Court Opinion

ID: 9623043
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:26:52.165455+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:15.146358
License: Public Domain

Pannell, Judge,
dissenting. Cases should be decided on the facts as shown by the record and not on hypotheses which have no basis in the record before this court. We should decide the cases before us and not indulge in purely imaginary situations which may or may not be true. Let us see what the facts are as shown by the record.
I will refer to the two defendants as the first defendant and the second defendant. 1. The petition, process, and service all relate to the first defendant. 2. All pleadings filed were by an attorney in the name of the first defendant, both before and after plaintiff’s amendment. 3. Plaintiff’s amendment amended the petition and process to substitute the second defendant for the first defendant, but did not amend the service of the process to show service on the second defendant, and no new process was prayed for, issued, or served on the second defendant. 4. Neither plaintiff’s amendment nor any of the pleadings in the case nor anything in the record shows (a) that the first defendant was a non-existent corporation, or (b) that the second defendant ever appeared or pleaded. The majority opinion assumes (1) the second defendant was actually served with process and (2) that the second defendant appeared and pleaded in the case, but the record does not speak it. We may not presume facts outside of the record. Luke v. Cannon, 4 Ga. App. 538, 544 (62 SE 110).
We may decide cases on the appellant’s statement of the record, if not controverted by the appellee (Rule 17(b)(1), 111 Ga. App. 890) and on admissions against interest. Jinks v. State, 115 Ga. 243 (41 SE 580). See also Pace v. Harris & Son, 9 Ga. App. 621, 622 (71 SE 1006). We cannot decide cases based on statements in the briefs, or even stipulations of the parties, unless they refer to all or a part of the record in the case. While, as both parties state in their briefs, this *350court may take judicial cognizance that no corporation by the name of the first defendant was authorized to do business in this State, as it had not been registered with the Secretary of State as required by law, this does not amount to judicial cognizance that no such corporation exists. In reaching its improper conclusions based on improper assumptions, the majority rely upon a case (Lowe v. Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 117 Ga. App. 135 (159 SE2d 473)) in which the facts disclosed by the record are entirely different from those shown by the record here. In that case, the original petition was against Coca-Cola Bottling Company and process issued accordingly, and the return of service showed service on Coca-Cola Bottling Company at a certain address in the City of Atlanta. Up to this point, that case and this case are the same, but from then on they are entirely different. In the Lowe case, the second defendant, the Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Company on April 27, 1967, filed a motion to dismiss claiming the statute of limitation had run on the cause of action and on the same date filed an answer admitting it had received the service at its place of business, and also on the same date filed a demurrer. In these pleadings, the Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Company admitted it had received the service of the summons and process and admitted there was no such corporation as Coca-Cola Bottling Company, the first defendant. On June 28, 1967, the plaintiff amended his petition so that it would be against the Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Company, and new process was issued and was served on the new named defendant, and the new named defendant then filed another motion to dismiss on substantially the same grounds as the motion it had previously filed. The court, in the Lowe case, accordingly ruled that the amendment to the petition was merely to correct a misnomer, and the plaintiff had a right to so amend. In following the Lowe case, the majority erroneously assumed that the facts were the same, when they were actually diametrically opposed, and in doing so passed upon two questions which are not raised by the enumerations of error that is, (1) that the amendment was properly allowed, and (2) that the statute of limitation had not run on the action. Both *351of these questions were argued very vociferously in the brief of the appellant but the only enumeration of error was that the trial court erred in overruling the appellant’s (the first defendant’s) renewed general demurrer to the petition as amended (treated here as a motion to dismiss). The majority by straining at a hypothetical gnat have swallowed the camel.
As I see the case, if there be no such corporation as the first defendant (as assumed by the majority) then we have no person as party appellant in this appeal and the appeal should be dismissed. If I am correct in my conclusion that so far as the record shows the first defendant is an actual corporation and the second defendant is a different corporation, then I agree with the majority that the first defendant on appeal has no right to complain and the trial judge should be affirmed in his refusal to sustain its demurrer, it no longer being a party to the case because of the amendment substituting a new defendant. It no longer being a party, it cannot complain of the failure of the trial judge to sustain its demurrer to the plaintiff’s petition.
The misconstruction of the record and the indulgence in assumptions by the majority would do no harm in this case (an affirmance or dismissal results in either instance) except for the result it reaches as to the status it gives the case in the court below in the event these assumptions turn out to be true. Let us repeat these assumptions. They are (1) that the pleadings filed in the case were in the name of a non-existent corporation and were filed by authority of the second defendant, and (2) the second defendant actually received the process and summons purportedly served on the first defendant. Under these circumstances, the second defendant, having received the summons, was duty bound to respond thereto, either to set forth that it was not the person named in the summons served upon it or to plead that it was improperly named and that the name of the first defendant was a misnomer. It did neither one. Instead, it appeared and pleaded in the name of a non-existent corporation obviously for the purpose of securing a dismissal of the suit (the policy sued upon was actually issued by it, the second defendant, rather *352than the first defendant) and then to claim upon a renewal of the suit against it in a proper name, that the statute of limitation had run on the action between the two filings. That this was the intent and purpose is shown by the brief filed in the name of the non-existent corporation in this court contending most strenuously that the amendment naming the corporation which issued the policy as a defendant added a new party and therefore the statute of limitation had run on the cause of action and insisting most strenuously that the court erred in allowing the amendment adding a new party defendant, none of which contentions is supported by any enumeration of error. If the second defendant actually received the service and filed pleadings in the name of a non-existent corporation, the first defendant named, even after it had been properly named in the pleadings as a defendant by amendment, then the second, and properly named defendant has never legally appeared and pleaded, the name in which it appeared and pleaded being the name of no legal person whatsoever. The purpose, of course, in so pleading, and even appearing to this court in the name of the non-existent corporation, is obvious, and if successful (as the majority permit it to be) could amount to fraud on the court and the plaintiff. The second named defendant not having appeared and pleaded, the case is in default as to it; it having been served with process (the majority assumes) and made no appearance in response thereto. This is the proper result based upon the majority’s assumptions. We should not reward the deliberate non-appearance of a party actually served by calling it a proper appearance.
If the assumptions of the majority are correct, the case should be dismissed, as there is no legal person prosecuting this appeal and any judgment rendered herein would be ineffective. If the majority’s assumptions are incorrect, the case should be affirmed. In either event, no decision is authorized on questions not enumerated as error (the appearance of the amendment and the questions relating to whether or not the statute of limitation has run against the asserted claim) and I dissent from such rulings and the reasons given in support thereof.