Jocorey Dillard a minor and Lakesha Robinson suffered injuries as a result of an automobile accident, in which their vehicle was struck by a vehicle insured by Southern General Insurance Company “SGIC”. SGIC sought a declaratory judgment that its policy excluded liability coverage for the driver of its insured’s vehicle. Following the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of SGIC, Dillard, Robinson, and Patricia Clayton as next friend of Dillard collectively “appellants” separately appeal, contending that genuine issues of material fact exist as to whether the driver of the insured’s vehicle was covered as a permissive user under SGIC’s policy. Because these appeals involve the same parties, set of facts, and principles of law, we consolidate them for review. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm in all three cases. Summary judgment is only proper when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. OCGA § 9-11-56 c; Britt v. Kelly & Picerne, Inc. 1 “On appeal from the grant or denial of a motion for summary judgment, we review the evidence de novo, and all reasonable conclusions and inferences drawn from the evidence are construed in the light most favorable to the nonmovant.” Punctuation omitted. McCall v. Couture. 2
So construed, the record shows that on May 24, 2008, Latoya Wooten asked her mother, Gynetha Wooten, if she could borrow Gynetha’s car in order to drive back to her home, which was several miles away in a neighboring town. Although Latoya’s father, who did not live with and was not married to her mother, held the car’s title, Gynetha exercised complete control over the car, was responsible for making the car’s loan payments, and had obtained insurance coverage for the car in her name from SGIC. On a few past occasions, Gynetha had allowed Latoya to borrow her car for limited purposes such as picking up groceries but had always demanded that no one else drive the car and that Latoya return it immediately after completing her errands. In addition, Latoya did not have her own set of keys to the car. On this occasion, Gynetha agreed to allow Latoya to borrow her car but told her that she could only drive it to her home and then to her work early the next morning, at which point Gynetha would come to retrieve it.
