Ruling two long-standing opinions by Georgia’s appellate courts are “irreconcilable because they represent mutually exclusive premises,” the U.S Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit overturned a trial court’s decision to grant summary judgment to an insurance company that claimed it did not have to provide coverage to a man who caused a wreck while driving a company vehicle after drinking alcohol in violation of company policy.
The federal appellate panel said that the 49-year-old decision by the Georgia Supreme Court controlled such cases, even though a 20-year-old Court of Appeals opinion reached the opposite conclusion.
