Parker v. Atlanta Cas. Co.
| Decision Date | 16 February 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 61470,61470 |
| Parties | PARKER v. ATLANTA CASUALTY COMPANY. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
William H. Hedrick, Albany, for appellant.
William C. Sanders, Thomasville, for appellee.
Parker appeals from the grant of a summary judgment to the defendant whose insurance policy with Parker contained PIP, no-fault insurance protection. The conditions of the policy coincide with Code Chapter 56-3402b. The facts, as set forth in Parker's affidavit and subsequent deposition are as follows: Plaintiff was an employee of an automobile repair shop, and was asked to bring in an automobile from the lot outside in order that a stereo might be installed. He drove the car into the building, some 100 feet or so, stopped it, cut off the switch, and stepped out. Upon exiting from the car he stepped on some wet grease and oil, slipped and fell, sustaining back injuries. He deposed that he had brought the car inside to put it in line to be worked on and as he got out he slipped on the grease on the floor, made wet by tracking in outside rain; that he just started to straighten up when his feet shot out from under him.
No-fault insurance covers accidental bodily injury while occupying a motor vehicle. Code § 56-3407b(a). As applied to this case accidental bodily injury means injury arising out of the operation, maintenance or use of the insured vehicle. Code § 56-3410b(a). Occupying the vehicle includes the act of alighting from it. Code § 56-3402b(i). However, Code § 56-3402b(h), which defines "operation, maintenance or use," expressly excludes such conduct "within the course of a business of repairing, servicing or otherwise maintaining motor vehicles" unless it also involves the "actual operation of a motor vehicle as a vehicle on business premises."
This car, when being driven from the outside yard to a point within the garage was being actually operated as a motor vehicle on business premises. When the plaintiff undertook to alight from it he was still occupying it. The question, then, in its narrowest aspect, is: Was he, at the time he slipped and fell, still actually operating the vehicle as a motor vehicle, after he had shut off the motor and was in the act of leaving it? We can find no authority for so holding. In Williams v. State, 111 Ga.App. 588, 142 S.E.2d 409 (1965), it was pointed out that one may operate a vehicle without necessarily driving it as, for example, by sitting under a steering wheel and starting the motor. It ordinarily refers to the physical act of working the mechanism of the vehicle, manipulating the controls in order to...
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