Court Opinion

ID: 9565232
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:17:09.938224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:28.906882
License: Public Domain

MacIntyre, P. J.,
concurring specially. “The act of a clerk in filing or transmitting a paper does not stand on the same basis as the act of the judge in signing the certificate to the bill of exceptions, which, with the bill of exceptions constitutes the writ of error. Generally, upon proper suggestion, made in due time, that the date of filing entered by the clerk upon the bill of exceptions was erroneous, the clerk will be ordered to certify to this court the correct date of filing. But his certificate can not be traversed, or extrinsic evidence be introduced to combat it. McDaniel v. Columbus Fertilizer Co., 109 Ga. 284 (34 S. E. 589.)
. . No such application was made in this case, as in the case of Cooper v. Nisbet, 118 Ga. 872 (45 S. E. 692).” Cordray v. Savannah Union Station Co., 134 Ga. 865 (2b) (68 S. E. 697). There the clerk refused to act, that is, he refused to make any entry of the date of filing thereon. See also Southern Grocery Stores v. Greer, 68 Ga. App. 583, 587 (23 S. E. 2d, 484).
“ ‘The official entry made by the clerk of a trial court, as to the date on which a bill of exceptions was filed in his office, imports absolute verity, and can not be impeached in the Supreme Court [or Court of Appeals] by the production of aliunde proof that the bill of exceptions was, in point of fact, filed at an earlier date. Ga. Fla. & Ala. Ry. Co. v. Lasseter, 122 Ga. 679, and cit.’ Swafford v. Swafford, [125 Ga. 386, 53 S. E. 959]; Norris v. Baker County [135 Ga. 229, 69 S. E. 106].” Felker v. Still, 160 Ga. 104 (2a) (127 S. E. 609); Crawford v. Cook, 48 Ga. App. 456 (173 S. E. 187); Sweat v. Barnhill, 171 Ga. 294 (155 S. E. 18).
I think that, as no proper suggestion was made that the date of the official entry of filing of the bill of exceptions, to wit, “Filed in office this 10 day of March 1951,” was erroneous, and the clerk of the trial court has not been ordered, therefore, to certify to this court the correct date of filing, the entry of filing on the original bill of exceptions in the office of the clerk of this court imports “absolute verity.” In these circumstances, this court has no power to correct a mistake, if any, in the record as to the date upon which the bill of exceptions was filed in the *803office of the clerk of the trial court; and, the clerk of the trial court having made an official entry of the date of the filing of the bill of exceptions in his office, and transmitted the writ of error to this court in the manner provided by law, and there having been no refusal on the part of such clerk to act, I think that the application for mandamus, which was filed in this court subsequently to the transmission of the writ of error to this court in the case of C. G. Butler et al v. Vallie Jones (No. 33556) should be dismissed and the mandamus absolute denied. See Code, § 6-812. •
If the entry of the date of filing of the bill of exceptions be incorrect and should result in damage, the defendant in error will not be remediless. Livingston v. Barnett, 193 Ga. 640, 658 (19 S. E. 2d, 385).