No Cents in Doing It Again: The Importance of Disclosing Insurance Coverage at Discovery
![handle is hein.journals/defcon83 and id is 163 raw text is:
No Cents in Doing It Again: the Importance of
Disclosing Insurance Coverage at Discovery
By: Whit Carmon W
Whit Carmon is a third-year law student at Mercer Law School.
He is a member of the Mercer Law Review. Mr Carmon's article
was awarded Honorable Mention in the IADC's 2015 Student
Legal Writing Contest. The author would like to give special thanks
extended to Presiding Judge John Ellington, whose guidance and '- >
instruction in the matters of Georgia appellate procedure was instrumental in the
composition of this work.
_ ENRY Ellis, the state of Geor-
gia's second royal governor, is the
attributed author of the famous
admonition that one should not make a
mountain of a mole-hill.' The phrase
offers a tenable explanation for the Supreme
Court of Georgia's recent ruling in Ford
Motor Co. v. Conley,2 where the court
attempted to convince subsequent inter-
preters of its opinion that [their] decision.
* . should be not be read as breaking any
new ground, but rather as simply affirming.
. the application of settled rules of law to a
set of facts that may well be peculiar to
Ford's ill-considered discovery practice.3
This is true in one respect, given the Conley
decision reinforces a Georgia statute more
than eighty years old; however, it cannot be
denied that the court made a distinct and
Charles N. Douglas, FORTY THOUSAND SUBLIME
AND BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS GATHERED FROM THE
ROSES, CLOVER BLOSSOMS, GERANIUMS, VIOLETS,
MORNING-GLORIES, AND PANSIES OF LITERATURE
1403 (1904).
2 757 S.E.2d 20 (Ga. 2014).
' Id. at 42.
novel finding in this case.4 The court's
decision: (1) clarified the requirements for
an extraordinary motion for new trial that is
not based on newly discovered evidence; (2)
developed a novel sliding-scale approach to
interpret the veracity of discovery responses
for the purpose of granting such motions;
and (3) found that vague responses can be
treated-in some circumstances-as equiv-
alent to overtly false responses.
Though not quite as old as Governor
Ellis' storied idiom, the basis of the Conley
case stems from a longstanding law in
Georgia that allows plaintiffs to question
the jury to discover any relationships that
may exist between the jury and the
defendant's insurer.5 The plaintiff has a
right to request this information from the
' Id. at 39, 42.
5 See GA. CODE ANN. § 15-12-135 (2015);
Floor Pro Packaging, Inc. v. AICCO, Inc., 708
S.E.2d 547 (Ga. Ct. App. 2011); Smith v.
Crump, 476 S.E.2d 817 (Ga. Ct. App. 1996);
Reynolds v. Satterfield, 72 S.E.2d 811 (Ga. Ct.
App. 1952); Atlanta Coach Co. v. Cobb, 174
S.E. 131 (Ga. 1934).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/defcon83&div=22&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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No Cents in Doing It Again: The Importance of Disclosing Insurance Coverage at Discovery
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