Southern Guaranty Insurance Company v. Jones

188 So. 2d 537, 279 Ala. 577, 1966 Ala. LEXIS 1076
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedJune 16, 1966
Docket6 Div. 249
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 188 So. 2d 537 (Southern Guaranty Insurance Company v. Jones) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Southern Guaranty Insurance Company v. Jones, 188 So. 2d 537, 279 Ala. 577, 1966 Ala. LEXIS 1076 (Ala. 1966).

Opinion

*579 MERRILL, Justice.

In this appeal, the appellant is Southern Guaranty Insurance Company and the appellees are Hugh H. Jones, plaintiff below, and Jerry L. Wallace, defendant below. Appellee Jones recovered a judgment against appellee Wallace for $4,000 as a result of a collision between Jones’ automobile and a pickup truck driven by Wallace. After the judgment, Jones caused a writ of garnishment to issue against appellant, Southern Guaranty Insurance Company, which had issued a policy of liability insurance to Wallace. The trial court decided against the insurer and it appealed. Appellee Jones filed a cross appeal.

Appellant denied that it was indebted to Wallace or that it was liable to pay off the judgment. Appellant also sought to transfer the cause to equity, and a few days later, sought to have this proceeding consolidated with a declaratory judgment action it had filed, alleging that the matters and things in both actions were identical and concerned the same parties. The motions to transfer and to consolidate were overruled.

After appellant, the garnishee, had filed its answer, the issues were made up, the cause was heard and submitted on stipulations of fact and oral testimony to the court without a jury.

Prior to submission, appellant requested a special finding of facts as provided by Tit. 7, § 262, Code 1940, and on July 14, 1965, the court made the special finding of facts and rendered the decree.

The undisputed facts were that on December 22, 1961, the defendant, Jerry L. Wallace, while operating a one-half ton Chevrolet pickup truck, collided with the plaintiff’s automobile. The truck driven by Wallace was owned by one John Falls, who was the owner of a service station. Prior to the accident, Wallace left the place of business of John Falls at 1512 Bessemer Road and drove east to 1717 Bessemer Road to start an automobile belonging to a third party. After starting the car, Wallace then drove to his home located at 4804 Court S, Center Park, where he had something to eat and left some money with his wife.' 4804 Court S is located to the south of Bessemer Road and several blocks east of 1942 Bessemer Road, the place where the accident occurred. Wallace left his home and drove in a northerly direction to Bessemer Road and entered Bessemer Road at a point several blocks to the east of 1942 Bessemer Road. The defendant then proceeded in a westerly direction along Bessemer Road when the accident happened at 1942 Bessemer Road. Immediately after the accident, Wallace reported it to Southern Guaranty Insurance Company.

In a statement by Jerry L. Wallace, he said that his personal car was broken and that he used Mr. Falls’ truck to go home to lunch after he had started a car for a third person. This was the second time he had used the truck in order to go home for lunch. Wallace stated that the only times he used the truck for personal use was during the two or three days that his car was broken down

At the time of the accident, John Falls had in force and effect with United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company a family automobile policy, which did not describe the pickup truck involved in the accident, but which was acquired during the period the policy was in effect. John Falls immediately reported the accident to U. S. F. & G. but coverage was denied.

The trial court ruled that appellant was indebted to Wallace on account of the provision in its policy which reads as follows :

“TEMPORARY SUBSTITUTE AUTOMOBILE — means an automobile not owned by the named insured while temporarily used as a substitute for the described automobile when withdrawn from normal use because of its breakdown, repair, servicing, loss or destruction.”

*580 The court also ruled in a special fact finding that Wallace was not entitled to protection of the policy of his employer, John L. Falls, with the United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company as an “additional assured,” on the ground that the insurance policy did not purport to cover the truck involved in the accident.

Appellant’s twenty-one assignments of error are grouped and argued in five different sections.

It is first contended that garnishment is not a proper remedy, and that the exclusive remedy is under Tit. 28, § 12, Code 1940, as amended, which provides:

“Upon the recovery of a final judgment against any person, firm, or corporation by any person including administrators or executors, for loss or damage on account of bodily injury or death, or for loss or damage to property, if the defendant in such action was insured against said loss or damage at the time when the right of action arose, the judgment creditor shall be entitled to have the insurance money provided for in the contract of insurance between the insurance company and the defendant, applied-to the satisfaction of the judgment, and if the judgment is not satisfied within thirty days after the date when it is rendered, the judgment creditor may proceed in equity against the defendant and . the insurance company to reach and apply the insurance money to the satisfaction of the judgment.”

Appellant relies on the statement in the opinion in Reed v. Hill, 262 Ala. 662, 80 So.2d 728:

“Petitioner sued Howell in a court of law. He has shown no right to a legal cause of action against Howell’s insurance carrier. See 46 C.J.S. Insurance § 1191 and Goodman v. Georgia Life Insurance Co., 189 Ala. 130, 66 So. 649The only right we know that petitioner could have against the insurance carrier is the equity proceeding provided for in § 12, Title 28, Code 1940. That section gives to the plaintiff in judgment a vested interest by way of hypothecation in the amount due the insured by the insurer after the rendition of the judgment against the insurer. Macey v. Crum, 249 Ala. 249, 30 So.2d 666; George v. Employers’ Liability Assur. Corp, 219 Ala. 307, 122 So. 175, 72 A.L.R. 1438. This statutory proceeding is to enforce that right or interest by way of an equitable lien created by the statute and enforceable only in equity. * * ”

In the cited case of Macey v. Crum, 249 Ala. 249, 30 So.2d 666, the opinion, by the same Justice who authored Reed v. Hill, supra, states:

“ * * * The authorities are general that one who recovers a judgment for damages may garnish the judgment defendant’s claim on a policy or agreement insuring him against liability (as distinguished from indemnity against loss) for damages of the kind recovered against him by the plaintiff (Booker T. Washington Burial Ins. Co. v. Roberts, 228 Ala. 206, 153 So. 409; 38 C.J.S. Garnishment § 110, p. 318, § 110 d) and the rule has been applied to automobile liability policies, after a final judgment against the insured, for coverages under the policy.” [Citing over 20 authorities].

And in the Roberts case, 228 Ala. 206, 153 So. 409, this court said:

“It results from those principles that if this garnishee made a valid contract with defendant, by which it agreed to pay the death claims which had accrued on March 15, 1932, and breached that contract, defendant had a cause of action in debt, or assumpsit, which was subject to the garnishment.

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Bluebook (online)
188 So. 2d 537, 279 Ala. 577, 1966 Ala. LEXIS 1076, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/southern-guaranty-insurance-company-v-jones-ala-1966.