General Recording Corp. v. Chadwick
General Recording Corp. v. Chadwick
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
I dissent from the judgment of dismissal of the present case and the overruling of Marchman v. Head, 135 Ga. App. 475 which followed Acres v. King, 109 Ga. App. 571 (136 SE2d 510), and the erroneous distinction of Acres v. King and Booth v. State, 131 Ga. 750 (63 SE 502), which was followed and cited in Acres v. King, supra. I do so
The majority opinion misconstrues the basis of the holding in Booth v. State, 131 Ga. 750, supra, in attempting to say that the Booth case is based upon the provisions in the prior appellate practice statutes which stated that a judgment final as to a material party in the case, or a judgment which would have been final if rendered as claimed, was appealable under the statute. This is not a valid distinction as I will presently demonstrate. Our older statute was different in the respects claimed, but Booth was not based on those provisions. Let us examine the prior statutes and the present statute, insofar as they may be applicable to the present case. Former Code § 6-701 provided in part: "No cause shall be carried to the Supreme Court or Court of Appeals upon any bill of exceptions while the same is pending in the court below, unless the decision or judgment complained of, if it had been rendered as claimed by the plaintiff in error, would have been a final disposition of the cause or final as to some material party thereto . . .” The Act of 1946 (Ga. L. 1946, pp. 726, 730)
The Booth case originated in an action seeking the appointment of a receiver against Neal Bank Corporation. The State of Georgia intervened, alleging the bank was indebted to it, as a depository of the State of Georgia, in the sum of $204,373.98, praying that said sum be paid over to the state. Booth and other intervenors, also depositors, filed objections thereto, and were made parties plaintiff by the order of the court.
The state had on deposit when the receiver was appointed the sum of $192,502.98, and claimed a deposit in the name of T. C. Floyd in the amount of $11,871.08. The trial judge entered an order directing the receiver to disburse to the state $192,502.98, less $25,000 owed by the state to the bank, the order further stating: "[s]o much of the intervention as relates to the $11,871.08 deposited by T. C. Floyd and claimed by the State is reserved for further consideration and order.”
There was no assignment of error in the bill of exceptions on the failure or the refusal of the trial judge to order the disbursement of the $11,871.08. It is obvious, therefore, that the question of priorities between the intervenors and the state as to this feature of the case was left pending, and the question on appeal did not involve the final disposition of the case "as to a material party” or
The last sentence of the above is dictum in the case and is not a part of the holding. It is speculation as to the proposition that under any theory, if the last sentence were true, no misunderstanding could be had. The distinction of the majority seems to me to be based on this dictum.
The distinction offered by the majority as to Booth v. State, supra, is from the decision itself and the record thereof patently without merit.
In Levine v. Levine, 204 Ga. 313 (1), supra, it was held that an order of the trial judge in an action by a wife against her husband for divorce and alimony, ordering her to reconvey to the husband property she had received in a prior settlement between them, at a hearing held prior to the trial of the case and ordering the case stayed until she complied therewith, was held sufficient to support an appeal (bill of exceptions), it being a final judgment, although the case be left pending. The first headnote in that case reads as follows: "Where in a proceeding by a wife for divorce and alimony, after both parties have announced ready and a jury has been impaneled for trial, the court, on motion of the defendant, after hearing evidence enters an order requiring the petitioner to convey property, to which she holds legal title, to the defendant husband, and provides that until such conveyance is made the petitioner will not be allowed to prosecute the proceeding, such an order is final in nature and is réviewable in the Supreme Court, although there has been no trial on the main proceeding.” Division No. 1 of the same opinion reads as follows: "The exception
It may be well to note here that the Mendenhall case, cited in the above quote from the Levine case, was a case involving an appeal from an order requiring the payment of attorney fees. The Supreme Court of this state inquired into its jurisdiction and in holding such order was a final judgment while other issues were pending in the court said: "Rulings on demurrers and on procedure may be adequately protected by exceptions pendente lite, and if reversed on final review the losing party may again assert his rights without injury; but any ruling which deprives a party of his money or property and delivers it over to the other party, unless superseded, may easily do irreparable injury to such party. If the trial court would grant a supersedeas upon the filing of exceptions pendente lite to such rulings, then a review could await final judgment in the main case without doing injury to the party required to pay out his money. But a vital right of a litigant in the absence of a statute controlling the same, must never be dependent upon the choice of the trial judge. Such protection must not be one of grace, but rather of absolute right. Therefore, as the only adequate protection against injury from such judgment, the losing party is entitled to a review by direct bill of exceptions and to supersede such
As was said in Acres v. King, 109 Ga. App. 571, supra: "That the holdings by Federal courts might be different under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is not controlling, as there is no provision under the law of this State, as there is in the Federal courts, for the taxing of such attorney’s fees as court costs against the losing party in a final determination of the case. See, in this connection, Fred Benioff Co. v. McCulloch, 133 F2d 900 (1); Newton v. Consolidated Gas Co., 265 U. S. 78, 83 (44 SC 481, 68 LE 909).” Our courts have no such jurisdiction. Whether or not the ruling here would be different, where multiple claims or multiple parties are involved in a proceeding, under Section 54 of the Civil Practice Act (Ga. L. 1966, pp. 609, 658; Code Ann. § 81A-154) it is not necessary to decide.
It is my opinion, therefore, that Acres v. King and Marchman v. Head were correctly decided and we are bound by the rulings in Booth v. State and Levine v. Levine, supra, and the cases cited therein.
I am authorized to state that Judges Quillian and Clark concur in this dissent.
Opinion of the Court
This case represents an interlocutory appeal from an order grahting the appellee the expenses and attorney fees incident to appearing in response to a notice to take depositions filed by appellant, where appellant failed to appear and failed to notify the appellee of the cancellation.
The order appealed from is not a final judgment and is not accompanied by a certificate of immediate review, as required by Code Ann. § 6-701 (a, 2). D. C. E. v. State of
Anything to the contrary in Marchman v. Head, 135 Ga. App. 475 is hereby disapproved. The Marchman case relies on Acres v. King, 109 Ga. App. 571 (136 SE2d 510). The Acres case, decided in 1964, followed Booth v. State, 131 Ga. 750 (63 SE 502) decided in 1908, both at a time when under Code § 6-701 (2) of the Code of 1933 and its predecessor § 5526 of the Code of 1895, a case was appealable if the judgment would have been final as to some party thereto, if rendered as contended by the plaintiff in error. Further, Booth involved a final judgment in a receivership and did not involve attorney fees. But Ga. L. 1968, pp. 1072, 1073, repealed Code § 6-701 (2) and put in its place the provision requiring certificates of immediate review for interlocutory orders; otherwise, the criterion is as stated in Code § 6-701 (1), that the cause is no longer pending in the trial court. An order for interrogatories or depositions is an interlocutory order. L. & N. R. Co. v. Clark, 114 Ga. App. 755 (152 SE2d 694). While the judgment as to attorney fees for attending the interlocutory hearing might have been "final as to some material party,” i.e., the attorney, under the former law, it is obvious that the cause is still pending on its merits and requires a certificate of review to be viable.
Appeal dismissed.
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