Court Opinion

ID: 9853245
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:45:02.809865+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:43.475202
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur but take into account another aspect of the language in the contract that is not discussed. That is the aspect of time. Contractually there is coverage for “[a]ny person while . . . getting into . . . [the covered vehicle].” The word “while” refers to “a period of time . . .; the time during which an action takes place or a condition exists . . .; the time at which an event takes place. . . .” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (unabridged). So the question is whether Ms. Major was hit and injured while getting into the car.
The rules of construction are somewhat different than applied in Floyd v. J. C. Penney Cas. Ins. Co., 193 Ga. App. 350 (387 SE2d 625) (1989), and in Cole v. New Hampshire Ins. Co., 188 Ga. App. 327 (373 SE2d 36) (1988), because the court was in those cases construing statutory language. Here, the contractual language is “liberally construed in favor of the object to be accomplished and in favor of the insured except when the language is so unmistakably clear and unambiguous as to allow but one meaning.” Raynor v. American Heritage Life Ins. Co., 123 Ga. App. 247, 249 (180 SE2d 248) (1971); Simmons v. Select Ins. Co., 183 Ga. App. 128 (2) (358 SE2d 288) (1987).
Nevertheless, even liberal construction could not embrace a finding that Ms. Major was hit “while getting into” the car. Her testimony was that when she was hit she intended “to go into the door to get into the car, but I didn’t get there” and that she had closed the trunk door “and then I was fixing to get in on the other side of the car.” In her brief she states that she “was preparing to enter” the vehicle. Thus it is without dispute that she was not hit “while” getting into the car; the period of time for that action to occur had not yet commenced.
*808Barrow, Sims, Morrow & Lee, R. Stephen Sims, Stacey L. Ferris-Smith, for appellee.