Case ID: ga-app_143/html/0366-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Webb, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

54497.
    HAWTHORNE INDUSTRIES, INC. v. POOLE et al.
   Webb, Judge.

Is the cash surrender value of a life insurance policy, for the withdrawal of which no steps have been taken by the insured, subject to garnishment by a judgment creditor of the insured?

The question was answered in the negative by the trial court which dismissed the garnishment action. A like question had been answered in the negative by the Supreme Court in Farmers &c. Bank v. National Life Ins. Co., 161 Ga. 793 (131 SE 902) (1926). "A creditor of the insured cannot garnish the insurer merely because the insured has an unexercised right to exercise an option to take the cash-surrender value of the policy.” 18 Couch on Insurance 2d 318, § 74: 114.

Argued September 8, 1977

Decided September 19, 1977

Rehearing denied September 30, 1977

Mitchell, Mitchell, Coppedge, Boyett, Wester & Bates, J. Raymond Bates, Jr., for appellant.

Joe Tuggle, Philip R. Lazzara, for appellees.

Judgment affirmed.

Deen, P. J., and Birdsong, J., concur.