Court Opinion

ID: 9851048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:06:34.122496+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:47.790256
License: Public Domain

Hall, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially. I concur in Divisions 1 and 3 of the majority opinion. The appellee’s contention that a void judgment “is a mere nullity and may be so held in any court when it becomes material to the interests of the parties to consider it” is sound law. Her contention that the failure to appeal a void judgment does nothing to change the legal effect of the judgment is also sound law. However in my opinion, the question of the jurisdiction of the juvenile court is irrelevant as to whether the information sought by the application was material to the risk and whether the applicant gave a false answer. The application contained the following question which shows on its face that it is material to the issuance of an automobile liability policy: “With respect to any applicant or any member of his household, . . . has any license or permit to drive any automobile been revoked, suspended or refused?” The applicant answered “No.”
The appellee contends that the question calls for a legal opinion. I disagree; it calls for an answer of fact. The true factual answer should have been that her son’s driver’s license had been suspended. The- insurer wasn’t asking for a legal opinion but an answer of fact.
. To say that the question calls for a legal opinion would mean *589that the question should be construed in the following manner: Considering the statutes of Georgia, the ordinances of its cities, the laws of Congress, the jurisdiction of all courts, the case law of Georgia and the Federal courts interpreting these laws and the Constitution of Georgia and of the United States, has the applicant or any member of his household had any license or permit to drive any automobile revoked, suspended or refused in such manner that the same is not subject to legal attack? What if the situation here were reversed? Suppose an applicant gave a truthful answer in fact but because of the law the answer was legally false. A leading authority in this field has said that construction of matters in the application “should normally be considered in terms of their ordinary meaning in everyday parlance and not in their technical, legal sense.” 13 Appleman, Insurance Law and Practice Supp. 209, § 7586. See also Preferred Risk Mut. Ins. Co. v. Anderson, 277 Minn. 342 (152 NW2d 476) and Marks v. Continental Cas. Co., 19 Utah 2d 119 (427 P2d 387). The law is a two-edged sword which should cut both ways whether it is being applied to an insured or an insurer.
The question was written for and to be answered by laymen —not their attorneys. The issue should be viewed in a realistic manner. This approach finds support in the classical distinction between a misrepresentation of law and a misrepresentation of fact as stated by Jessel, Master of the Rolls, in Eaglesfield v. Marquis of Londonderry, 4 Ch. Div. 693 (1876): “A misrepresentation of law is this: when you state the facts, and state a conclusion oí law, so as to distinguish between facts and law. The man who knows the facts is taken to know the law; but when you state that as a fact which no doubt involves, as most facts do, a conclusion of law, that is still a statement of fact and not a statement of law. Suppose a man is asked by a tradesman whether he can give credit to a lady, and the answer is ‘You may, she is a single woman of large fortune.’ It turns out that the man who gave the answer knew that the lady had gone through the ceremony of marriage with a man who was believed to be a married man, and that she had been advised that the ceremony was null and void, though it has not been *590declared so by any court, and it afterwards turned out they were all mistaken, that the first marriage of the man was void, so that the lady was married. He does not tell the tradesman all these facts, but states that she is single. This is a statement of fact. If he had told him the whole story, and all the facts, and said, ‘Now, you see the lady is single,’ that would have been a misrepresentation of law. But the single fact he states, that the lady is unmarried, is a statement of fact, neither more nor less; and it is not the less a statement of fact, that in order to arrive at it you must know more or less of the law.” See also Christopher v. Whitmire, 199 Ga. 280, 283 (34 SE2d 100).
I do not concur in Division 2 of the majority opinion for the simple reason that there has been no ruling by the trial court on this issue. In fact no evidence has yet been introduced as to what the parties may or may not testify in regard to this question. The rulings of the trial judge were based solely on the point covered in Divisions 1 and 3 of the majority opinion.