Opinion
42129.
ARGUED JULY 7, 1966.
DECIDED SEPTEMBER 6, 1966.
Action for damages. Savannah City Court. Before Judge Oliver.
Frank B. Zeigler, for appellant.
Bouhan, Lawrence, Williams Levy, Frank W. Seiler, for appellee.
Where it appeared from the pleadings and from depositions in support of defendant's motion for summary judgment that plaintiff had contracted with the defendant for the removal of floor furnaces and the installation of a duct system of heating and air conditioning her home, and that while the work was in progress the workmen removed the grille from one of the floor furnaces, pulled the furnace and within less than a minute plaintiff, walking from one room to another across the hall to secure a memorandum, stepped into the hole left by removal of the furnace and was injured, the grant of defendant's motion for summary judgment was proper. Plaintiff's contention that the defendant was negligent in failing to warn her of the opening in the floor, or in failing to cover it immediately upon removing the furnace is without merit. Lunsford v. Childs, 107 Ga. App. 210 ( 129 S.E.2d 398). No reason appears in the pleadings or in the evidence submitted why plaintiff could not, in the exercise of ordinary care for her own safety, have avoided stepping into the hole. It was work in progress in her own home which she had engaged to be done. It was in the daytime, and no reason appears why she could not have seen it. Nechtman v. B. Thorpe Co., 99 Ga. App. 626 ( 109 S.E.2d 633). See also Lane Drug Stores v. Story, 72 Ga. App. 886 ( 35 S.E.2d 472); Lanier v. Turner, 73 Ga. App. 749, 753 ( 38 S.E.2d 55); Stephens v. Dover Elevator Co., 109 Ga. App. 112 ( 135 S.E.2d 593). In her deposition plaintiff answered in response to the question as to why she did not see the opening, "Well, I guess I wasn't looking, because I fell into it." "[W]here it is perfectly obvious and apparent, so that one looking ahead would necessarily see it, the fact that the plaintiff merely failed to look will not relieve him from the responsibility for his misadventure." Moore v. Kroger Co., 87 Ga. App. 581, 583 ( 74 S.E.2d 481). Accord: Mills v. Barker, 38 Ga. App. 734 ( 145 S.E. 672); National Bellas-Hess Co. v. Patrick, 49 Ga. App. 280 ( 175 S.E. 255); Tinley v. F. W. Woolworth Co., 70 Ga. App. 390 ( 28 S.E.2d 322); White v. City of Manchester, 92 Ga. App. 642, 644 (2) ( 89 S.E.2d 581).
Judgment affirmed. Bell, P. J., and Jordan, J., concur.