Court Opinion

ID: 9570495
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:23:46.439949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:20.159147
License: Public Domain

Evans, Judge,
concurring.
I concur fully in the majority opinion but wish to add the following:
Frank Duskin purchased certain furniture from Cook-Davis Furniture, Inc. of Cochran, Georgia, making a down payment and executing his note for the remainder. Included in the note so executed was $180.54 for which the seller agreed to purchase property insurance. The property was delivered at 6:15 p.m. on Thursday, November 26, and was destroyed by fire two days later.
The seller brought suit for the unpaid balance, and the purchaser defended upon the ground that he had purchased from the seller insurance to cover destruction of the property, albeit it appeared at the trial that the seller had neglected to procure the insurance for which the purchaser had given his note.
While this is not a case in equity, equity follows the *270law (Code § 37-113) and there is an equitable maxim which fits this situation, to wit: "When one of two innocent persons must suffer by the act of a third person, he who put it in the power of the third person to inflict the injury shall bear the loss.”
Here, the one who set the fire is the third person whose act caused the damage, but the seller, in failing to procure the insurance after charging the purchaser for same, unquestionably placed it in the power of the third person to inflict the injury, and consequently must bear the loss.
The seller suggests in his brief that the purchaser had other insurance on the property which he collected, and this ought to operate as an exoneration of seller for its failure to procure insurance.
First, let it be noted that the pleadings make no such contention and the transcript of evidence is not before this court. We can not decide cases upon the unsupported statements made in the briefs of counsel. Berrien v. Avco Financial Services, 127 Ga. App. 584 (1) (194 SE2d 337).
Next, there is a rule known in law as "the collateral source rule” which operates in cases such as this. "Equity aids the vigilant, not the slothful.” Raines v. Clay, 161 Ga. 574, 578 (131 SE 499). This principle appeared as far back as Western & Alabama R. v. Meigs, 74 Ga. 857 (5), wherein the railroad sought to reduce damages because deceased had the foresight to insure his life, paying the premiums out of his own pocket. Justice Lumpkin very sagely reduces this argument to an absurdity at p. 868, to wit: "If her recovery could thus be reduced, it might be insisted that, where the husband’s life was insured for more than she was allowed to recover under the law as its actual cash value, the company could claim a balance against the family of the deceased, on the idea that the killing of the husband and father was a positive pecuniary benefit to them.” Judge Eberhardt discusses this principle fully in Pennsylvania Threshermen &c. Co. v. Hill, 113 Ga. App. 283, 286-290 (148 SE2d 83), the gist of which is that unless the money was paid and accepted in extinguishment of all claims of every kind and against everybody, others may still be held liable. For other authorities on the collateral source rule see Nashville C. *271& St. L. R. Co. v. Miller, 120 Ga. 453 (47 SE 959); Wachtel v. Leonard, 45 Ga. App. 14 (1) (163 SE 512); Story v. Pless, 100 Ga. App. 756 (112 SE2d 407).
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Deen and Judge Marshall concur in all that is said above.