Court Opinion

ID: 9846436
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:40:49.824824+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:29.862700
License: Public Domain

McMurray, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent as it is my view that there is sufficient evidence to sustain the probate court’s finding that George G. Robinson had authority (albeit apparent) to issue the $52,000 guardianship bond on behalf of Continental. Further, I find no conclusive evidence refuting the presumption that the probate court acted with regularity (i.e., with evidentiary support that Robinson was an authorized agent for Continental) when he approved the $52,000 surety bond filed to protect the ward’s estate.
*128“ ‘In terms of estoppel, the general rule is that an insurance company will be estopped to deny that a certain person is its agent or possesses the authority he assumes to exercise, where the insurance company knowingly causes or permits him so to act as to justify a third person of ordinarily careful and prudent business habits to believe that he possesses the authority exercised.’ 43 AmJur2d 201, Ins., § 120.” Henry v. Dairyland Ins. Co., 186 Ga. App. 250, 252 (366 SE2d 799). In the case sub judice, the evidence is undisputed that Continental gave Robinson a power of attorney giving him authority to issue surety bonds on its behalf and that Continental gave Robinson such authority so that Robinson could develop business on behalf of it in the Probate Court of Gwinnett County, Georgia. There is also evidence that a copy of this power of attorney was on file in the office of the Clerk of the Probate Court of Gwinnett County at the time the probate court judge approved that $52,000 bond which is now the subject of the case sub judice.
“If the principal entrusts to the agent a power of attorney or other writing which manifests that the agent has authority and which is intended to be shown to third persons, and this is retained by the agent and exhibited to third persons, the termination of the agent’s authority by causes other than incapacity or impossibility does not prevent him from having apparent authority as to persons to whom he exhibits the document and who have no notice of the termination of the authority.” Restatement, Law of Agency 2d, § 130.
In the case sub judice, there is evidence that Continental gave Robinson a “GENERAL POWER OF ATTORNEY” in the early part of 1990, giving him authority to issue surety bonds (not to exceed $300,000) to “[a] 11 Obligees.” Further, there is evidence that this power of attorney has no expiration date and that it was on file in the Probate Court of Gwinnett County at the time the probate court judge approved the $52,000 guardianship bond submitted by Gaza-way. Although there is evidence that Continental revoked Robinson’s power to issue bonds before Gazaway acquired the $52,000 bond certificate from Robinson, there is no proof that Continental informed the Probate Court of Gwinnett County that Robinson no longer had authority to issue surety bonds on its behalf. In fact, Thomas Williams, a “senior underwriter” for Continental, testified that he terminated Robinson’s authority to issue bonds for Continental in April 1991, but that he never informed the Probate Court of Gwinnett County of Robinson’s termination as a Continental agent, explaining that giving such notice would have been too burdensome.2 It is my *129view that this evidence, along with the presumption that the probate court judge acted with regularity when it approved the surety bond on behalf of the ward’s estate (i.e., with evidentiary support that Robinson was an authorized agent for Continental), Acker v. Jenkins, 178 Ga. App. 393, 394 (1) (343 SE2d 160), is sufficient to support the probate court’s finding that Robinson was Continental’s ostensible agent when he issued the $52,000 surety bond. Consequently, it is my view that the probate court did not err in concluding that “Continental Insurance Company is responsible to pay $52,000.00 to the ward as a result of its issuance of a valid bond to the former guardian, Ms. Jeannie [Garner] Gazaway, through its lawful agent, Mr. George Robinson.”
Decided December 20, 1994
Reconsideration denied January 23, 1995
Bovis, Kyle & Burch, John V. Burch, Timothy J. Burson, for appellant.
Claira M. Zellers, J. Gordon Barksdale III, Steven M. Reilly, for appellee.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Pope and Judge Blackburn join in this dissent.

 Specifically, Williams testified that he never informed the probate court of Robinson’s termination “because unlike insurance, bonds can be issued to an unlimited number of obligees is the word we use, the Probate Court being one of those. And there’s logistically no way *129that you could potentially identify every obligee and notify them of the fact that the power of attorney had been revoked. Because since George Robinson had a power of attorney, that didn’t mean that he just issued bonds for the Probate Court, if that explains it.”