Court Opinion

ID: 9561722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:14:46.161696+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:17.961889
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Chief Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur in the reversal of summary judgment for defendants but not in all that is written with respect to the facts which are not disputed and the applicable law.
First as to the facts about which there is no genuine dispute, the parties do not dispute where the truck was parked. Both sides discuss it as in the driveway with its rear at the street. The two photos correspond to the deposition testimony. The photo taken June 22, 1992, five days after the incident, shows an in-driveway location. Mark Powley said it reflects the truck’s position at the time of the accident. The factual “dispute” between the parties concerns charac*852terization of the evidence, such as whether the pipe jutted out “a few inches” or “two feet” beyond the yard out over the pavement.
The street does not have curbs or sidewalks and just meets the yards of the adjoining residences in an irregular fashion. Along the edges there is sand or dirt, which Mark knew would causé him to fall if he ran in it. He said at his deposition: “[Y]ou knew enough to get away from the sand; otherwise you’d fall.” The sand covered the area where the pipes protruded.
Mark saw the truck and had seen plumbing fixtures and pipes sticking out of the back of it on other occasions before this one. On this evening he was aware of the truck and of objects in its bed but did not know what they were because of shadows.
The truck was to Mark’s left as he stood in the middle of the street, and he slid on the sand as he was running, trying to catch the thrown frisbee. He testified at deposition that “whenever I’d got towards the truck I knew that I’d have to back away because of the sand. But once I started to, the sand made me slip.” He could not stop and instead fell and hit his face on the pipe which extended beyond the others in the bundle it was part of.
With respect to the law, premises liability law as presented by plaintiffs and as used in the trial court’s analysis is inapplicable because Mark was not injured on Mixon’s premises but on the public street. The case is governed instead by the liability of a landowner whose land is immediately adjacent to a public way. “Such a landowner may not, without incurring a duty, maintain an artificial condition so situated that persons lawfully using the public way may, by accident or some force not their own fault, fall upon and be injured by the artificial condition. [Cits.]” Intl. Paper Realty Co. v. Bethune, 256 Ga. 54, 55 (344 SE2d 228) (1986). See also McKinney & Co. v. Lawson, 180 Ga. App. 550, 551 (1) (349 SE2d 763) (1986) (“[T]he question for decision is whether the landowner negligently maintained its property in such a way as to render it liable to a person who, like plaintiff, is injured as a result thereof when he is rightfully at or near the property on a public street, sidewalk, or highway.”)
As in McKinney, defendants seek to avoid liability by focusing on the injured party. See OCGA § 51-11-7. They contend that his injuries were caused by a lack of due care for his own safety. But given plaintiff’s age, degree of knowledge, and all the undisputed circumstances developed thus far, defendants have not established that as a matter of law his negligence, if any, totally precludes recovery. “Questions necessitating a decision as to whether a given state of facts shows that lack of ordinary care for one’s own safety which will bar recovery [including assumption of risk] or only that comparative negligence which will reduce it are generally for the jury.” Stukes v. Trowell, 119 Ga. App. 651 (168 SE2d 616) (1969). “ ‘Not what actually *853happened, but what the reasonably prudent person would then have foreseen as likely to happen, is the key to the question of reasonableness.’ [Cit.]” Ellington v. Tolar Constr. Co., 237 Ga. 235, 238 (227 SE2d 336) (1976).
Decided September 23, 1996.
Julian A. Mack, for appellants.
Whelchel, Brown, Readdick & Bumgartner, John E. Bumgartner, Gregory T. Carter, for appellees.
Summary judgment as provided in OCGA § 9-11-56 (c) is not authorized.