Overstreet v. Rhodes

96 S.E.2d 305, 94 Ga. App. 750, 1956 Ga. App. LEXIS 657
Court of Appeals of Georgia·Decided November 16, 1956·No. 35979·Published·Cited by 2 cases

Opinions

Nichols, J.

The judgment of this court was reversed by the Supreme Court in Overstreet v. Rhodes, 212 Ga. 521 (93 S. E. 2d 715). In Overstreet v. Rhodes, 93 Ga. App. 422 (91 S. E. 2d 863), this court ruled that where the tenant in this case pleaded that the untenantability of the premises alone constituted a constructive eviction and there was no1 demurrer to such plea, the question of whether the evidence authorized the finding that in addition to the untenantability of the premises the mak[754]*754ing of repairs would unreasonably interrupt the business of the tenant was not raised by the general grounds of a motion for a new trial or by a motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict based on a motion for a directed verdict, the only ground of which was that the evidence demanded a finding for the plaintiff (and contained no reference to the insufficiency of the plea). The Supreme Court ruled that the question whether repairing would unreasonably interrupt the occupancy of the tenant was raised by the motion for a new trial and by the motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict with directions as above stated. There was no evidence introduced in the case directed at the specific proposition of what effect repairing the premises would have. The case was tried on the theory that untenantability of the premises alone constituted a constructive eviction. See Lewis & Co. v. Chisholm, 68 Ga. 40. The court so charged the jury and there was no exception to the charge. Notwithstanding these facts the mandate of the Supreme Court requires that we pass on the additional question. The evidence as to the condition of the building which throws any light on this additional question is as follows:

W. C. Rhodes testified in his own behalf as defendant in part as follows: “At the time this surface water had undermined the bakery floor back there in March, the roof was leaking, too. In fact, the roof has leaked continuously for ever since, oh—I mean they patched it. They would come out and do a little bit of patching every time we would call them. I think this was in June, 1952. Mr. Sachs was walking down the street from over next door down there, and I called him in. He came in the shop and I had one of these apple bins sitting on top of one of my light fixtures where water was dropping and I had a mixing bowl that big sitting on top of the flour in back where tar had run down there, and water. In answer to this complaint when Mr. Sachs looked at this condition in 1952, he sent a man out to patch it. No, I mean they came out there—I think two fellows worked on the roof. They took some gravel—It did not altogether stop the leaks. In fact, while they put it up there, some tar poured through the roof when they were working on the roof. The tar leaked through the roof where there was water leaking. There’s no ceiling in the back part of the building. The only [755]*755thing you have up there is your rafters, sheathing, tar paper and gravel and tar on it. You can look right up and see the sheathing part of the roof. There’s no ceiling to catch it. If there was any ceiling up there, it would have caught the tar, but anything that comes through comes into the back part of the bakery. We called Mr. Sachs and made known to him the fact that it hadn’t been properly repaired. . . In June, 1953, it began to give us a great deal of trouble again. . . At that time the roof was leaking something terrible; the roof was in bad shape then. I did not tell Mr. Sachs about the roof in 1953. I showed him the outside but I didn’t tell him about the roof. . .

“In June, 1953, the roof sheathing was rotted out and you could see in three places and if you had got up there—in fact, we got up on top of the ladies’ toilet and you could take something and stick up in the wood in that sheathing. I don’t know how thick it is, an inch or what, but all the places that had leaked, you could stick something up in the wood part and you needed a whole new sheathing in there before you put a roof on it. Yes, the condition of that roof sheathing was pointed out to Mr. Sachs in June of 1953. He sent a man out to put a roof on it in August, 1953. The man came out to put the whole new roof on and we called him in the back and showed him and said, 'We don’t believe you can put a roof on top of this sheathing, it’s liable to fall in on us.’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll check it,’ and he did check it. When he got up walking on it, the gravel and all would drop down in the building. All they did was scrape off the gravel, put new tar paper over it and new tar and gravel back over it. Not a thing was done to the wood sheathing that was underneath the gravel and the tar paper. Not one board was taken out and put a new one in. As to whether or not we complained of that condition to Mr. Sachs and whether or not he had had opportunity, and had come out there and looked at it, Mr. Sachs had seen it; he had been out there and looked at it. We gave notice to Mr. Sachs before he even began to let this fellow put this gravel on it. We did and even had the man, before he would go to work on it, we had him call Mr. Sachs about the sheathing before we let him do* any work on it and he didn’t replace one board in the whole roof. . . After the roof had been completely finished in the last of August or first part of September, [756]*756we had a 4-foot light hanging over a bench where we iced our cakes and decorated the cakes. The fluorescent light was hanging up over there and this whole thing fell out, the board and all, pulled right out after they finished with the roof; about 4% feet of board and the whole light fell down, if anybody had been working there where that bench had been, it could have hurt them and would have ruined everything on the table. It was rotten."

G. E. Rhodes, Jr., testified in his own behalf as defendant in part as follows: “The fixture fell from the building after we moved out; but as far as the roof, the roof is—to the eye is rotten in spots. The boards are rotten in spots; you can see it. We could see it before we moved out. They turned black. The roof was painted white and those spots turned black. Yes, to the eye those boards were rotten. Some of them dropped down that far. . . . I actually examined the roof physically. As to how did I examine it, at one time we were having it painted and we were up at the rafters right at the roof. When I got up there I felt it. I have been on top of the roof. In August, 1953, when the tar and gravel and tar paper were put on the roof there were men walking around on the roof at that time. They had to get up there to put the tar and gravel on it. When these men were up there-on the roof putting this tar and gravel on, they did not move and replace any of the wooden roof sheathing. I was there when that condition was called to the attention of Mr. Sachs that they weren’t doing it. I was in the building when they were up there on the roof. While they were putting this tar and gravel on, well, they scraped—you would find some of the scrapings would fall down through the cracks in the sheathing and when they put the new tar on there, some of the tar even dripped down between the cracks in the sheathing. The man who was putting on this roof in 1953, the first part of September, was sent there by Mr. Sachs.”

G. E. Rhodes, Sr., testified as a witness for the defendants in part as follows: “As to whether or not I had an occasion to make an examination of the wood roof sheathing, you didn’t have to make an examination; it was right in front of your eyes.

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Overstreet v. Rhodes, 96 S.E.2d 305, 94 Ga. App. 750, 1956 Ga. App. LEXIS 657 (Ga. Ct. App. 1956).

96 S.E.2d 305 (Overstreet v. Rhodes) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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97 S.E.2d 561 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1957)