Breen v. Barfield
Breen v. Barfield
Opinion of the Court
(After stating the foregoing facts.) The defendant relies upon Dobbs v. First National Bank of Atlanta, 65 Ga. App. 796 (3), which holds as follows: “Trover in this State takes the place of replevin and detinue at common law, and, in the case of deeds where such action is available, involves only the conversion of the res in question, and does not extend to include the title to land Of which the deed is only evidentiary. If the title to the land under the petition is the primary purpose of the suit, and not the title to the deed itself, the Civil Court of Fulton County is without jurisdiction.” It was there held that the allegations of the petition, one of them being that the value of the deed is placed at $2500 (the value of the land also being alleged to be $2500) showed that the purpose of the suit was to test delivery of the instrument. “It would seem clear that the action, so far as the allegations of the petition are concerned (we do not mean to intimate what, the evidence might show) make a case, not for the recovery of a deed which has been delivered, but for the purpose of testing the delivery of the deed, without which delivery the deed would be ineffectual to pass the title to the land described therein. In such event delivery of the deed is essential to pass title. Therefore, this action involves a suit respecting title to land.”
The petition in the case at bar was in the “Jack Jones” form and contained no evidentiary matter. It was held by this court on appeal from the judgment overruling the demurrer (Breen v. Barfield, 80 Ga. App. 615) based on the Dobbs case, as follows: “In the Dobbs case, the petition, by stating the cause of action with greater particularity than was necessary, showed on
The remaining special grounds of the amended motion for a new trial are without merit.
The trial court erred in overruling the motion for a new trial as amended.
Judgment reversed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.