Court Opinion

ID: 9856513
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:49:31.961931+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:55.024807
License: Public Domain

Eherhardt, Judge,
dissenting. We agree with the foregoing opinion, save as to the result reached in Division 3, dealing with the general demurrers. We really have no quarrel with the law cited, but our construction of the petition leads us to a conviction that a determination should be made in the superior court upon a trial of the matter, rather than by what amounts to a direction here that the company has no obligation to defend.
The action was timely brought (see Gant v. State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co., 109 Ga. App. 41 (2), 134 SE2d 886), and we think it shows the existence of a justiciable controversy between the parties as to whether, under the terms of the policy, the company is required to defend or to pay any judgment that may be obtained in the damage action. We find no instance when this exclusionary clause has been construed or its terms defined by the courts of this State. In calling on the company to defend, it is obvious that Mrs. Hatcher takes the position that what her son did could not or did not bring the event within the exclusionary clause, admitting the facts pleaded for the purposes of her demurrers. This raises an uncertainty which the company is entitled to have settled.
Whether the plaintiff in a declaratory judgment action is entitled to have his rights declared is not dependent upon whether his contention be correct. It may be found untenable upon the hearing. To withstand a general demurrer it is only necessary that the plaintiff show the existence of a justiciable controversy, as provided in the Declaratory Judgments Act. Georgia Cas. &c. Co. v. Turner, 86 Ga. App. 418, 422 (71 SE2d 773). Accord: Parks v. Jones, 88 Ga. App. 188 (76 SE2d 449); Darling v. Jones, 88 Ga. App. 812, 815 (78 SE2d 94); Griffin v. Hardware Mut. Cas. Co., 93 Ga. App. 801, 803 (1) (92 SE2d 871);
*720Buffington v. New Hampshire Fire Ins. Co., 104 Ga. App. 139, 141 (121 SE2d 270); St. Paul Fire &c. Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 216 Ga. 437 (117 SE2d 459). We think the petition meets the test of these cases and others of like tenor, and certainly this is true in the light of the fact that the Act must be liberally construed. Mensinger v. Standard Acc. Ins. Co., 202 Ga. 258 (1) (42 SE2d 628).
I am authorized to state that Felton, C. J., and Nichols, P. J., concur in this dissent.