Court Opinion

ID: 9620979
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:50:08.316751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:56.640321
License: Public Domain

Smith, Justice,
dissenting.
The automobile policy provided, in part, that “bodily injury or property damage arising out of automobile business operations,” was excluded. The term “automobile business” was defined, in part, as follows: “[T]he business or occupation of . . . servicing . . . motor vehicles ...” Certainly minds can differ as to whether a car wash is an automobile business, servicing motor vehicles. The process of washing and waxing a car is not generally thought of as servicing.
The fact that the trial court, the Court of Appeals, and this Court *771cannot agree with regard to whether or not washing and waxing a car is servicing indicates that the term is ambiguous, and that the insurer did not define the limitation in “clear and explicit terms.”
Decided November 30, 1988
Reconsideration denied December 14, 1988.
Drew, Eckl & Farnham, W. Wray Eckl, for appellant.
Kent T. Stair, for appellees.
Exceptions, limitations and exclusions to insuring agreements require a narrow construction on the theory that the insurer, having affirmatively expressed coverage through broad promises, assumes a duty to define any limitations on that coverage in clear and explicit terms. [Cits.] [Emphasis supplied.]
Alley v. Great American Ins. Co., 160 Ga. App. 597, 600 (287 SE2d 613) (1981); U. S. Fidelity &c. Co. v. Gillis, 164 Ga. App. 278, 281 (296 SE2d 253) (1982).
The ambiguity in the policy should have been strictly construed against the insurer.