Today's Georgia Court of Appeals Decisions

The Georgia Court of Appeals issued seven decisions today.  Four of these (Rocha, Attaway, Burk and Smith) affirm criminal convictions, and one (In re Am. T.) affirms termination of parental rights. (By the way, permissive parents and fraternities beware -- Burk holds that a reasonable belief that minors are drinking in the home constitutes an "exigent circumstance" permitting warrantless entry.)

In the "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" category is the case of Crosby v. Comcast (2007 WL 1053381).

It seems the cable guy left his fly unzipped while working on Ms. Crosby's cable, exposing his underwear, or (as she alleged) perhaps more, to her. Having noticed his unzipped fly as he returned to his truck, he returned, knocked on her door and apologized. His thanks for being polite was a lawsuit for intentional infliction of emotional distress and gross negligence. The Court of Appeals ruled that the trial court should have granted the cable guy's motion for summary judgment on negligence because the plaintiff suffered no physical injury, and affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment to Comcast, saying, "In this case, it is plain and palpable from the record before us that [the employee's] alleged conduct was for purely personal reasons and did nothing to further Comcast's business." Indeed. Still, the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim remains pending. Moral of the case: don't apologize -- maybe she didn't notice.

Also, in BBL-McCarthy, LLC v. Baldwin Paving Co. (2007 WL 1053372), the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court on several insurance issues in a negligent road construction case. Although the details of the case are too complicated to discuss here, the essential holdings were: (a) it reversed the trial court and found that the subcontractors' insurance companies did have a duty to defend the contractor in the negligence action, and (b) although it affirmed in part a ruling that the contractor's insurer had no right of indemnification from the subs when it settled and paid claims without the contractor's consent, it reversed a grant summary judgment on that issue as to one settlement that did not expressly state that it was without the contractor's consent, holding that OCGA 33-7-12 did not apply. (Disclaimer: BME represents one of the underlying plaintiffs in a related case against Magnum and its insurer Selective.)