The Case

Our attorneys, believe it or not, were have been successful in forcing an insurance policy insuring a golf cart to make a payment to one of our clients injured in an accident while riding his motorcycle.

The story behind the actual accident is not too spectacular, nor out of the ordinary, other than the nature of our client’s injuries, which were unbelievably significant. He was required to be hospitalized for several weeks, underwent several surgeries, and was required to endure months of physical therapy, rehabilitation and missed time from work while he convalesced.



Our attorneys were very quickly able to establish liability against the driver who caused the accident and were able to engage in very fruitful settlement negotiations with the at‑fault party and reach a settlement of the claim. We were also able to tap into our client’s available underinsured motorist policies and leverage payments of those limits in addition to the settlement that we had obtained from the at-fault driver. However, we also were aware that our client, who lives in a golf cart community, had an insurance policy on the golf cart in the garage. The insurance company had issued a recreational vehicle policy on the golf cart, as opposed to a standard motor vehicle policy. They claimed that a recreational vehicle policy was not required to cover other household vehicles, like regular motor vehicle policies are required to. We contended the insurance company was wrong and Georgia law, the local county law, and the local community law, all required a motor vehicle policy to have been issued on the golf cart, not a recreational vehicle policy. We argued, therefore, that the applicable policy limits of the recreational vehicle policy would apply as an additional underinsured motorist policy that could be stacked into coverage behind the underinsured motorist policies on the family vehicles. After presenting our case, including the legal argument we contended required the golf cart policy to pay for this accident, the insurance company, ultimately, agreed with us and tendered the limits of the recreational vehicle policy as underinsured motorist funds in an effort to satisfy the injuries suffered in this accident.

Awarded

This is one of our most favorite cases to tell people about because of the successful result we were able to obtain for our client and because it illustrates our legal creativity and willingness to explore it for the good of our clients.