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Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009

Georgia Supreme Court rules against Staton in accident case

State Sen. Cecil Staton lost a lawsuit Monday in the Georgia Supreme Court.

The court said Staton, a Republican from Macon, didn’t deserve another $200,000 in coverage after a truck accident near Rome that broke his leg. Staton contended he should be allowed to “stack” $100,000 policies on three vehicles owned by his company, Smyth & Helwys Publishing, even though only one of the three cars was actually in the crash.

Staton declined to comment, saying it was a personal matter.

Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned a Court of Appeals decision that said all three policies applied. The decisions hinged on an arcane but important detail: State Farm insurance company wrote the policies to the publishing company. The policies themselves state they only cover people.

The Georgia Supreme Court essentially backed State Farm’s court argument that because Staton was not named in any of the policies, he could only seek uninsured motorist coverage under the policy covering the vehicle in the wreck.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled 5-2 against Staton in the case. Two other judges wrote a dissenting opinion that “the result reached today deprives Staton of his right to stack the limits of all of the available uninsured motorist coverage provided by the policies as properly construed by the Court of Appeals.”

The accident happened on a rainy January 2003 night, when Staton was in a Chevrolet Suburban rounding a corner. Police said at the time that a Chevrolet S-10 pickup crossed the center line to hit Staton’s truck head-on.