Court Opinion

ID: 9581490
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:15:28.079342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:00.087292
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
The majority opinion relies upon such cases as Robinson v. Western Intl. Hotels, 170 Ga. App. 812 (318 SE2d 235) (1984). The cited case is correct with respect to the facts in that case. “These factors were: (1) the narrowing of the walkway at the entrance to the booth; (2) the 3-to-4 inch slope of the walkway toward the driveway; (3) the dim lighting in the area; (4) the close proximity of vehicular traffic to the booth; and (5) the 16-inch stepup into the booth with ‘no handhold, no rail or nothing other than the door frame to hold onto.’ According to appellants’ expert, as the result of these ‘hazardous factors,’ ‘a person coming out of the booth . . . would have a tendency to surge forward . . . , and end up in the drive.’ ” Robinson, supra at 814.
The facts there are grossly dissimilar to those of the instant case, where appellee fell as soon as he got out of his truck in the daylight, with all conditions of the uneven pavement visible. These conditions *399were evident to all.
Decided March 12, 1987
Rehearing denied March 31, 1987
Richard B. Eason, Jr., Carolyn J. Kennedy, for appellant.
Linda B. Carlisle, Charles W. Lane, for appellee.
The case of Pound v. Augusta Nat., 158 Ga. App. 166 (279 SE2d 342) (1981), where the plaintiff fell on some rocks which were visible and out in the open, and where summary judgment was granted to the defendant, is more similar to this case and would seem to control it. I would reverse on the basis of the fact that the trial judge erred in denying the motions for directed verdict on liability and damages, and failed to enter the judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
As the late Judge Powell observed, “[I]t is nothing new for us to say that the jurisdiction of the jury to settle the facts is as final as is this court’s jurisdiction to determine the law; and their finding of fact is entitled to the same respect from us as our decision on the law is entitled to receive from them. And no doubt, if a reciprocity of criticism were allowable, some of our decisions as to the law would seem as absurd to the jurors as their finding of facts seem to us in this case. There is a point at which facts cease to be issuable and the jurisdiction of the jury is withdrawn for the lack of anything for them to decide; when all the evidence and all the inferences to be drawn therefrom so irresistibly point to only one way as to leave no ‘scope for legitimate reasoning by the jury,’ and the only conclusion deducible from the facts is a matter of law, which the court may declare. . . .”
I respectfully dissent.