Court Opinion

ID: 9567861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:58:27.276118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:20:46.875393
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
dissenting.
1. We ought not to overrule Powell v. Ledbetter Bros., 251 Ga. 649 (307 SE2d 663) (1983), without good reason. There we held:
There are well recognized exceptions to the general rule of non-liability of contractors who execute plans furnished by others. One such exception is that the contractor is liable where the work is inherently dangerous to third parties. [Id. at 651.]
2. This exception incorporates well-established judicial precepts:
(a) The general rule is well established that an independent contractor is not liable for injuries to a third person, occurring after the contractor has completed the work and turned it over to the owner or employer and the same has been accepted by him, though the injury result from the contractor’s failure to properly carry out his contract. . . . There are some modifications of this rule. Among them are cases where the work is a nuisance per se, or where it is turned over by the contractor in a manner so negligently defective as to be imminently dangerous to third persons. [Young v. Smith & Kelly Co., 124 Ga. 475, 476 (52 SE 765) (1905).]
(b) We do not agree that a contractor is entitled to put on blinders and ignore serious and dangerous defects in a design given to the contractor to execute. [Shetter v. Davis Bros., 163 Ga. App. 230 (293 SE2d 397) (1982).]
See also:
(c) Prosser & Keeton on Torts (5th ed.) § 104 A, Real Estate Transactions at pp. 723-4:
One important limitation recognized in several cases is that the contractor is not liable if he has merely carried out carefully the plans, specifications and directions given him, since in that case the responsibility is assumed by the employer, at least where plans are not so obviously defective and dangerous that no reasonable man would follow them. Where this is the case, there appears to be no doubt that there will be liability.
*560Decided November 21, 1990.
Barrow, Sims, Morrow & Lee, Jordon D. Morrow, for appellant.
Downing, McAleer & Gaskin, James E. McAleer, Jr., Mark H. Johnson, Webb, Carlock, Copeland, Semler & Stair, Kent T. Stair, *561William T. Hudson, for appellee.
*560(d) Restatement 2d of the Law of Torts, § 385:
One who on behalf of the possessor of land erects a structure or creates any other condition thereon is subject to liability to others upon or outside of the land for physical harm caused to them by the dangerous character of the structure or condition after his work has been accepted by the possessor, under the same rules as those determining the liability of one who as manufacturer or independent contractor makes a chattel for the use of others.1
3. The majority limits liability for the contractor — the one creating the dangerous instrumentality — unless the contractor “holds himself out as an expert in the design of work.”
That is contrary to the following authorities:
(a) [T]he purpose of [the inherently dangerous work] doctrine is to allow a plaintiff to bring the employer in as another defendant, not to take the independent contractor out of the case. See 41 Am. Jur. 2d § 41, Independent Contractors. [Berry v. Cordell, 120 Ga. App. 844, 846-7 (172 SE2d 848) (1969).]
(b) OCGA § 51-2-5 provides:
An employer is liable for the negligence of the contractor: (2) If, according to the employer’s previous knowledge and experience, the work to be done is in its nature dangerous to others however carefully performed.
I am authorized to state that Justice Bell and Justice Hunt join in this dissent.

 One who as an independent contractor makes, rebuilds, or repairs a chattel for another and turns it over to the other, knowing or having reason to know that his work has made it dangerous for the use for which it is turned over, is subject to the same liability as if he supplied the chattel. [Id. § 403.]