Court Opinion

ID: 9853418
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:48:22.557761+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:47.256814
License: Public Domain

Pope, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur fully in Presiding Judge Deen’s opinion. I write to respond to the dissent’s central point that no reason exists for tolling the statute of limitation in regard to the uninsured motorist carrier in the event of the death of the uninsured motorist before said motorist is served. The unarticulated assumption underlying the dissent’s rea*472soning is that the plaintiffs in this case knew or had means to discover the defendant’s status as an uninsured motorist before service was perfected on the defendant. It seems clear to me that one might not know or be able to discover this fact prior to suit, especially where the defendant has died. It is only after suit has commenced and discovery is made that many plaintiffs discover the defendant’s status as an uninsured motorist, and thus the necessity of bringing the uninsured motorist carrier into the suit. Such a situation appears in the instant case.
As the dissent points out, if the defendant is alive and available to be served, late service on the carrier because the plaintiff did not discover the uninsured status of the defendant within the two-year statute of limitation is ordinarily not sufficient to allow relation back of service on the carrier to the original date of service on the defendant. See Commercial Union Ins. Co. v. Wraggs, 159 Ga. App. 596 (284 SE2d 19) (1981). However, where the defendant is dead, until someone is appointed to tend to the defendant’s affairs, a plaintiff has no reliable means to ascertain whether insurance coverage existed or not. This is the situation recognized and provided for by OCGA §§ 9-3-93 and 9-3-98. For the protection of the motoring public, the legislature enacted the uninsured motorist statute. The statute creates a hybrid, joining separate legal entities, the uninsured motorist and the carrier, for the purposes of the statute. The joinder, as in the case of Siamese twins, is unnatural and unwelcome. While respecting the individual nature of the parties so joined, we cannot ignore the fact of joinder. In the case at bar, justice is served and the policy of affording protection to those harmed by uninsured motorists is furthered by recognizing that the tolling of the statute of limitation as against an uninsured motorist in the event of the death of the uninsured motorist must necessarily toll the statute in regard to the uninsured motorist carrier.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge McMurray and Judge Carley join in this special concurrence.