Court Opinion

ID: 9583384
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:38:06.996861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:59.769587
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Judge,
concurring. While I do not personally agree that the absence of a limitation of authority in the application should avoid a binding effect upon the answers made to questions therein by the applicant (see my special concurrence to Chester v. State Farm &c. Ins. Co., 121 Ga. App. 599, 601 (174 SE2d 582), and my concurring opinion in Lucas v. Continental Cas. Co., 120 Ga. App. 457, 460 (170 SE2d 856)), yet, as I see it, we cannot avoid this result in the light of Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Hale, 177 Ga. 632 (170 SE 875). Certainly since no artifice or fraud against the applicant to keep him from reading it appears, the failure of applicant to read the application before signing it does not excuse him from knowing what was in it. National Accident &c. Ins. Co. v. Davis, 179 Ga. 595 (4) (176 SE 387); Mutual Benefit *757Health &c. Assn. v. Marsh, 62 Ga. App. 425, 433 (8 SE2d 117); Life & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Davis, 62 Ga. App. 832, 836 (10 SE2d 129); Saddler v. Cotton States Life &c. Co., 101 Ga. App. 866, 870 (115 SE2d 398); Kennesaw Life &c. Ins. Co. v. Flanigan, 115 Ga. App. 818 (156 SE2d 219), and he should be bound by his representations therein which became the basis for the issuance of the policy.
When the application is attached to the policy and thereby becomes a part of the contract, a showing of falsity or of material misrepresentation in the answers made will avoid the policy— whether there is a limitation of the agent’s authority in the application or not. Prudential Ins. Co. v. Perry, 121 Ga. App. 618 (3, 4) (174 SE2d 570); National Life &c. Ins. Co. v. Gordon, 183 Ga. 577 (188 SE 894); Jefferson Standard Life Ins. Co. v. Henderson, 37 Ga. App. 704 (141 SE 498). This is true because in suing upon the policy, if the application is a part of the contract, plaintiff must rely upon it; he cannot sift out of the contract those portions which may adversely affect his case, but he must recover upon the contract as a whole. If he must rely upon it, he is of necessity bound by it. Nelson v. Southern Guaranty Ins. Co., 221 Ga. 804, 808 (147 SE2d 424); Ericson v. Hill, 109 Ga. App. 759 (1) (137 SE2d 374); Cotton States Mut. Ins. Co. v. Martin, 110 Ga. App. 309, 311 (138 SE2d 433). "It is an elementary principle of law that one who stands on a contract must abide by its terms. As a matter of course the principle is applicable to insurance contracts as well as to all other contracts.” Mutual Benefit Health &c. Assn. v. Hickman, 100 Ga. App. 348, 357 (111 SE2d 380).