Is a Sleeping Truck Driver Liable for Injuries to His Passenger?
A business and its employee appealed a trial court’s denial of their motion for summary judgment in an auto accident victim’s personal injury action against them. The plaintiff was injured in a single vehicle accident when he was a passenger in a truck driven by an employee of the defendant.
Truck Driver Falls Asleep and Causes a Crash
On July 1, 2020, an employee was operating a truck of his employee that was towing a trailer loaded with machinery and equipment. The plaintiff was a passenger in the vehicle, and according to him, at some point, the employee “fell asleep and departed the roadway and crashed into a culvert.” As a result, the plaintiff suffered serious injuries.
There was no evidence of how the accident happened, but according to the pleadings, it was undisputed that the employee and the plaintiff were involved in a one-vehicle accident while the employee was driving the defendant’s truck and that the plaintiff was seriously injured.
After the accident, on August 18, 2020, the plaintiff signed a limited liability release under O.C.G.A. § 33-24-41.1. The release insulated the defendants and Georgia Farm Bureau Insurance Company from liability for the accident in exchange for $50,000, “except to the extent other insurance coverage is available which covers the claim.” Later, in response to demand letters sent by the plaintiff’s attorney, the defendant’s general liability carrier and its commercial auto-liability carrier both denied coverage for the accident. The general liability carrier denied coverage because its policy excluded bodily injuries arising out of the use or entrustment to others of an automobile. And the commercial auto liability carrier denied coverage because the truck driven by the defendant’s employee wasn’t covered.
Despite signing the release, the plaintiff filed a personal injury action against the defendants, seeking “in excess of $557,000” for medical expenses. The defendants moved for summary judgment. In doing so, they argued the limited release the plaintiff signed released them from liability while allowing him to pursue other available insurance coverage—and no such coverage existed. The trial court denied their motion in a summary order without explaining its reasoning. The defendants appealed.
Court of Appeals Reverses
The defendants argued that the trial court erred in denying their motion for summary judgment because, under the limited release, the plaintiff was required to present evidence of additional insurance coverage. He failed to do so.
Presiding Judge Stephen Dillard and the appellate panel agreed, explaining that a “release” is defined as “liberation from an obligation, duty, or demand; the act of giving up a right or claim to the person against whom it could have been enforced.” And as the Georgia Supreme Court has explained:
the limited release provisions of O.C.G.A. § 33-24-41.1 were enacted to provide a statutory framework for a claimant injured in an automobile accident to settle with the tortfeasor’s liability insurance carrier for the liability coverage limit while preserving the claimant’s pending claim for underinsured motorist benefits against the claimant’s own insurance carrier.
Also, a limited release under O.C.G.A. § 33-24-41.1 “releases the settling insurance carrier from any liability to the claimant, and releases the tortfeasor from personal liability while preserving the claimant’s right to pursue claims to judgment against the tortfeasor for the purpose of collecting against other available insurance coverage.”
Significantly, a defendant moving for summary judgment based on an affirmative defense can’t rely on an absence of evidence in the record disproving the affirmative defense. Instead, he or she must present evidence which “establishes the prima facie affirmative defense.” Once the defendant satisfies its burden of proof by presenting evidence to support each element of the affirmative defense, the burden of production of evidence shifts to the plaintiff. He or she will survive summary judgment by presenting any evidence that creates a jury issue on an element of the affirmative defense.
As a result, if the plaintiff can’t satisfy this burden of production, the defendant is entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law, the judge said.
Here, the defendants argued the trial court erred in denying their motion for summary judgment because the plaintiff didn’t present any evidence that additional insurance was available. Indeed, the limited release the plaintiff signed released the employee, his employer, and its insurer from liability for the accident in exchange for $50,000, “except to the extent other insurance coverage is available which covers the claim.”
To satisfy their burden of proof in support of the affirmative defense of release, the defendants submitted the limited release and written denials of coverage issued by the defendant’s two other insurers. Thus, the burden of production shifted to the plaintiff to present some evidence creating a jury issue on the element of the affirmative defense of release. The plaintiff failed to do so—failing to present evidence that the truck driven by the employee was covered by the commercial auto-liability carrier or general liability carrier policies or any evidence that it was covered by any other insurance policy.
As such, although the plaintiff agreed that a limited-liability release executed under O.C.G.A. § 33-24-41.1 prevented him from enforcing a judgment against the defendants personally (except to the extent other insurance coverage is available that covers his claims), he still disputed that “the facts in the record conclusively establish that there is no additional liability insurance coverage available to him to cover his claims against the defendants.” The plaintiff maintained that the denial letters “conclusively prove the existence” of such coverage, which strained credulity, Judge Dillard opined. The plaintiff also contended that the limited release didn’t prevent him from litigating whether commercial auto-liability carrier, general liability carrier, or both insurers actually provided coverage for his claims. But the plaintiff failed to pursue litigation against those insurance companies to establish the accident was covered under their policies. As a consequence, that argument was a nonstarter, the Court concluded.
Here, the trial court erred in denying the defendants’ motion for summary judgment because—after they presented evidence that their insurance policies did not cover his accident—the plaintiff failed to present any responsive evidence that other insurance was available. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s denial of the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Harvey v. Hall, 2025 Ga. App. LEXIS 559, 2025 LX 515371, 2025 WL 3467773 (Ga. App. December 3, 2025).
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Insurance policies have numerous clauses and definitions that are designed to give insurance companies leverage to deny accident claims. It can be confusing, and you should speak to an Atlanta accident attorney who’s worked in this area for years.
If you have questions about insurance policy interpretation and releases, and whether an individual may be liable for your accident, contact the experienced Atlanta accident lawyers at Tobin Injury Law.