Court Opinion

ID: 9847592
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:02:44.385471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:21.636606
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
dissenting.
I fully agree with Division 1 of the opinion but part company on Division 2.
An analysis of the somewhat unusual Fayette order reveals to me that the issue of change of custody was not decided by that court. Appellee, the mother, had moved to dismiss the petition for change of custody when the case was called for hearing, due to her as the custodial parent being a resident of Rabun County. As was her right, she *342wanted the issue of change of custody litigated in the court where she lived. The Fayette court recognized the validity of her motion and granted it, leaving to petitioner the obligation to file anew in Rabun County if he wished to pursue his petition. Then, apparently as an accommodation and acknowledgment of the need for rather immediate intervention, the court “invited all interested parties including the maternal grandmother,” who was not a party to the suit, to try to reach some immediate agreement. And so, with the court’s assistance, one was reached with respect to professional counseling for the child and family members. Everyone, including the grandmother, consented to the current validity of the original divorce decree as controlling the subject of custody, visitation and support, and the court, to emphasize it and document the parties’ (and grandmother’s) understanding of that fact, “ordered” compliance. Of course, it would have remained in effect even without this “order,” but the air was cleared and the 1976 decree was brought into the instant time and sharper focus.
Then the court memorialized the agreement of the parties and family to submit the child to counseling by a licensed psychiatrist or psychologist, which counseling the family members were invited to also participate in, and concerning which they could all have copies of any written reports made. This, too, became a part of the order, and so to this degree, the mother subjected herself to jurisdiction of the Fayette court. But professional counseling was merely a service which at least the mother and the father and the grandmother all agreed the child needed at that time and without further delay; it did not resolve the issue of custody.
That issue, being the focal point of the petition for change, was clearly reserved at the insistence of the mother to the court of her own county.1 She is thus hard pressed now to say that it was decided then, when the court did not have jurisdiction of it at her own bidding.
The statute with respect to res judicata provides that: “A judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction shall be conclusive between the same parties and their privies as to all matters put in issue or which under the rules of law might have been put in issue in the cause wherein the judgment was rendered until the judgment is reversed or set aside.” OCGA § 9-12-40. The issue of custody was not before the court nor could it have been, because the mother did not *343waive proper venue as to that, the primary issue in the case. The court had jurisdiction only to the extent reflected in the order incorporating the agreement on a side matter.
Decided March 19, 1986.
John M. Brown, for appellant.
Tom Pye, for appellee.
A dismissal for improper venue is not an adjudication on the merits of the case. Rainwater v. Vazquez, 133 Ga. App. 173, 174 (210 SE2d 380) (1974); OCGA § 9-11-41 (b). As reflected by the Fayette order, that court did not hear evidence and determine who should have custody of the child. Thus the cap on plowing old ground and relitigating issues already decided, a principle applied in such cases as Willingham v. Willingham, 192 Ga. 405, 406 (1) (15 SE2d 514) (1941) and Lowery v. Adams, 225 Ga. 843, 844-845 (1) (171 SE2d 624) (1969), would not control here.
The key issue of custody of the child around whom all of this swirls, his best interest, has been pending now for over two years and has yet to be heard and decided by the appropriate court. It would seem that it is time for this to be done.

 The majority focuses on the “prior to the entry of an order on the court’s ruling” language of the “consent order.” This does not require the construction that the matter was not dismissed for improper venue. The order concludes by stating, “This order is prepared in accord with the oral pronouncement of this court . . . ,” and the order itself states at the outset that the “motion to dismiss was granted by the court orally, the court stating that the reason for granting the motion was that . . . Fayette County is not the proper venue.” (Emphasis supplied.)