Court Opinion

ID: 9618839
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:18:02.229021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:11.637881
License: Public Domain

Mobley, Justice,
dissenting. 1. The Court of Appeals held that the petition for damages was duplicitous, and that the provisions of the Civil Practice Act had no application to the judgment on appeal because the case was tried and all rulings were made prior to the effective date of the Act. The majority opinion reversed these rulings.
It is my view that the Court of Appeals correctly interpreted the effective date of the Civil Practice Act. This court has previously so construed the Act. For illustration, see City of Columbus v. Stubbs, 223 Ga. 765 (158 SE2d 392), where a judgment was reversed solely because a special demurrer was overruled, and Shepherd v. Frasier, 223 Ga. 874 (159 SE2d 58), where it was held that a petition failed to state a cause of action for the cancellation of a deed because the grantor in the deed was not made a party to the action. Both of these cases were *269decided after the effective date of the Civil Practice Act, on rulings made prior to that date, and both rulings would not be authorized under the Act. This court in a unanimous decision has expressly ruled that the procedural law as it existed at the time a petition was filed could be applied to rulings of the trial court made after the effective date of the Act. Crosby v. Crosby, 224 Ga. 109 (160 SE2d 362). See also Grizzard v. Grizzard, 224 Ga. 42, 43 (159 SE2d 400).
2. In the 4th division of the majority opinion it was held that a motion for new trial which has not been appealed from establishes the law of the case, and that the Court of Appeals erred in ruling upon issues passed upon by the trial court in denying the defendant’s motion for new trial since there was no appeal from the judgment on the motion for new trial.
The Appellate Practice Act of 1965 (Ga. L. 1965, p. 18), as amended (Code Ann. § 6-702), plainly provides that the motion for new trial need not be transmitted as a part of the record on appeal, and that it shall not be necessary that the overruling thereof be enumerated as error. In the present case, for the first time since the effective date of the Appellate Practice Act of 1965, this court has refused to consider enumerations of error because the same questions were made on the motion for new trial, and there was no appeal from the denial of the motion. In the meantime numerous cases have been decided according to the provisions of the Appellate Practice Act where enumerations of error were made on the same grounds as those in a motion for new trial from the denial of which there was no appeal. For example, an examination of the records in this court discloses that the court considered enumerations of error in the following cases where the same questions were made in a motion for new trial included in the record, and no appeal was made from the denial of the motion: Dickerson v. Harvey, 221 Ga. 606 (146 SE2d 310); Roach v. State, 221 Ga. 783 (147 SE2d 299); Worley v. State, 222 Ga. 319 (149 SE2d 682). In many instances this court could not even know whether the same questions had been made in the motion for new trial, because the motion for new trial is not required to be included in the record.
*2703. Because of the procedural rulings made, the majority-opinion did not decide the correctness of the ruling by the Court of Appeals that the defendant employer was entitled to have the trial of the case free from the prejudicial evidence of the previous reckless driving of the defendant employee, under the theory of negligent entrustment, where the defendant employer had admitted that the driver was its agent and that it was liable for any negligence of the driver. It is my opinion that the Court of Appeals correctly decided this issue.
I am authorized to state that Justice Frankum concurs in this dissent.