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Georgia Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Gaster

The business pursuits exclusion in defendant's homeowner's policy did not preclude coverage for the injury her client sustained when he fell on a step-down into her living room because her maintenance of the step was a normal non-business activity.

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Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company issued a homeowner’s insurance policy to Bonnie Gaster. Albert F. Weis fell and was injured in Gaster’s home. Weis sued Gaster for damages, and she demanded that Georgia Farm Bureau defend her under the homeowner’s policy. Claiming that Weis’s injuries came within the policy’s business-pursuits exclusion clause, Georgia Farm Bureau brought this action seeking a declaration that it had no duty to defend Gaster against Weis’s claim. The trial court denied Georgia Farm Bureau’s motion for summary judgment and awarded summary judgment to Gaster and Weis sua sponte. Georgia Farm Bureau appeals. Since Weis’s injury falls under an exception to the policy’s business-pursuits exclusion, we affirm.

We conduct a de novo review of a trial court’s grant of summary judgment.1 In so doing, we construe the evidence in favor of Georgia Farm Bureau to determine if any genuine issue of material fact exists and if Gaster and Weis are entitled to judgment as a matter of law.2 A trial court may grant summary judgment sua sponte so long as the grant is proper in all other respects, particularly the opportunity to be heard.3 Here the determinative issue was argued at length by both parties.

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