Rubio v. Davis

500 S.E.2d 367, 231 Ga. App. 425
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedMarch 20, 1998
DocketA97A2120, A97A2121
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 500 S.E.2d 367 (Rubio v. Davis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rubio v. Davis, 500 S.E.2d 367, 231 Ga. App. 425 (Ga. Ct. App. 1998).

Opinions

McMurray, Presiding Judge.

These related appeals arise from an incident during which three-year-old Jacob Rubio, the son of migrant farm workers Joel and Rosa Rubio, was seriously injured by a conveyor belt in Julian Wood and Lamar Davis’ packing shed. The Rubios brought this action against defendants Wood and Davis, who were partners in a watermelon farming operation when Jacob was injured.1

The evidence adduced at trial, construed to support the Rubios’ claims, reveals the following: Defendants Wood and Davis hired Ramiro Ozuna to recruit and supervise a crew of workers to harvest watermelons. Because Wood and Davis instructed Ozuna that children were not allowed in the fields or the packing shed, Ozuna set up a nursery for the laborers’ children about 100 yards from defendants’ packing shed. A woman was hired to watch the children. She was paid $7 a day for her efforts.

On the morning of June 17, 1994, the Rubios arrived at defendants’ farming operation with their three children looking for work. Ozuna hired Mr. Rubio that morning and asked for Mrs. Rubio’s help later that afternoon. After agreeing to work, Mrs. Rubio placed her children in the farm’s nursery and began laboring in defendants’ packing shed, near a large conveyor belt. While the Rubios were working, some of the migrant workers’ children entered the packing shed and began crushing cans under the conveyor belt’s strong motorized mechanisms. While playing, three-year-old Jacob Rubio got caught in the conveyor belt. His arm was instantly amputated.

The trial court declared a mistrial because the jury was unable to reach a verdict. The Rubios appealed in Case No. A97A2120 after the trial court granted defendants’ joint motion for judgment notwithstanding the mistrial. Wood and Davis filed a cross-appeal in Case No. A97A2121. Held:

Case No. A97A2120

1. The Rubios contend the trial court erred in granting defendants’ motion for judgment notwithstanding the mistrial, arguing that genuine issues of material fact remain as to their alternative negligence and attractive nuisance claims. These alternative theories of liability are relevant because the evidence regarding Jacob Rubio’s status as a trespasser, licensee or invitee is hotly disputed.

“ ‘A motion for a judgment notwithstanding a mistrial is analo[426]*426gous to a motion for a directed verdict or motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict in that the same can be sustained only where “(t)here is no conflict in the evidence as to any material issue and the evidence introduced, with all reasonable deductions therefrom shall demand a particular verdict.” (OCGA § 9-11-50 (a)).’ Gordon v. Carter, 126 Ga. App. 343, 344 (1) (190 SE2d 570). See also Findley v. McDaniel, 158 Ga. App. 445, 446 (1) (280 SE2d 858).” Gog-gin v. Goldman, 209 Ga. App. 251, 252 (433 SE2d 85).

In the case sub judice, the Rubios contend Jacob must have escaped from the nursery, while defendants contend Mrs. Rubio brought the child into the shed.2 Frank Gillis, a licensed private investigator, testified that he interviewed defendant Julian Wood and that Wood told him that, on the day of the incident, several children entered the shed to get out of the rain. He also stated that Wood “saw several children take metal cans . . . and put them in this conveyor belt and the conveyor belt was crushing them. . . '. Then he said the Rubio child walked up and put one in the conveyor belt and his arm got caught in the conveyor belt.” Wood denies making any such statement, claiming that Gillis’ testimony was “fabricated.” Defendants presented testimony that Wood was not present in the shed at the time of the accident, that they did not know any children were in the shed, and that it was not raining the day of the incident. These circumstances raise genuine issues of material fact regarding Jacob Rubio’s status as a trespasser, licensee or invitee.

The dissent’s reliance on Biggs v. Brannon Square Assoc., 174 Ga. App. 13 (329 SE2d 239), for suggesting the exclusion of attractive nuisance liability is misplaced. In Biggs, this Court excluded attractive nuisance liability because of conclusive proof that the injured child was a licensee. Id. at 14 (1). As demonstrated above, such undisputed proof does not exist in the case sub judice. Under such circumstances, a jury (under proper instructions) should resolve Jacob Rubio’s status as a trespasser, licensee, or invitee, and then consider defendants’ liability under the appropriate premises liability standard.3 Thus, if a jury finds that Jacob Rubio was a licensee, then defendants’ liability would be measured by the standards restated in Biggs v. Brannon Square Assoc., 174 Ga. App. 13, 16 (2), supra. If a jury decides Jacob Rubio was an invitee, then defendants’ liability would be measured by the ordinary care standard prescribed in [427]*427OCGA § 51-3-1. But, if a jury finds that Jacob Rubio was trespassing in defendants’ packing shed when his arm was amputated, defendants’ liability must be measured according to Georgia’s attractive nuisance doctrine, as set out in Gregory v. Johnson, 249 Ga. 151 (289 SE2d 232).

The dissent’s reliance on Johnson v. Lanier, 140 Ga. App. 522, 524 (4) (231 SE2d 428), for suggesting that defendants’ watermelon conveyor belt is not an “attractive nuisance” is also misplaced. Lanier holds, as a matter of public policy, that a properly functioning farm tractor is not an inherently dangerous instrumentality so as to invoke attractive nuisance liability. Id. The problem with this 1976 decision, however, is that it does not apply the five-part foreseeability test which the Supreme Court of Georgia prescribed in 1982 in Gregory v. Johnson, 249 Ga. 151, 154, supra, for determining “attractive nuisance” liability.

“ A possessor of land is subject to liability for physical harm to children trespassing thereon caused by an artificial condition upon the land if (a) the place where the condition exists is one upon which the possessor knows or has reason to know that children are likely to trespass, and (b) the condition is one of which the possessor knows or has reason to know and which he realizes or should realize will involve an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily harm to such children, and (c) the children because of their youth do not discover the condition or realize the risk involved in intermeddling with it or in coming within the area made dangerous by it, and (d) the utility to the possessor of maintaining the condition and the burden of eliminating the danger are slight as compared with the risk to children involved, and (e) the possessor fails to exercise reasonable care to eliminate the danger or otherwise to protect the children.’ [Restatement of the Law Second, Torts, § 339 (1965)].” Gregory v. Johnson, 249 Ga. 151, 154, supra.

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Related

Luck v. Regions Bank
546 S.E.2d 342 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2001)
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729 A.2d 825 (Supreme Court of Delaware, 1999)
Rubio v. Davis
500 S.E.2d 367 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1998)

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500 S.E.2d 367, 231 Ga. App. 425, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rubio-v-davis-gactapp-1998.