Court Opinion

ID: 9588195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:31:21.507131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:48.195146
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Almand, Justice.
Counsel for the plaintiff in error renews his contention that at the time this case was transferred from the superior court to the juvenile court it was not a divorce or habeas corpus case “involving the custody of a child.” The undisputed facts in the record disclose that the bill of exceptions recites that the petition filed by the defendant in error in the superior court was one seeking the change of custody in the nature of a habeas corpus proceeding; that after the transfer of the case, the Judge of the Juvenile Court of Bibb County granted temporary custody of the child to the plaintiff in error; that she filed her cross action in the juvenile court seeking custody of the child; that not until she filed her bill of exceptions seeking a review of the judgment awarding the custody to the father did she claim the juvenile court was without jurisdiction. In a court having jurisdiction of the subject matter of an action the defendant may waive some privilege he has which exempts him from the jurisdiction of the court. Bostwick v. Perkins, Hopkins & White, 4 Ga. 47. Thus, when the defendant voluntarily appears in a court which has jurisdiction of the subject matter involved in the suit and makes defense, it is too late to question the jurisdiction after verdict. Southern Express Co. v. B. R. Electric Co., 126 Ga. 472 (55 SE 254). “Objections to lack of jurisdiction of the person, and other objections to jurisdiction not based on the contention that there is an absolute want of jurisdiction of the subject matter, are waived by invoking the court’s jurisdiction, as by a cross bill or counterclaim.” 21 CJS § 109.
The ruling in this case is not contrary to the decision of this court in West v. Hatcher, 219 Ga. 540 (134 SE2d 603). In that case the grandmother of certain named children, in her petition filed in the superior court and transferred to the juvenile court, sought the appointment of a legal custodian of the person and property of the minor children. In the juvenile court, the defendant, the mother, obtained a dismissal of the petition on her demurrers. As held by this court, the matter embraced in the *670petition was not one of which the juvenile court was given jurisdiction on transferral.

Motion for rehearing denied.

All the Justices concur.