Court Opinion

ID: 9452516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:42:52.151293+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:14.718584
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING '
PER CURIAM:
After consideration, appellee’s petition for rehearing is denied. However, several points urged in the petition merit comment.
Float-Away is a plaintiff in this suit and is, therefore, entitled to the liberal construction doctrine. American Fidelity & Casualty Co. v. St. Paul-Mercury Indemnity Co., 5 Cir. 1957, 248 F.2d 509, is clearly distinguishable, for in that case St. Paul sued not only another insurance company but also Larsen, its own insured. We need not consider inappropriate alignment of parties or obviously noninterested parties. Neither situation confronts us in this case.
The appellee erroneously assumes that Float-Away is not a real party in interest. See Rule 17(a), Fed.R.Civ.P. The judgment in favor of Barrett was against Float-Away, not National Surety. Float-Away, as an omnibus insured, is an interested party to this action seeking to enforce the policy *710coverage of judgment debts incurred by insureds.
To re-emphasize, the mere fortuitous existence of National Surety as Float-Away’s comprehensive liability insurer should not distort a proper construing of Dance’s policy as applied to Float-Away. Though the list of intramural insurance Donnybrooks is constantly growing,1 we cannot shrink from our duty to construe the particular policy confronting us. National Surety is a party to this suit, but this alone should not detract from Float-Away’s claim.
As to Fireman’s Fund Indemnity Co. v. Mosaic Tile Co., 101 Ga.App. 701, 115 S.E.2d 263, the Georgia Court of Appeals was confronted with a case that involved an injured employee of the named insured. The opinion does not indicate that if the injured employee was employed by a third party, who is an omnibus insured different from the one involved in the action before the court, that a similar holding would result. While Georgia did not restrict the definition of “insured” to the party seeking coverage, it also did not adopt the all-inclusive approach suggested by the appellee. A definition unambiguous in the light of some circumstances, may become hazy and unclear when additional factors cast their shadows.2 We are not convinced that the definition which would apparently exclude coverage when the employee of a named insured is injured also denies coverage if an employee of Universal, a different omnibus insured, is involved.
Finally in noting the rationale of Gulf Insurance Co. v. Mack Warehouse Corp., E.D.Pa.1962, 212 F.Supp. 39, we were not adopting its holding for, as we pointed out, the case can be distinguished. The discussion concerning the exclusionary clause is cited, however, with approval.
The petition for rehearing is denied.

. Hamilton v. Maryland Casualty Co., 5 Cir. 1966, 368 F.2d 768. The appearance of insurance companies on both sides of the case is no longer a unique or unusual phenomenon. Facing this reality and being well aware of the ultimate beneficiaries of our decision, we are constrained, however, to construe these contractual agreements without unnecessary diversions and conjectures concerning tactics of parties and the motivating factors initiating the law suit. If we were to do otherwise, an insurance company would be handicapped in pressing or supporting its named insured’s claim that he is an omnibus insured under another insurer’s policy.

. The existence of the employee exclusion clause does not alter our decision that Mosaic Tile Company is not controlling. The same definition of “insured” is involved.