Court Opinion

ID: 9850416
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:56:52.087509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:36.821831
License: Public Domain

Duokworth, Chief Justice,
dissenting. The law upon which this case depends is found in Code Ann. § 81A-141 (b) (Ga. L. 1966, pp. 609, 653). The very last sentence therein is as follows: “Unless the court in its order of dismissal otherwise specifies, a dismissal under this subdivision and any dismissal not provided for in this section, other than a dismissal for lack of jurisdiction or for improper venue or for lack of an indipensable party, operates as an adjudication upon the merits.” This record shows that the judgment dismissing the second suit because the costs in an identical prior suit had not been paid which was dismissed by the plaintiff, did not otherwise specify, and hence was an adjudication on the merits, as plainly stated in the above *35statute. The present appeal is from an order of the court dismissing a third suit by the same plaintiff upon the same cause. All history was presented to the court in support of a motion to dismiss which was sustained, and this appeal ds from that judgment.
The majority asserts that the purpose of this law was to secure speedy trials on the merits, and that it should be liberally construed to obtain that result. The opinion is wrong. There is no ambiguity in the statute, and under uniform decisions of this court it neither requires nor permits court construction. Undercofler v. Hospital Authority of Forsyth County, 221 Ga. 501 (145 SE2d 487), and cases cited at page 503. The opinion defeats what it says is the purpose of the Act. Certainly by perpetuating a case through three separate filings is not speed. Nor can justice ever be done by violating plain law, and the statute provides too plainly to be misunderstood that the court orders of dismissal, not having otherwise specified, and it not being based upon lack of jurisdiction, improper venue, or an indispensable party, “operates as an adjudication upon the merits.”
The opinion cannot be defended by the fact that parts, but not all, of the Act, are identical with some, but not all, of the Federal rules. The rule they seek to invoke is applicable only when a statute in its entirety is literally lifted from another statute. Bush & Hattaway v. W. A. McCarty Co., 127 Ga. 308, 310 (56 SE 430, 9 AC 240); Sinclair v. Friedlander, 197 Ga. 797, 799 (30 SE2d 398). I know no exception to the rule that any statute or document must be construed as a whole, and it is not permissible to chop it into separate parts and construe them alone. Huntsinger v. State, 200 Ga. 127, 130 (36 SE2d 92); Lucas v. Smith, 201 Ga. 834, 837 (41 SE2d 527).
The legislature obviously sought to protect a defendant against being repeatedly drawn into court to defend the same case. Here, he had the expense of defending three times, all due to plaintiff’s carelessness or failure to obey the law. He has been treated badly by the majority who require him to defend a fourth time, when the law provides otherwise. In Holmes v. Huguley, 136 Ga. 758 (72 SE 38), this court affirmed the lower court in dismissing a second suit when a judgment for the costs in a former suit had not been paid.
*36This court has no right to give a free ride to one who trifles with the courts by filing the same suit three times without paying the court costs as he goes.
I will add that Mr. Presiding Justice Emeritus Candler, who rendered the judgment now under review, acted then as he did for twenty years on this court. He followed the law.