Background
Sergio Orellana, working for a company hired by Valcourt Building Services of Georgia, was pressure washing cooling-tower fans at a commercial building managed by BSC Realty Services. After BSC-affiliated building engineers told him power to a fan had been shut off, Orellana climbed a ladder and began washing it. He testified that he heard a click, the fan began rotating, and he fell and suffered serious injuries.
Orellana sued BSC and others. BSC then sued Valcourt for breach of contract and indemnification under Valcourt’s service agreement with the building owner. The agreement required Valcourt to indemnify BSC for covered injury claims, except liability arising from the sole negligence of BSC or the owner. The trial court granted Valcourt summary judgment, concluding the exception applied because the alleged cause was the engineers’ failure to ensure the fan remained de-energized.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals reversed. A genuine factual dispute exists over whether the fan was re-energized while Orellana worked or instead began moving because of the pressure washer’s water force. The record contained no direct evidence on whether power had been restored, and the circumstantial evidence supported competing reasonable inferences.
That dispute matters because, if the fan was not re-energized, Valcourt could not establish as a matter of law that Orellana’s injuries arose solely from negligence by BSC or the owner. Thus, Valcourt had not conclusively established the contractual exception to its indemnification obligation. The court did not reach BSC’s separate argument that Valcourt may have been negligent in training Orellana.
The court also rejected Valcourt’s jurisdictional challenge. Although BSC did not timely appeal the original summary-judgment order, the order remained interlocutory under the Civil Practice Act because no civil case disposition form had been filed to enter the directed final judgment on the third-party claims. The trial court therefore could vacate and reenter the order, and BSC timely appealed from the reentered order.
Key Takeaways
- Competing reasonable inferences from circumstantial evidence can defeat summary judgment.
- An indemnity exception for the indemnitee’s sole negligence does not apply unless sole negligence is established as a matter of law.
- A directed final judgment under Georgia procedure was not entered here without the required civil case disposition form.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that a contractor seeking to avoid a broad indemnity obligation under a sole-negligence exception must eliminate material factual disputes about causation. Where the underlying accident can reasonably be attributed to more than one cause, indemnity claims ordinarily cannot be resolved on summary judgment.