Pilgreen v. Hanson
| Decision Date | 05 October 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 2,No. 36195,36195,2 |
| Citation | 94 Ga.App. 423,94 S.E.2d 752 |
| Parties | Mrs. Hazel L. PILGREEN, Administratrix, v. Mrs. Frank HANSON |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
Special ground 4 shows reversible error. The other special grounds are not meritorious.
Mrs. Frank Hanson brought in the Superior Court of Fulton County suit against I. W. Pilgreen, d/b/a Pilgreen's, for alleged personal injuries on account of alleged negligence of the defendant in maintaining his restaurant premises in an unsafe condition. The defendant filed general and special demurrers to the petition and filed an answer. The demurrers and the rulings thereon are contained in Pilgreen v. Hanson, 89 Ga.App. 703, 81 S.E.2d 18. The allegations in the present petition are the same as those covered when the case was here before, no amendments having been added to the petition. After the case appeared in the Court of Appeals, I. W. Pilgreen died and by consent of counsel for each party, Mrs. Hazel L. Pilgreen, as administratrix of the estate of I. W. Pilgreen, was substituted as a party defendant by proper order of the court. The case came on for trial before the judge and jury and terminated in a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff in the sum of $2,000. A motion for new trial was filed on the general grounds and thereafter ten separate grounds were filed. The court denied the motion for new trial and it is to this judgment that error is assigned here.
Houston White, Emory A. Schwall, W. Steel Huie, David A. Heuett, Atlanta, for plaintiff in error.
Robert Carpenter, Ferrin Y. Mathews, Atlanta, for defendant in error.
1. Special ground 1 of the amended motion for a new trial assigns error on the charge of the court: 'If she shows to you by a preponderance of the evidence in this case that the defendant was guilty of some one or more or all of the acts of negligence which are set out and charged in this petition, and that such negligence was the proximate cause of any injury and damage which she received, she would be entitled to recover.'
The petition alleges as negligence of the defendant that the defendant, with knowledge of 'said patent defects' in the floor, failed to warn plaintiff of the same; that he failed to provide proper illumination; that he failed to 'maintain a safe and level floor free of humps' and that he failed to 'maintain said tile floor covering in a safe and unslippery condition.'
The petition was here on general and special demurrer, and this court held, Pilgreen V. Hanson, 89 Ga.App. 703, 81 S.E.2d 18, 22, that 'while it may be true that the mere fact that there is a slight difference between floor levels in different parts of a restaurant which the public is invited to enter does not of itself constitute negligence * * * and while it may be true that the mere fact that the floor of a restaurant which the public is invited to enter is highly polished, so as to be slippery, does not constitute negligence of itself * * * and while it may be true that a restaurant which the public is invited to enter may be so dimly lighted as to be in a state of semi-darkness and this fact does not constitute negligence of itself' (citing authority for each proposition) 'we cannot say as a matter of law that, in a restaurant where to the restauranteur's knowledge the three elements exist together, their combined effect is not to create a dangerous condition'. It was also stated, 'The plaintiff alleges that the various 'defects' were patent and known to the defendant, and that he had actual notice of the dangerous condition created by the defects in combination, but it is nowhere alleged that the dangerous condition so created was patent.'
In Holman v. American Automobile Ins. Co., 201 Ga. 454, 39 S.E.2d 850, a petition alleging that the plaintiff slipped on the defendant's waxed and slippery floor, but failing to allege that there were insufficient lights to allow her to see the floor or that she looked at the floor and was unable to tell that it was waxed and slippery, was held subject to general demurrer. A cause of action for slipping and falling on a floor is not set out where it appears that the defect is patent. Avary v. Anderson, 31 Ga.App. 402, 120 S.E. 683. These rules of law were applied to the allegations of the petition when it made its previous appearance in this court, and the above quoted portions of the opinion establish as the law of this case what is in any event general law--that is that one cannot state a case without alleging, or effect a recovery without proving, that the defect in the floor which caused the plaintiff to slip, if a patent defect, was for some reason not connected with any negligence on her part not patent or obvious to such plaintiff. The...
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...of wax on the bottom of the heel of the plaintiff's shoe. In Pilgreen v. Hanson, 89 Ga.App. 703, 81 S.E.2d 18 (1954) later 94 Ga.App. 423, 94 S.E.2d 752 (1956), the court held that the plaintiff's complaint was sufficient when it alleged that there was a hump on the floor at the point where......
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...inability to discern the presence of the crack or depression. Rich's, Inc. v. Townsend, 94 Ga.App. 761, 96 S.E.2d 332; Pilgreen v. Hanson, 94 Ga.App. 423, 94 S.E.2d 752. 'The rule has been thoroughly established by the appellate courts many times that negligence, whose negligence and what n......
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...made a special study of those slip-and-fall decisions by our court involving restaurants. Chronologically, these are Pilgreen v. Hanson, 94 Ga.App. 423, 94 S.E.2d 752; Wootton v. City of Atlanta, 101 Ga.App. 779, 115 S.E.2d 396; Ward v. Veterans of Foreign Wars, 109 Ga.App. 563, 136 S.E.2d ......
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Stowe v. Gallant-Belk Co., GALLANT-BELK
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