In two recent cases, the Georgia Court of Appeals illustrated how the careful parsing of words in a document can affect the outcome of a lawsuit. In Thompson v. LaFarge Building Materials, Inc., Case No. A13A0740 (decided July 16, 2013), the Georgia Court of Appeals carefully examined the language of a guaranty agreement and refused to enforce it against the purported guarantor. Page one of the relevant document was an application for credit by a limited liability company. The second page of the document contained a section labeled “Continuing Guaranty.” In that section, the signer agreed to unconditionally guarantee the… Read more