Case ID: ga_98/html/0396-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Lumpkin, Justice.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

ATHENS LEATHER MANUFACTURING CO. v. MYERS & CO.
    Where, on account of the gross negligence of the defendant or his counsel, no defense was made to an action, and the same being in default, a judgment was duly rendered in the plaintiff’s favor, it was not error to overrule the defendant’s motion, though made during the term at which the judgment was rendered, to set the same aside and reinstate the case.
    May 4, 1896. Argued at the last term.
    Motion to set aside judgment. Before Judge Cobb. City court of Athens. March term, 1895.
    
      
      W. I. Heyward and J. J. Strickland, for plaintiff in error.
    
      Shackelford & Shackelford and T. F. Green, contra.
   Lumpkin, Justice.

This was an action by Myers & Company against the Athens Leather Manufacturing Company, in the city court of Athens. At the trial term the case was in default, and a judgment was duly rendered in the plaintiff’s favor. During the same term, a motion was made to set the judgment aside and reinstate, the case. It appears that the failure to make a defense at the right time was due to the gross negligence either of the defendant company or its counsel; and therefore, the court certainly did not err in refusing to reopen the case, even though the defendant’s showing for a reinstatement contained allegations which, if found true, would have constituted a good defense to the plaintiffs’ action. In any view of it, the question of setting aside the plaintiffs’ judgment was a matter resting in the sound discretion of the trial judge, and we certainly could not, in the face of the fact that the defendant lost a hearing solely because of its own negligence or that of its counsel, hold that the trial judge abused his discretion in denying the defendant another opportunity to set up its defense.

Judgment affirmed.