies.14 The reason for our longstanding tradition regarding summary judgments is that any other procedure would start the trial and appellate courts on the slippery slope toward weighing evidence. That weighing is the task of a jury.
Our adherence to this traditional procedure does not mean that a movant for summary judgment is helpless when its objective evidence is confronted by self-serving, subjective recollection. The movant could serve requests for admissions per OCGA § 9-11-36 and thereafter move for all expenses incurred in proving the truth of the matter pursuant to OCGA § 9-11-37 (c). Or the movant could take the party’s deposition and attempt to come within the purview of Prophecy Corp. But a movant may not ask a judge to weigh the strong, objective evidence against the subjective affidavit and grant summary judgment. Therefore the majority is correct, and we must reverse the trial court and remand the matter for farther proceedings.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Johnson, Presiding Judge Smith, and Judge Miller join in this special concurrence.

 256 Ga. 27 (343 SE2d 680) (1986). Accord Anglin v. Harris, 244 Ga. App. 140 (534 SE2d 874) (2000).

 Black’s Law Dictionary (5th ed. 1979), p. 1324.

 Williamson v. Lunsford, 119 Ga. App. 240 (2) (166 SE2d 622) (1969).

 In Anglin, supra, 244 Ga. App. at 142 (1), the testimony of the plaintiff was, “at best, equivocal as to the day and date of the accident.” Anglin recites a general rule of law that “ ‘[a] shadowy semblance of an issue is not enough to defeat the motion for summary judgment,’ ” citing Owen v. M & M Metro Supply, 198 Ga. App. 420, 422 (2) (401 SE2d 612) (1991). Owen cites the leading Georgia case on summary judgment procedure, Holland v. Sanfax Corp., 106 Ga. App. 1, 5 (1) (126 SE2d 442) (1962). Although a correct statement of the law, the rule is dictum in all three decisions. When resolution of disputed facts would negative an essential element of the plaintiff’s case, or would establish a bar to the action (e.g., the expiration of the statute of limitation), then a genuine issue exists. When a genuine issue exists, slight evidence in opposition defeats a motion for summary judgment, unless Prophecy Corp. applies.