Court Opinion

ID: 9587396
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:21:40.574255+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:43.537759
License: Public Domain

BARNES, Judge,
dissenting.
Because I believe the majority opinion represents the activist interpretation of an unambiguous statute, I must respectfully dissent.
The question in this case is, does the statute allow an insured to recover from his uninsured motorist carrier for the death of his son by an uninsured motorist? The plain language of the statute says yes. Under the language of his policy, however, the father could not recover from the uninsured motorist, because the policy specifies that the insured himself must suffer a bodily injury. The statute, on the other hand, does not require that an insured himself suffer a bodily injury before he can recover from an uninsured motorist. It provides that uninsured motorist insurance must “pay the insured all sums which said insured shall be legally entitled to recover as damages from the owner or operator of an uninsured motor vehicle____” (Emphasis supplied.) OCGA § 33-7-11 (a) (1).
Pretermitting for the moment what the legislature intended when it passed a law requiring insurance companies to offer insurance against damages caused by uninsured motorists, our job as members of the judiciary does not start by deciding what we think the legislature means. “Surely it is no sufficient reason for departing from established rules of construction, that a court may believe the legislature ought to have legislated differently from what it seems to *670have done.” Smith, Barry & Co. v. Davis Brothers, 85 Ga. 625, 629 (11 SE 1024) (1890). Instead, our task is to begin by looking at the statute itself.
The Supreme Court of Georgia has summarized the guidelines for statutory interpretation:
In construing a statute, our goal is to determine its legislative purpose. In this regard, a court must first focus on the statute’s text. In order to discern the meaning of the words of a statute, the reader must look at the context in which the statute was written, remembering at all times that the meaning of a sentence may be more than that of the separate words, as a melody is more than the notes. If the words of a statute, however, are plain and capable of having but one meaning, and do not produce any absurd, impractical, or contradictory results, then this Court is bound to follow the meaning of those words. If, on the other hand, the words of the statute are ambiguous, then this Court must construe the statute, keeping in mind the purpose of the statute and “the old law, the evil, and the remedy.” OCGA § 1-3-1 (a).
(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Busch v. State, 271 Ga. 591, 592 (523 SE2d 21) (1999).
As the majority notes, the language in this case is clear on its face. The majority then, through some sort of judicial clairvoyance, engrafts what it believes the legislature must have intended. This approach, of course, assumes that the legislature was incapable of understanding the meaning of “all,”3 and that the General Assembly did not want insureds to be able to recover for all damages caused by uninsured motorists, but only for certain damages that the majority proceeds to define.
The first step injudicial construction of a statute, however, is not to skip a step and go straight to interpretation, but to first examine the language of OCGA § 33-7-11 (a) (1) and determine whether it is susceptible to interpretation.
Where a statute is susceptible of one and only one construction, this court can not adopt a different construction merely to relieve [the] parties of some real or imagined hardship; but *671if the law is valid, we can only apply it in the form into which it was finally adopted as a statute by the lawmaking body.
(Citation and punctuation omitted.) State Revenue Comm. v. Nat. Biscuit Co., 179 Ga. 90, 100 (175 SE 368) (1934).
The majority agrees with Atlanta Casualty’s assertion that OCGA § 33-7-11 (a) (1) does not require coverage for damages resulting from injuries to a noncovered person by an uninsured motorist. Even though this proposed construction is contrary to the plain language of the statute, which requires that UM carriers “pay the insured all sums which said insured shall be legally entitled to recover as damages from the owner or operator of an uninsured motor vehicle. . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) OCGA § 33-7-11 (a) (1). In effect, the majority has now amended the statute to add the following bracketed language to the Code provision: UM carriers must “pay the insured all sums which said insured shall be legally entitled to recover as damages from the owner or operator of an insured motor vehicle [for bodily injury or property damage to an insured or covered person] ” Such judicial legislation is beyond the authority given us by the Constitution and statutes of this State.
No language in the statute can reasonably support the majority’s proposed construction. A plain reading of the language clearly requires coverage, regardless of whether the person injured is a covered or noncovered person in the policy. All that the statute requires is that the insured person be “legally entitled to recover damages.” A court cannot by construction “add to, take from, or vary the meaning of unambiguous words in the statute.” Brooks v. Brooks, 185 Ga. 549, 554 (195 SE 869) (1938).
The majority conjectures that the legislature did not intend to require this coverage, but can point to no language or ambiguity in the statute supporting this construction of the legislative intent, and makes no reference to any legislative history or comment upon which it relies. Where there is no ambiguity, our job is simply to look at the words the legislature used, not to interpret what we think they must have meant. If the legislature disagrees with our construction, it is free to amend the statute to make its intent clear, as it has on other occasions. See State v. Sneddon, 235 Ga. App. 739 (510 SE2d 566) (1998), for example, in which we noted the legislature’s amendment to the implied consent law after we held that the statute as written required an arresting officer to read the implied consent warnings verbatim. See also Smith v. Smith, 254 Ga. 450-451 (1) (330 SE2d 706) (1985), in which the Supreme Court reviewed certain legislative action taken in response to problems elucidated in previous opinions.
While it is true that this court has held that “[s]tatutes must be construed as well so as to square with common sense and sound *672reasoning . . . and not so construe a statute as will result in unreasonable or absurd consequences not contemplated by the legislature,” the case in which we said that involved the construction of a statute with two apparently conflicting subsections, not the construction of an admittedly unambiguous statute. City of Brunswick v. Atlanta Journal & Constitution, 214 Ga. App. 150, 153 (3) (447 SE2d 41) (1994). Moreover, the consequence which the majority seeks to avoid is deemed unreasonable or absurd only because four members of this court say so. The majority points to no authority demanding that conclusion.
Further, even if I were to accept the majority’s premise that our duty is to look at the legislative intent despite the unambiguous language of the statute, I cannot agree that the legislature meant to require coverage only for bodily injuries incurred by the insured, as opposed to damages incurred by the insured. Although we can examine no legislative history, our courts have previously considered the legislature’s intent in enacting the Uninsured Motorist Act. The Supreme Court of Georgia concluded that “the Uninsured Motorist Act . . . resulted from public concern over increasingly frequent hardships imposed upon persons sustaining bodily and property damage caused by uninsured and financially irresponsible motorists, as shown by the reported cases on this subject.” State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Murphy, 226 Ga. 710, 712 (177 SE2d 257) (1970). Given the result today, the majority has apparently concluded that the public was only concerned about hardships imposed on covered persons sustaining bodily injuries.
Thus, even if there were some ambiguity in the statute, which there is not, we would be required to construe it broadly to require uninsured motorist insurance coverage for an innocent insured, who is legally entitled to recover wrongful death damages from an irresponsible insured driver, regardless of whether the decedent was “insured” under the policy.
As to foreign law on this issue, the cases are not particularly illustrative, as many of them interpret statutes that are worded differently from Georgia’s. As the majority notes, the Ohio and Maryland legislatures amended their uninsured motorist statutes after court rulings on the subject, an action that the Georgia legislature is also capable of undertaking if it considers such action necessary.4 Some states’ uninsured motorist statutes, unlike Georgia’s, *673“require[ ] coverage for insured persons who are legally entitled to recover damages because of‘bodily injury, sickness or disease, including death.’” London v. Farmers Ins. Co., 63 P3d 552, 556 (Okla. Ct. App. 2002). Courts in those states have determined that the statute is ambiguous and that the “bodily injury” must occur to the insured. See, e.g., Farmers Ins. Exchange v. Chacon, 939 P2d 517 (Colo. Ct. App. 1997); Livingston v. Omaha Property & Cas. Ins. Co., 927 SW2d 444 (Mo. Ct. App. 1996); Gaddis v. Safeco Ins. Co., 58 Wash. App. 537 (794 P2d 533) (1990); Bartning v. State Farm Fire & Cas., 164 Ariz. 370 (793 P2d 127) (Ct. App. 1990). But the Georgia statute says nothing about “bodily injury,” and thus it is not ambiguous or open to construction.
Decided March 30, 2004
Seacrest, Karesh, Tate & Bicknese, Karsten Bicknese, Peter Werdesheim, for appellant.
Harper, Waldon & Craig, Daniel C. Prout, Jr., Kam & Ebersbach, Randy J. Ebersbach, for appellees.
Because this court should not take an activist role by interpreting an unambiguous statute through judicial legislation, I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Judge Eldridge joins in this dissent.

 “All,” however, is one of those rare words that, although having many definitions, only has one meaning: “Being or representing the entire or total number, amount, or quantity; Constituting, being, or representing the total extent or the whole; Being the utmost possible of; Every; Any whatsoever.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed. 2000).

 After the Ohio Supreme Court issued the opinion in Sexton, the Ohio legislature amended the statute to provide that uninsured motorist coverage must provide benefits “ ‘for the protection of persons insured thereunder who are legally entitled to recover damages from owners or operators of uninsured motor vehicles because of bodily injury, sickness, or disease, including death, suffered by any person insured under the policy.’ ” Moore v. State Auto Mut. Ins. *673Co., 88 Ohio St. 3d 27, 30 (723 NE2d 97) (2000). The Ohio Supreme Court concluded that the statute was still ambiguous, and construing it with the statute’s remedial purpose in mind, held that an insured could recover damages for the death of his daughter, who was not an insured under the policy. Id. at 32. The legislature amended the statute again, with specific reference to Sexton and Moore, Ohio Code § 3937.18.
Further, while a trial court in Delaware concludedin Nickolson v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 2001 WL 985099 (Del. Super. 2001), that Forbes was no longer good law after the Maryland legislature amended its uninsured motorist statute, the Maryland courts have not so concluded. See, e.g., W. American Ins. Co. v. Popa, 352 Md. 455, 465, n. 2 (723 A2d 1) (1998); Webster v. GEICO, 130 Md. App. 59, 63 (744 A2d 578) (1999).