Franklin v. Southern Guaranty Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 03 November 1981
• Docket Number: No. 62288,62288
• Citation: 160 Ga.App. 279,287 S.E.2d 274
• Parties: FRANKLIN v. SOUTHERN GUARANTY INSURANCE COMPANY.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 274

287 S.E.2d 274

160 Ga.App. 279

FRANKLIN v. SOUTHERN GUARANTY INSURANCE COMPANY.

No. 62288.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

Nov. 3, 1981.

C. Lawrence Jewett, Atlanta, for appellant.

I. J. Parkerson, Decatur, for appellee.

CARLEY, Judge.

On June 20, 1979, the body of Otis Franklin, appellant's deceased, was discovered in a truck. The truck was off the roadway and had come to rest against a utility pole. Appellant instituted the instant action to recover no-fault death benefits from appellee, the insurer of the truck. Appellant's complaint alleged that "Otis Franklin suffered an accidental injury when the vehicle ran off the road and struck a utility pole. As a result of the aforesaid injury [appellant's] decedent Otis Franklin, died." Appellee answered, denying the material allegations of the complaint and further asserting the following: "The death of [appellant's] decedent, Otis Franklin, was caused by an acute coronary occlusion and acute coronary disease, and not by automobile accident..."

Dr. Anderson, the physician who conducted the autopsy on appellant's deceased, was deposed. It was Dr. Anderson's testimony that "[t]he cause of death was acute heart failure and probably disturbing--a disturbance of the cardiac rhythm, secondary to the occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery." Dr. Anderson was unable to state "with certainty whether the heart attack occurred before or after [Mr. Franklin] left the road. What we are able to determine from the autopsy examination was that this was a natural death at the wheel." Dr. Anderson further testified that "[t]here are two schools of thought on [the effects of stress on the acute nature of a coronary occlusion]. There are some people that believe that a stressful situation will precipitate the final straw that broke the camel's back. And then, there are other people that develop the same lesion while they are asleep and not suddenly..." (Emphasis supplied.) Dr. Anderson concluded that "there's a fair body of knowledge that [stress] is some contributing factor to a [heart attack]--particularly, prolonged physical stress." (Emphasis supplied.) Dr. Anderson was then asked to assume that "Otis Franklin is driving down the road, loses control of the truck through accidental means, is into--off of the road, physically he is attempting to repair control of the truck and, psychologically, he is frightened because of the impending danger of being--you know--his truck striking a telephone pole, would these factors have either caused or contributed to his heart attack?" Dr. Anderson responded: "My opinion is that it did not because of the time element. There are some cases where prolonged fright or flight type reactions in which a severe amount of physical stress--This is not the usual work day type of work, type physical stress, but a real fright or flight response over a period of time, minutes, perhaps, may contribute to this. The fact is that there is good reason in my mind to believe that it happened--the accident happened too quickly for enough fright or flight action to have then occurred to stimulate the heart attack. I think the most reasonable thing is that it [the heart attack] occurred first..." (Emphasis supplied.) Dr. Anderson's opinion as to the death was further elicited: "I think the cause of the--number one, the time involved, the short period of time involved that he would have been under this fright or flight response of the vehicle leaving the road, and the evidence is, as I perceive it, that the only instances in which you can really relate flight or fright to subsequent coronary artery occlusion, in the presence of pre-existing disease, is when this has occurred for some period of time, longer than--in my opinion, longer than it would have occurred for a vehicle to leave the road and hit a telephone pole. It's a very short period of time for a vehicle going forty or fifty miles an hour, or thirty miles an hour, to leave the road... It is somewhat speculative to try to determine what frame of mind this person might have been in after the accident. Whether he may have had a severe emotional response to this and this may have contributed, I couldn't really exclude that possibility, although, this would still, under the circumstances, would still come under the heading if you will, of a natural death." (Emphasis supplied.)

Relying upon Dr. Anderson's deposition, both appellee and appellant moved for summary judgment. Having taken the cross-motions for summary judgment under advisement, the trial court entered an order making the following disposition of the case: "[Appellant] contends that death from any cause, which occurred while in a motor vehicle, is covered by the No-Fault provision as a matter of law. This court disagrees. And, therefore, [appellant's] Motion For Summary Judgment is overruled and denied. [Appellee's] Motion for Summary Judgment is granted." Appellant appeals, enumerating as error only the grant of summary judgment to appellee.

Clearly the trial court was correct in holding that death from any cause occurring in a motor vehicle does not, as a matter of law, automatically come within no-fault coverage. " 'Case law indicates that the injury need not be the proximate result of "use" in the strict sense, but it cannot be extended to something distinctly remote. [Cit.] Each case...