Court Opinion

ID: 9583646
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:40:48.982756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:29.173967
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
In my opinion, there is no real or rational reason to overrule Big Bear Ranches v. Ga. Farm &c. Ins. Co., 169 Ga. App. 307 (312 SE2d 378) (1983), as the two cases differ sufficiently in their facts to warrant a result in the instant case different from that in Big Bear Ranches.
The word “includes” has two distinct meanings. The first, and more usual, meaning is that something is added to the preceding language, either by defining/specifying the preceding term or by adding something not necessarily implied therein; it is thus ordinarily a term of enlargement, and is so used in the instant case. On the other hand, in the context of a prior or separate listing of coverages or exclusions, *236“includes” may limit or restrict the coverage to only certain items and thus be a term of limitation, as was appropriate in Big Bear Ranches. See 20A Words & Phrases, 1985 Pocket Part, and cases cited therein. In this matter, as in so many instances of interpretation, it is reasonableness that is the key. As perceptively and pointedly expressed, “care should be taken not to permit the ring of rhetoric to overpower the rule of reason.”1
Decided November 20, 1985
Rehearing denied December 16, 1985
Morton G. Forbes, Hermann W. Coolidge, Jr., for appellant.
Bobby T. A. Jones, Glen A. Cheney, for appellees.
According to Lord Denning, when addressing the court, the most useful tool for an advocate to use “is the one by which you point out that the word or phrase is capable of more than one meaning . . . and then to invite the judge to take one that leads to a just and desirable result.” He further admonishes judges that they “should not be a mechanic in the powerhouse of semantics, [but] should be the man in charge of it.”2 We have in the case sub judice two options as to definitions, and the pathway leading to reason and justice is attained in both Big Bear Ranches and the instant case. To overrule the latter case would be unwise, as it would limit the court’s resources of reason and tools of flexibility in seeking an equitable and just solution while we decide the many disputes in cases in which we correct errors of law. “Reviewing courts whose sole province is to correct errors of law should not enter the forum of facts. . . .” Hunt v. State, 8 Ga. App. 374, 377 (69 SE 42) (1910).
I must respectfully dissent.

 Ronald K. L. Collins, “The Problem of Penalties Clouds Issue of Abortion,” The National Law Journal (July 1985).

 Baron Alfred Thompson Denning, of Whitchurch in the County of Hampshire, “The Price of Freedom,” 41 A.B.A. Journal 1011 (1955).