Case Name: GREEN v. GREEN
Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
Jurisdiction: Georgia
Decision Date: 1993-11-22
Citations: 263 Ga. 551
Docket Number: S93A0780
Parties: GREEN v. GREEN.
Judges: All the Justices concur, except Sears-Collins, J., who concurs specially, and Fletcher, J., who concurs in the judgment only.
Reporter: Georgia Reports
Volume: 263
Pages: 551–560

Head Matter:
S93A0780.
GREEN v. GREEN.
(437 SE2d 457)

Opinion:
Benham, Justice.
This is an appeal from the denial of a motion to set aside the judgment in a divorce case. Appellant filed the divorce action in DeKalb County while represented by counsel. She subsequently moved to Ohio and her attorney withdrew from the case. In withdrawing, the attorney followed the appropriate procedures, including notifying the court and opposing counsel of appellant's address in Ohio. In January 1992, the case appeared on the trial calendar and notice was published in the legal organ of the county. No effort was made to give appellant actual notice of the appearance of the case on the trial calendar. Although the case was fifteenth on the calendar and the notice specified that all but the first ten cases would be "on call," appellee and his counsel appeared and answered ready. In his brief in this court, appellee's counsel states that when the trial court was unable to locate the record of the case and advised appellee and his counsel that the case would have to be continued, appellee's counsel went first to the clerk's office and then to the office of the judge who had previously been assigned to hear the case. In the judge's office, the record was located in a desk drawer and was then conveyed to the trial court, which proceeded to hear the case in appellant's absence. The trial court subsequently entered an order (prepared by appellee's counsel) which recited that appellant was "absent without having moved this court for a continuance or otherwise showing legal cause for her absence . . .," awarded appellee custody of the parties' child, and imposed a child support obligation on appellant. Once again represented by counsel, appellant filed a motion to set aside the judgment on the ground that she did not receive adequate notice of the trial. The trial court found that the notice by publication was sufficient and that appellant did not comply with the provision of Uniform Superior Court Rule (USCR) 8.4, and denied the motion to set aside.
We granted appellant's application for discretionary review to consider whether notice by publication was constitutionally sufficient in a case such as this one. However, in keeping with the principle that cases should not be decided on constitutional issues when other issues are dispositive (cf. Cone v. State, 184 Ga. 316, 322 (191 SE 250) (1937)), we find it unnecessary to consider the constitutional issue because other principles lead us to reverse the judgment of the trial court.
Notwithstanding the sufficiency of notice by publication, a trial court has discretion, upon considering all the circumstances, to set aside a judgment against a party who pleads lack of notice. Spyropoulos v. John Linard Estate, 243 Ga. 518 (255 SE2d 40) (1979). The circumstances of this case include a calendar call which did not require the presence of the parties to this action and extraordinary efforts made by appellee's counsel to bring this case to trial in the absence of the unrepresented opposing party whom appellee's counsel knew to live out of this state.
1. Addressing first the issue of the absence of appellant, we note that the trial court's order denying the motion to set aside and appel lee's argument on appeal both rely on Uniform Superior Court Rule 8.4 and on the special concurrence in Home Owners Warranty Corp. v. Pinewood Builders, 188 Ga. App. 324, 326 (373 SE2d 34) (1988). That concurrence states that the rule requires that the parties and counsel in all cases on the calendar be present unless they have made the other arrangements mentioned in the rule. However, the concurring opinion is not binding precedent, and conflicts with the holding of the Court of Appeals in Fulton v. State of Ga., 183 Ga. App. 570 (359 SE2d 726) (1987), that only the first five cases on the published calendar were required to be present. In this case, as in Fulton, which we believe to state the better interpretation of USCR 8.4, judgment was entered against a party who was not required by the rule to be present; in this case, as in Fulton, the judgment should have been set aside. We do not suggest by this holding that counsel and parties whose cases are not in the first ten listed on the calendar have no responsibility to make arrangements with the court to postpone their case or to be notified if their case is reached. However, under the particular circumstances of this case, the failure of the unrepresented appellant to make such arrangements was not sufficient to warrant the extreme sanction of conducting the trial in her absence and awarding appellee child custody and child support without any opposition.
2. In addition to the purely legal question regarding presence at calendar call, the role appellee's counsel played in procuring the judgment must be examined. There can be no serious question that appellee's counsel was aviare that appellant was not represented by counsel since the record reflects that he was served with notice of appellant's counsel's withdrawal from representation. That same notice makes it clear that appellee's counsel was aware of appellant's location and address. Yet, not only did counsel make no effort to inform appellant of the calendar call on which their case occupied an "on call" status, he has stated to this court that he pursued the matter through the office of the clerk of court and on into the desk drawer of a law clerk who had previously worked on the case.
In recent years, on the federal and state level, courts throughout this country have sought to encourage professionalism among lawyers and alternative dispute resolution among citizens. In furtherance of the former of these goals, several years ago this court established the Chief Justice's Commission on Professionalism in an attempt to maintain in some instances and establish in others, a sense of civility and courtesy among lawyers. In drawing the distinction between professionalism and ethics, Chief Justice Clarke has often said that "ethics is that which is required and professionalism is that which is expected."
On one hand, the practice of law is dependent to a great extent on lawyers having respect for each other, honoring their promises, cooperating with others, and according each other a high degree of civility. On the other hand, lay persons sincerely believe that when a justiciable issue arises, if they so desire they will be accorded their "day in court." These expectations on the part of lawyers and lay persons are reasonable and are fully contemplated by our system of jurisprudence. Therefore, when these expectations are not fulfilled, there is understandable discontent with our system of justice. If the bar is to maintain the respect of the community, lawyers must be willing to act out of a spirit of cooperation and civility and not wholly out of a sense of blind and unbridled advocacy.
During oral argument in the case sub judice, the question was posed by the bench as to why the final decree was taken without notice to the adverse party and prior to the scheduled hearing date. Appellee's lawyer responded by saying, in part, that the law allowed the procedure he utilized and that he had every right to avail himself of the procedure. What is disturbing to me is that many lawyers fail to realize that the law and the Code of Professional Responsibility set minimum levels of reasonable conduct. As members of an honorable profession, we must be willing to conduct our business in a manner consistent with higher standards embodied in the Ethical Considerations and aspirational goals embodied in the professionalism movement.
Evanoff v. Evanoff, 262 Ga. 303, 304-305 (418 SE2d 62) (1992) (Ben-ham, J., concurring). In the present case, appellee's counsel has taken a position equivalent to that of appellee's counsel in Evanoff, and with equivalent effect. In the present case, however, there is case law which will permit the setting aside of the judgment as an exercise of discretion (Spyropoulos, supra), and there is the caution in Evanoff that the courts will not condone a refusal "to act out of a spirit of cooperation and civility and not wholly out of a sense of blind and unbridled advocacy." Id. at 304. That spirit of cooperation and civility, when taken together with the notions of fundamental fairness that lie at the heart of the principle of due process of law, requires that attorneys, as officers of the court, make a good faith effort to ensure that all parties to a controversy have a full and fair opportunity to be heard. Such an effort may entail, as is already the customary practice of many attorneys, counsel assuming the burden of notifying by mail any unrepresented opposing party when their case appears on a trial calendar. No such effort was made in this case.
Given all the circumstances of this case, and especially the lengths to which appellee's counsel went to ensure that this case was tried in the absence of appellant, we hold that the proper exercise of the trial court's discretion established in Spyropoulos, supra, required that the judgment be set aside. The trial court's denial of appellant's motion to set aside was, therefore, an abuse of that discretion.
Judgment reversed.
All the Justices concur, except Sears-Collins, J., who concurs specially, and Fletcher, J., who concurs in the judgment only.
USCR 8.4. Trial Date.
The parties and counsel in the first 10 actions on the published trial calendar shall appear ready for trial on the date specified unless otherwise directed by the assigned judge. Parties in all other actions on the calendar are expected to be ready for trial but may contact the calendar clerk to obtain:
(A) A specific date and time for trial during the trial term specified in the calendar; or
(B) Permission to await the call by the calendar clerk of the action for trial upon reasonable notice to counsel.
The rule was amended in 1989 to raise the number of cases for which parties and counsel must be present from five to ten.
We note, as was explained in an amicus curiae brief filed by the Family Law Sections of the State Bar of Georgia and the Atlanta Bar Association, that there was another unrepresented party whose interests were vitally affected by this action: the child of the parties. That circumstance makes it even more urgent that all sides of this controversy be fairly presented to the trial court before a decision is made which will affect the lives of all the parties involved.
We do not suggest here that attorneys are expected to make the interests of their clients subservient to those of an opposing party, represented or unrepresented, or that attorneys must endure, and cause their clients to suffer from, abuses of the judicial process for the purpose of delay. No such issue is involved in this case.