While driving an automobile insured by Allstate Insurance Company, Jill Cannizzo collided with an automobile driven by Jessie Rabenstein. Rabenstein sued Cannizzo for personal injury caused by the October 3, 1995 collision, and Cannizzo moved for summary judgment alleging that the claim against her was discharged by accord and satisfaction when, over a year prior to the suit, Rabenstein accepted and cashed a check from Allstate in the amount of $9,145 which contained a provision on the front of the check stating: “Final Settlement Of Any And All Claims Arising From Bodily Injury Caused By Accident On 10/03/95.”1 The trial court granted Cannizzo’s motion for summary judgment. We affirm the trial court because the evidence established, as a matter of law, that the claim was discharged by accord and satisfaction when Rabenstein cashed the check containing the final settlement provision and retained the settlement proceeds.
The delivery and acceptance of a check stating on its face that it constitutes final settlement of a claim, whether the amount of the claim is established or uncertain, amounts to an accord and satisfaction which discharges the claim. Hardigree v. McMichael, 181 Ga. App. 583 353 SE2d 78 1987; Wade v. Crannis, 209 Ga. App. 501, 503 433 SE2d 669 1993. In support of her motion for summary judgment on this basis, Cannizzo produced deposition testimony from Betty Strott, the Allstate claim representative who handled Rabenstein’s claim against its insured. Although Strott had no independent memory of specific aspects of Rabenstein’s claim among the thousands of claims she handled for Allstate, she identified records kept in the normal course of business and procedures she habitually followed in the routine course of handling claims, including Rabenstein’s claim. Based on the records related to Rabenstein’s claim and the procedures she followed in that claim, Strott testified that she and Rabenstein settled the claim for $9,145, that she explained to Rabenstein that this was a final settlement of the claim, and that she sent Rabenstein a check in that amount which contained a provision on its face stating: “Final Settlement Of Any And All Claims Arising From Bodily Injury Caused By Accident On 10/03/95.” Strott also identified the cashed settlement check bearing her signature, the final settlement provision, and Rabenstein’s endorsement, and testified that she had an independent memory that she had handled a claim by Rabenstein and that the claim had settled.
