Court Opinion

ID: 9587262
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:20:17.312552+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:11.705047
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Judge,
dissenting. If the matter were of first impression, or if it were dependent wholly upon decisions rendered by this court, I should not feel that any violence were done to the law by establishing the principle as proposed in the majority opinion.
However, the Supreme Court has held in Crawford v. Gaulden, 33 Ga. 173 (8) that "In an action against an attorney for negligence or unskilfulness in the conduct of business, the Statute of Limitations commences to run from the time the negligent or unskilful act was committed, and plaintiff’s ignorance of such act can not affect the bar of the statute.” This case was followed in Lilly v. Boyd, 72 Ga. 83, 85, Gould v. Palmer & Read, 96 Ga. 798 (22 SE 583), and Irvin v. Bentley, 18 Ga. App. 662 (90 SE 359). And see McClaren v. Williams, 132 Ga. 352 (4) (64 SE 65); Barrett v. Jackson, 44 Ga. App. 611 (162 SE 308); Dalrymple v. Brunswick Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 51 Ga. App. 754 (181 SE 597); Saffold v. Scarborough, 91 Ga. App. 628 (86 SE2d 649). Cf. Bryson v. Aven, 32 Ga. App. 721 (124 SE 553).
I am unable to justify the establishment of one standard as to the commencement of the running of the statute of limitation in a malpractice action against an attorney and another standard to be applied to a malpractice action against a doctor.
We applied the standard established in other actions against attorneys in a case against a doctor in Silvertooth v. Shallenberger, 49 Ga. App. 133 (2) (174 SE 365), and 49 Ga. App. 758 (176 SE 829).
The very same principle was established in Davis v. Boyett, 120 Ga. 649 (2, 3) (48 SE 185), though not against a doctor or a lawyer. And we equated all of them, citing both Crawford and Silvertooth for the principle in Wellston Co. v. Sam N. Hodges, Jr. & Co., 114 Ga. App. 424, 426 (151 SE2d 481).
It is my view that we are bound here by the principle established in these Supreme Court decisions, and that we are not in position to overrule or to run counter to them.
The case of Abridge v. Noble, 114 Ga. 949 (41 SE 78), cited by the majority, did not involve the statute of limitation in any *305manner or respect. The excerpt, therefore, is out of context and does not change the rule. The court was simply holding there that the matter of placing or removing sponges from a body cavity during an operation is one within the skills and competence of the doctor, and thus that he is to be held for negligence in failing to remove them. It certainly did not hold that the operation had not been concluded and the tort committed when the opening was closed.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Hall concurs in this dissent.