Rabinovitz v. Accent Rent-A-Car, Inc.

446 S.E.2d 244, 213 Ga. App. 786, 1994 Ga. App. LEXIS 692

• Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia
• Decided: July 11, 1994
• Docket: A94A0221
• Status: Published

Opinions

Smith, Judge.

The appellants were injured in an automobile collision involving a vehicle rented from appellee Accent Rent-A-Car, Inc. The driver was uninsured. Appellants sought recovery against Accent on the theory that since Accent was required to verify that the renting driver was insured before turning the vehicle over to him, its failure to do so was negligence per se and the “proximate cause” of appellants’ injuries.¹ The trial court granted appellee’s motion for summary judgment and denied that of appellants. This appeal followed.

OCGA § 40-9-102 provides that “[a]ny person who rents motor vehicles from a U-drive-it owner is required to provide his own insurance, and insurance companies . . . shall be required ... to provide ‘spot’ insurance, which shall be purchased by such person before the U-drive-it owner shall be authorized to turn a motor vehicle over to such person. If a U-drive-it owner turns over any motor vehicle to any person without first ascertaining that such ‘spot’ insurance has been obtained, the U-drive-it owner shall not, as to that particular rental transaction, be exempted from the provisions of this chapter as provided in Code Section 40-9-4.”

“In determining whether the violation of [a statute] is negligence per se as to a particular person, it is necessary to examine the purpose of the [statute] and decide (1) whether the injured person falls within the class of persons it was intended to protect, and (2) whether the harm complained of was the harm it was intended to guard against. In construing any statute, we must look to the natural and most obvious import of its language.” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Cooper, 177 Ga. App. 540, 541 (1) (339 SE2d 755) (1986).

A plain reading of OCGA § 40-9-102 reveals it is remedial in nature. Its mandate “is in the nature of a bond to guarantee the public against damages by some irresponsible renter of a car of the U-Drive-It.” Continental Cas. Co. v. Owen, 90 Ga. App. 200, 209 (2) (82 SE2d 742) (1954). Its purpose is not specifically to prevent tortious acts by operators of rental vehicles, but rather to assure that such tortfeasors are not uninsured. Since the enactment of the Georgia Motor Vehicle Accident Reparations Act in 1974, owners such as Accent have been required to insure their vehicles in any event. Ga. L. 1974, p. 113, § 3; Jones v. Wortham, 201 Ga. App. 668, 669 (411 SE2d 716) (1991). However, this was not the law in 1951 when the “spot” insurance provision was first enacted. See Ga. L. 1951, p. 565, § 23.

The statute clearly was not designed to prevent or even discourage otherwise uninsured motorists from renting vehicles with companies like Accent. On the contrary, it provides the means by which such persons can obtain the required insurance “on the spot.” Even assuming that the collision in this particular case would not have occurred but for Accent’s failure to confirm that its renting driver had insured himself before it released the vehicle to him, this does not alter our interpretation of the statute on which appellants exclusively rely for recovery from Accent. Since OCGA § 40-9-102 was not designed to prevent the collision which caused appellants’ injuries, the court did not err in granting Accent’s motion for summary judgment.

Judgment affirmed.

Pope, C. J., and McMurray, P. J., concur specially.

1 Appellants also suggest that as a result of Accent’s failure to inquire whether the driver was insured, they were wrongfully denied two sources of recovery. However, this is merely a makeweight argument. The injuries complained of resulting from Accent’s omission are the appellants’ physical injuries, not the loss of a second source of recovery. We cannot relitigate this matter for the appellants merely because it would appear that their logic, in the words of the special concurrence, “misses the mark.” It is clear that the appellants do not wish to limit their recovery to that which they would have realized had the uninsured driver purchased “spot” insurance. However, as the special concurrence correctly explains, a less zealous approach would have been just as unsuccessful.