Court Opinion

ID: 9849197
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:35:59.441821+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:06.415876
License: Public Domain

Hill, Presiding Justice,
dissenting.
The court follows the majority rule that “lack of notice to the insurer provides no defense where insurance is compulsory,” citing Annot. 31 ALR2d 645. However, the lack of notice referred to in that annotation appears to be notice of the accident, see 31 ALR2d § 2 at 647, not notice of the suit. Compare Gergely v. Pioneer Mut. Cas. Co., 48 Ohio L. Abs. 376 (74 NE2d 432, 31 ALR2d at 649)" (1947). The question here involves notice of the suit.
Moreover, as the annotation points out, the cases which make up the majority rule arise under statutes which frequently provide specifically that lack of cooperation of the insured or failure to give notice (of the accident) to the insurer will not defeat the right of recovery from the insurer by the injured person. 31 ALR2d at 647. The Georgia statute has neither of these provisions and certainly no provision which says that the insurer shall be liable to pay a default judgment against its insured where the insurer had no notice of the suit. I would have thought, at least in the absence of statute or policy provision regarding notice of suit, that no insurer would be liable for a judgment against its insured without notice of the suit. In the absence of waiver, either statutory or contractual, due process of law requires notice before a judgment is binding.
An injured plaintiff who can identify and sue an insurer after taking a default judgment against the insured, can identify and notify the insurer before taking the default judgment. See Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Coburn, cited in the majority opinion. Due process requires it.
*353I am authorized to state that Justice Marshall joins in this dissent.