Southern Fire & Casualty Co. v. Freeman

485 S.E.2d 738, 268 Ga. 60, 97 Fulton County D. Rep. 1511, 1997 Ga. LEXIS 172

• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
• Decided: May 5, 1997
• Docket: S96G1790
• Status: Published

Opinions

Fletcher, Presiding Justice.

In 1989, Sarah Freeman applied for motor vehicle liability coverage from Southern Fire and Casualty Company and rejected optional personal injury protection coverage. After a collision, she sued Southern contending that the application did not meet the statutory requirements for offering optional coverage. The trial court granted her motion for summary judgment and the Court of Appeals affirmed.¹ We granted the writ of certiorari to determine whether her application satisfied the requirements of OCGA § 33-34-5 (b) concerning optional coverages. Because Freeman signed an application with boldface type that complied with the statute and this Court’s decision in Southern Guaranty Ins. Co. v. Goddard,² we reverse.

OCGA § 33-34-5 (b), which was in effect from 1982 until its repeal in 1991, provided:

Each initial application for a new policy of motor vehicle liability insurance sold in this state after November 1, 1982, shall contain a statement in boldface type signed lay the applicant indicating that the optional coverages listed in subsection (a) of this Code section have been explained to the applicant.

Thus, the statute established three requirements: (1) the application must contain a statement that the optional coverage has been explained to the applicant; (2) the statement must be in boldface type; and (3) the applicant must sign the statement.³ In Goddard, we defined “boldface” as “print which exhibits a face sufficiently heavy in appearance to cause it to be more conspicuous than the print which surrounds it.”⁴

The application in this case meets the requirements of the statute and our decision in Goddard. Specifically, it contains the following statement: “The Additional Optional Coverages Above Have Been Explained To Me.” This statement is in boldface type and is set off by itself, thus making it more conspicuous than the print above and below it. The applicant wrote her signature on the line immediately following the statement.

By signing this statement, Freeman confirmed in writing that she knew the insurance company offered optional no-fault coverage for an additional premium, the options had been explained to her, and she rejected the extra coverage. Since her insurance application satisfied the statutory requirements, she was not entitled to additional coverage. Therefore, we reverse the Court of Appeals’ decision affirming the grant of summary judgment to Freeman.

Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concur, except Benham, C. J, Carley and Thompson, JJ, who dissent.

1 Southern Fire &c. Co. v. Freeman, 222 Ga. App. 308 (474 SE2d 195) (1996).

2 259 Ga. 257 (379 SE2d 778) (1989).

3 Id. at 258.

4 Id.; see also Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, p. 248 (1961) (defining boldface as “a typeface with downstrokes or all strokes wide producing a relatively heavy impression”).