Court Opinion

ID: 9846059
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:33:48.391552+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:32.078561
License: Public Domain

MlKELL, Judge,
concurring specially.
Although Division 1 of the majority opinion is completely correct, I write separately to urge our Supreme Court to reconsider the traditional Georgia rule that counterclaims are not permitted in response to motions for contempt. The original rule was more narrow than today’s seemingly blanket prohibition. The leading case, Davis v. Davis,10 explained in 1973 that, although the Civil Practice Act of 1966 had liberalized Georgia’s treatment of counterclaims and cross-claims, the liberalization did not extend to motions for contempt.11 In Davis, the divorce decree had awarded custody of a child to the mother with a right of visitation in the father. Later, the mother moved to hold her ex-husband in contempt of court for his failure to return the couple’s child to her after a visitation period. The father counterclaimed for a change of custody. Justice Nichols wrote that the contempt motion was not
tantamount to the filing of a complaint wherein the movant submits to the venue of the court. Thus, . . . where, as in the present case, the movant is shown not to be a resident of the county wherein the contempt citation is filed, the court is without jurisdiction to consider a counterclaim or cross complaint to modify a prior judgment granting custody of a child.12
The Davis court was on firm ground in refusing to treat a post-judgment motion for contempt like an original complaint. A person who files a complaint submits to the jurisdiction of the court, waives any objection to venue, and, pursuant to OCGA § 9-11-5, *153agrees that service of all subsequent pleadings, including counterclaims, may be made in person or by ordinary mail to him or his attorney. For sound policy reasons, the Supreme Court has refused to transfer any of the attributes of a complaint to a motion for contempt.13 In a major decision reaffirming Davis, two concurring justices worried that, if counterclaims were permitted in contempt actions, a husband might strategically stop paying alimony or child support so as to force an ex-wife, who was not otherwise subject to the jurisdiction of the court, to file a contempt action, thereby enabling the delinquent spouse to counterclaim for modification.14 These justices argued that a rule permitting counterclaims would encourage parties to disregard court orders.15
But the original rule, based solidly on considerations of jurisdiction, venue and service of process, has been repeated so frequently that its rationale has been forgotten. It is now applied automatically even in situations, such as the case at bar, where it leads to a dilatory result. The judgment which both parties seek to enforce was entered, by consent, in Douglas County Superior Court in 1998. The plaintiff in that action brought the present contempt proceeding. The defendant counterclaimed, asking that the plaintiff, his mother, be held in contempt. He did not bring a counterclaim seeking to modify the prior judgment. It has long been the rule in Georgia that courts look to the substance of a writing and not to its title.16 The trial court had before it, in essence, two motions for contempt. It dealt with them and did complete justice between the parties, just as equity is supposed to *154do.17 There is nothing in the record to show that the first movant was a nonresident such that the second movant could acquire jurisdiction and venue only by a counterclaim. The parties apparently have lived in uneasy proximity to one another, in the same county or nearby counties, since long before 1998. The respondent, the son, could have denominated his “Counterclaim for Contempt” as a “Motion for Contempt” and this lengthy litigation could have come to an earlier conclusion. Because of nomenclature and technicalities, we are constrained to apply the rule in Davis and to remand so that this 1998 litigation, resolved competently by an experienced trial judge in 2002, can again be expensively litigated in 2004. A procedural technicality should not prohibit a court of equity from dispensing justice.
Decided March 8, 2004.
Robert L. Mack, Jr., for appellant.
Donald F. Defoor, for appellee.
The rule enunciated in Davis should be confined to its original rationale and wording. The original rule applied only when the movant for contempt was shown by the record not to be a resident of the county where the contempt motion was brought and when the counterclaim sought to modify the prior judgment.18 A counterclaim to a motion for contempt should be freely allowed when, as here, it is also a motion for contempt and seeks to enforce the prior judgment. Any other rule works the “absurdity” which was described by Justices Jordan and Hall in their dissent in McNeal.19 Nonetheless, so long as their view remains the minority view, we are obliged to follow Davis as it has been expanded and extended over the years.

 230 Ga. 33 (195 SE2d 440) (1973).

 Id. at 34.

 Id. at 34 (2). OCGA§ 19-9-1 (b) permits a counterclaim for modification of visitation, but not custody. See Blalock v. Blalock, 247 Ga. 548 (277 SE2d 655) (1981); Sampson v. Sampson, 240 Ga. 118 (239 SE2d 519) (1977). The rule in Davis does not invalidate a counterclaim to a petition to modify. Buckholts v. Buckholts, 251 Ga. 58 (302 SE2d 676) (1983); Heard v. Vegas, 233 Ga. 911 (213 SE2d 873) (1975). Buckholts, on which the trial court relied in the case at bar, is inapposite.

 Phillips v. Brown, 263 Ga. 50, 51 (2) (426 SE2d 866) (1993) (error to allow DHR to institute new civil action to enforce by contempt a temporary order in a pending civil action); Opatut v. Guest Pond Club, 254 Ga. 258 (327 SE2d 487) (1985) (motion for contempt may not be amended to assert a new cause of action for money damages); Greer v. Heim, 248 Ga. 417 (284 SE2d 11) (1981) (service of process on attorney for movant not allowed); Steelman v. Fowler, 234 Ga. 706, 707 (1) (217 SE2d 285) (1975) (personal service on movant not allowed while she was present in jurisdiction only for the contempt hearing); McNeal v. McNeal, 233 Ga. 836 (213 SE2d 845) (1975) (motion for contempt does not give subject matter jurisdiction for counterclaim nor cure improper venue); Fernandez v. Fernandez, 232 Ga. 697, 698 (2) (208 SE2d 498) (1974) (motion for contempt does not bestow jurisdiction when “movant [not] shown... to be a resident of the county wherein the contempt citation is filed”). See also Hines v. Hines, 237 Ga. 755, 756 (1) (229 SE2d 744) (1976) (findings of fact and conclusions of law not required because motion for contempt is not a complaint).

 McNeal, supra at 838 (Hill, J., concurring specially). Two justices dissented in McNeal, arguing that the rule oí Davis is an “absurdity which prevents a court having jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter from adjudicating all issues between the parties.” Id. at 838 (Jordan, J., dissenting).

 Id.

 See Parker v. Eason, 265 Ga. 236, 237 (454 SE2d 460) (1995); OCGA§ 9-11-8 (f); Hayes v. Superior Leasing Corp., 136 Ga. App. 98, 100 (220 SE2d 86) (1975) (“The cases are too numerous to cite in full which hold that there is no magic in the nomenclature given a pleading, but it is the substance of the pleadings that determines its nature.”).

 OCGA § 23-1-7; Brown v. Brown, 271 Ga. 887 (525 SE2d 359) (2000).

 Davis, supra at 34.

 McNeal, supra at 838.