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Currid v. DeKalb State Court Probation Dep't7/12/2005
e that Currid was placed with an appropriate court-approved agency to perform his community service, and (2) in assigning him to ride on the back of a garbage truck without proper safety equipment and training.
Agencies such as the DeKalb County Public Works Department must file an application with the court before they may participate in a community service program for probationers. In arguing that DeKalb County was grossly negligent because it did not satisfy this requirement, Appellants point to interrogatory responses of former DeKalb County State Court Chief Judge McLaughlin. Judge McLaughlin stated that, to his knowledge, he had never signed any documentation authorizing the sanitation division of the DeKalb County Public Works Department to participate in the community service program. Appellants ignore, however, the fact that such an application is in the record, signed by Judge Smith of the DeKalb County State Court. The trial court concluded that this application authorized the Public Works Department to utilize misdemeanor probationers, and we agree. We also find no support for Appellants' contention that the application is invalid because it describes the type of work to be done by probationers as "manual labor" rather than specifying "work as refuse collectors on the back of garbage trucks." As the DeKalb County Public Works Department was authorized to utilize probationers for community service work, Appellants have shown no genuine issue of material fact that, simply by placing Currid there, DeKalb County was grossly negligent, reckless, or committed willful misconduct.
Appellants assert that genuine issues of material fact exist as to whether DeKalb County, through its Public Works Department, was grossly negligent, reckless, or committed willful misconduct in assigning Currid to ride on the back of a garbage truck with inadequate safety equipment and training. The sanitation department requires garbage collectors to wear safety shoes; however, Currid was not given shoes. A sanitation department employee testified that the safety shoes provide better traction than athletic shoes, which Currid wore. A supervisor testified that it would be a violation of department policy for an employee to ride on the back of a garbage truck without safety shoes. In fact, Hoskins testified that if an employee reported to work without safety shoes, he would not let the employee get on the truck. Nonetheless, probationers generally were not issued any of the uniform that employees wear, except gloves. This, of course, was the case with Currid.
Currid did receive the same training that a new employee for the same job would have received. The only training given to new employees is a hands-on orientation with the truck driver, like that given to Currid. At the time he fell, however, Currid was riding on the back of the truck when it was going more than ten miles per hour, on a busy highway. There is evidence that this was in violation of posted rules and sanitation department policy.
"When facts alleged as constituting gross negligence are such that there is room for difference of opinion between reasonable [people] as to whether or not negligence can be inferred, and if so whether in degree the negligence amounts to gross negligence, the right to draw the inference is within the exclusive province of the jury." Viewed in a light most favorable to Appellants, the evidence is that Currid was assigned to ride on the back of a garbage truck without safety shoes which employees performing the same job are required to wear, and which would have provided better traction than the shoes he wore. At the time he fell, he should not have been riding on the back of the truck because it ex
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