Case ID: ga-app_17/html/0417-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Wade, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

6237.
    PERRY v. FRIEDIN.
    1. The record in this case discloses that a motion for a new trial was overruled and a bill of exceptions thereafter tendered to the trial judge and certified and signed by him; that the defendant in error duly acknowledged service of the bill of exceptions, and it was, within the time fixed by law, “deposited in the clerk’s office in the city court of Oglethorpe, to be filed, and thence to be transmitted, together with the records in said case, to the Court of Appeals of Georgia, and that said bill of exceptions has been lost, and diligent search has been made for the same and it can not be found.” The affidavit of the clerk of the city court of Oglethorpe, attached to the motion to establish the lost bill of exceptions, sets forth “that he has made diligent search for the foregoing bill of exceptions and that the same has not been filed [italics ours], and it can not be found, and has been lost or destroyed.” The court established the alleged copy of the lost bill of exceptions instanter, under the provisions of section 5312 of the Civil Code (1910), in an ex parte proceeding, without notice to the defendant in error. While it appears that the lost bill of exceptions was “deposited” in the office of the clerk of the city court of Oglethorpe, it does not appear that it was deposited with the clerk or with any person having authority to act for him, or that it came into his possession at any time; and since it affirmatively appears that the original bill of exceptions was never filed, it never in fact became an office paper, and the court erred in establishing a copy of it in a summary manner. Had it appeared that the original bill of exceptions was “deposited” with the clerk, or with any of his subordinates, even though never in fact filed, a different question would be presented. In the absence of a recital to the contrary, it must be assumed that the deposit of the paper was made without the knowledge of the clerk of the trial court; and to hold that such a deposit put the paper in the possession of the clerk would open the way for loose practices from which might flow grave consequences.
    
      2. This court lias no jurisdiction to entertain or pass upon assignments of error in a copy bill of exceptions improperly established in lieu of the lost original.
    Decided January 6, 1916.
    Complaint; from city court of Oglethorpe — Judge Greer. November 25, 1914.
    
      J. J. Bull & Son, for plaintiff in error. Jule Felton, contra.
   Wade, J.

The ruling announced in the headnotes is perhaps sufficiently clear to dispense with further explanation, but a few additional words may not be inapropos. The Supreme Court held in the case of Lovelady v. Hockenhull, 58 Ga. 469, that “a certiorari not marked ‘filed in office,’ nor ever in the office of the clerk of the superior court, nor ever in the possession of the clerk at all', is not an office paper so as to be established by copy, instanter, on motion, under section 2980 of the Code” of 1873 (Civil Code of 1910, § 5312). And it was further held that, “though Sanctioned by the judge at chambers and handed to the plaintiff, it is his private property until it gets to the clerk, and, if mislaid or lost, it can only be established by copy, as any other private property belonging to him.” It can not be said that a mere casual deposit of the paper in the office occupied by the clerk of the city court of Oglethorpe, at a time when neither the clerk nor any other person acting for him was present to receive it, would place the paper in a legal sense in the office of the clerk ór in his possession. It would be otherwise, of course, if the paper were actually placed in the hands of the clerk or his deputy, or perhaps even if left in his office in the hands of some person then in charge of the office for the clerk; but merely to leave such a paper somewhere in'the office occupied by the clerk would not place it in his possession, as it might never be brought to his attention, and the paper could not in any sense be regarded as an office paper. As we understood the ruling in Lovelady v. Hoclcenhull, supra, the suggestion therein that leaving a paper in the office of the clerk might permit of its establishment instanter, under section 5312, supra, means leaving the paper with some one in the room of the clerk, and not merely depositing the paper somewhere in the office, without bringing it to the attention of some person in authority, — the clerk himself or one of his subordinates. •

The affidavit of the clerk attached to the motion to establish a copy in lieu of the lost original does not even suggest that the lost paper was ever at any time either in his possession or in his office, and it expressly declares that the paper was never bled. It is true, the affidavit states that the original paper “can not be found and has been lost or destroyed,” but it does not appear that it was lost or destroyed after being deposited in the office of the clerk with any person therein, or after having been placed in the possession of the clerk himself. The original petition for the establishment of the copy alleges, as already mentioned, that the bill of exceptions was deposited in the clerk’s office to be bled. It does not assert that it was deposited with the clerk or with any person acting for him or occupying his office at the time the deposit was made, nor does it affirmatively show that the paper was left in the office on deposit and-was not withdrawn therefrom and thereafter lost or destroyed (before filing) by some person other than the clerk or his employees.

It may be that the application of this ruling will work a hardship upon the plaintiff in error, but it is most important to preserve intact the orderly methods of procedure in the various courts, and only by the enforcement of fixed rules can this result be accomplished. Writ of error dismissed.