Per Curiam.Plaintiff Raldoman Williams was injured when a car lift in the shop where he was having his car repaired was lowered onto his foot. On appeal from a jury verdict in Williams’s favor, the owner and operator of the shop, Arthur Sherwood, argues that the trial court erred when, inter alia, it denied his motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (“j.n.o.v.”) and when it charged the jury as to the constructive knowledge of hazards including a foreign substance. We find no error and affirm. On appeal from the denial of a motion for j.n.o.v., we will affirm the verdict if there is any evidence to support it. Avion Systems, Inc. v. Bellomo, 338 Ga. App. 141, 145 (2) (789 SE2d 374) (2016). An appellant seeking reversal of the denial of his motion for j.n.o.v. must therefore show “that there was no conflict in the evidence as to any material issue and that the evidence introduced, with all reasonable deductions therefrom, demanded the verdict sought.” (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Id.Thus viewed in favor of the jury’s verdict, the record shows that on February 10, 2010, Sherwood leased a portion of his auto repair shop, Reliable Auto Repairs, Inc., to Leroy Bather. Under the terms of the lease, Sherwood leased the “front repair and maintenance area[,] consisting of three (3) bays, office space, and rear parking” to Bather. The lease also required Bather to “hold [Sherwood] harmless from any liability or damage, whether caused by [Bather's] operations or otherwise[,]” and “ to carry business liability insurance, including bodily injury and property damage coverage, covering all [of Bather's] business operations in the amount of $150,000[,] with [Sherwood] named as a co-insured party.” Bather never obtained such coverage. Sherwood and Bather shared the customer waiting area, and Sherwood used a desk in an office area included in the property leased to Bather. Sherwood continued to use all three car lifts on the shop floor during the Bather lease, and also retained the keys to the shop, which Bather could not open or lock himself. Although Sherwood testified that he knew that the shop was a dangerous place, he allowed customers to be present, as when he posted a sign directing male customers to go across the floor to reach a restroom while reserving a second restroom, not accessible through the shop, for his own use.On September 17, 2010, Williams came into the shop to get his car fixed. Because Sherwood was working on another car, Bather told Sherwood and Williams that he would look at the car “and tell Mr. Sherwood what was wrong so he could repair it.” Bather then drove the car onto the middle of the three car lifts at the shop and raised the lift. Bather found an oil leak on the car and called Williams over to see it. After Williams saw the source of the leak, Bather lowered the lift from the front of the car, where the operator switch was, so that the two bars running parallel to the side of the car were resting on the ground. Bather then asked Williams to retrieve the dipstick from the car’s trunk, where Williams had stored it because its handle had broken. Williams testified that because the two outside bars of the lift were resting on the shop floor, he did not know that as he attempted to retrieve the dipstick from the trunk, the middle bar, which ran perpendicular to the other bars and parallel to the rear of the car, was not “completely on the ground.” As Williams reached into his trunk, Bather lowered the lift further so that the middle bar crushed Williams’s foot. In September 2011, Williams sued Sherwood and Reliable Auto for, inter alia, negligence, punitive damages, and attorney fees. Sherwood filed a third-party complaint against Bather and moved for summary judgment, which was denied. At the close of Williams’s presentation of evidence at trial, Sherwood moved for a directed verdict on the ground that no evidence authorized the conclusion that either he or Bather was negligent. Bather later moved for a directed verdict on the ground that the indemnification provision of the lease was unconscionable, while Sherwood asserted in his own motion for directed verdict that Bather was liable to him as a matter of law under the lease. The trial court denied these motions. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Williams in the amount of $125,000, with liability apportioned 2 percent to Williams himself, 33 percent to Sherwood personally, 33 percent to Reliable Auto, and 32 percent to Bather, and also finding that Sherwood and Reliable Auto were not entitled to recover any amount from Bather. The trial court entered judgment on the verdict. Sherwood and Reliable Auto then moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial. The trial court denied this motion, and this appeal followed.1. Sherwood first argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict because there was no evidence to support a finding of negligence by either himself or Bather. We disagree. (a) Duties of owners and occupiers. The principles governing this case are well established. OCGA § 51-3-1 provides:Where an owner or occupier of land, by express or implied invitation, induces or leads others to come upon his premises for any lawful purpose, he is liable in damages to such persons for injuries caused by his failure to exercise ordinary care in keeping the premises and approaches safe.
“The nondelegable duty to keep one’s premises safe requires that the owner or occupier must use ordinary care to guard, cover, or protect the dangerous or defective portion of the premises[.]” (Citation, punctuation, and emphasis omitted.) Towles v. Cox, 181 Ga. App. 194, 197 (1) (351 SE2d 718) (1997). Because this duty of exercising ordinary care is non-delegable, an owner will not be excused from liability for an injury occurring on his property unless he has delivered “full possession and complete control” of the premises to a third party. Id. at 196 (1). The evidence outlined above was sufficient to create a genuine question of material fact as to whether Sherwood remained responsible for exercising ordinary care in keeping the premises safe for invitees such as Williams. Regardless of Sherwood’s presence at the precise time of the accident, some evidence showed that Sherwood both retained control of the premises and authorized or encouraged invitees to visit or remain on the shop floor, as when he directed all male customers seeking a restroom to walk through the shop. Towles, 181 Ga. App. at 195-196 (1) (a jury was authorized to resolve the question whether an out-of-town defendant had delivered full and complete control of the sidewalk where plaintiff was injured by a jackhammer operated by an independent contractor). (b) Breach of Duty. In order for Sherwood or Bather to be held liable for negligence, “it is not necessary that [either] should have been able to anticipate the particular consequences which ensued. It is sufficient if, in ordinary prudence, [either] might have foreseen that some injury would result from his act or omission, and that consequences of a generally injurious nature might result.” (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Towles, 181 Ga. App. at 197 (1). It is true that “where there are no conditions making the premises unusually dangerous, the law does not require the proprietor to provide a constant patrol.” (Citation, punctuation and emphasis omitted.) Id. at 196 (1). But this is not a case involving a static defect undiscovered by an owner/occupier. Rather, it involves the use of a piece of heavy machinery capable of causing injury or death, with the use of such machinery being among those “‘dangers foreseeable from the arrangement or use of the premises.’” (Emphasis supplied.) Hagadorn v. Prudential Ins. Co., 267 Ga. App. 143, 146 (598 SE2d 865) (2004), quoting Robinson v. Kroger Co., 268 Ga. 735, 740 (1) (493 SE2d 403) (1997).In Towles, for example, which involved the use of mobile heavy equipment and a jackhammer to remove asphalt, we concluded that the evidence authorized the jury to determine whether “defendants were on notice that the failure to take any precautions to protect their invitees on the adjacent sidewalk would result in some form of potential physical encroachment of the dangerous construction activity with an injurious result.” (Citation and emphasis omitted.) Id. at 197 (1); see also Murray Biscuit Co. v. Hutto, 115 Ga. App. 870, 873 (1) (156 SE2d 132) (1967) (plaintiff was not required to prove defendant’s actual knowledge of a hazard “because the duty to exercise ordinary care arose when the plaintiff’s presence was discovered and he was known, or reasonably expected to be, within range of a dangerous act being done”) (citation omitted). Here, a jury could likewise find from the evidence, including Bather’s direction of Williams to reach into the trunk of the car as it was being lowered, that Sherwood and/or Bather possessed superior knowledge of the danger posed by the descending lift, and thus that “proper supervision” by Sherwood and/or Bather “could have prevented the occurrence” of Williams’s injury. Towles, 181 Ga. App. at 197-198 (1) (citation and punctuation omitted). (c) Contributory Negligence. It is clear that[e]xcept in plain, palpable and undisputed cases where reasonable minds cannot differ as to the conclusions to be reached, questions of negligence, proximate cause, including the related issues of foreseeability, assumption of risk, lack of ordinary care for one’s own safety, lack of ordinary care in avoiding the consequences of another’s negligence, contributory and comparative negligence[,]are for the jury.
