Congratulations to Janet Hayes and Chris McCarty who won a reversal from the Court of Appeals of Tennessee at Knoxville this week. In the underlying declaratory judgment action, our client, an insurance company, sought a judgment that the mechanic’s personal automobile insurance policy did not provide coverage for an accident involving the mechanic. The mechanic first testified the wreck occurred while he was driving the vehicle to perform a road test following his repair of the vehicle, but in subsequent testimony he was driving the vehicle on a personal errand. We moved for summary judgment and argued the mechanic’s inconsistent testimony was inadmissible, and the business exclusion in his policy precluded coverage. The motion for summary judgment was denied and the case went to trial. However, on appeal we argued the trial court erred by not applying the cancellation rule to the mechanic’s testimony, and the Court of Appeals agreed. The judgment of the trial court approving the jury verdict has been vacated and the case remanded.
