Court Opinion

ID: 9567213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:50:43.612902+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:25.887751
License: Public Domain

Stolz, Judge.
1. In this action for ejectment and loss of rents, the trial judge erred in entering judgment for the defendant on her counterclaim for "expenses of litigation” on account of the plaintiff’s alleged bad faith, stubborn litigiousness, and causing the defendant unnecessary trouble and expense.
The general rule is that expenses of litigation, including attorney’s fees, are not recoverable by a litigant against the opposite party except in those cases which are specifically provided for by contract or by statute. Harrison v. Harrison, 208 Ga. 70 (1) (65 SE2d 173) and cit. "A defendant, as against a plaintiff [i.e., by counterclaim], cannot avail himself of the provisions of Code § 20-1404 (King v. Pate, 215 Ga. 593 (3) (112 SE2d 589)).” Pitman v. Dixie Ornamental Iron Co., 122 Ga. App. 404 (3) (177 SE2d 167).
2. "The entry of judgment on a verdict by the trial court constitutes an adjudication by the trial court as to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict, affording a basis for review on appeal without further ruling by the trial court.” Code Ann. § 6-702 (a) (Ga. L. 1965, pp. 18, 20; 1966, pp. 493, 494). Even in the absence of a motion for new trial, therefore, and regardless of the efficacy of the plaintiff’s motion to dismiss the counterclaim (which motion was not prosecuted), the appeal from the judgment on the verdict, together with the enumeration of errors, which asserted the three usual general grounds of a motion for new trial and attached the counterclaim as one not maintainable *553under the law, give this court jurisdiction to reverse the judgment on the verdict as being contrary to law.
Argued November 6, 1972
Decided March 2, 1973
Rehearing denied March 20, 1973.
Saul, Bowen & Blount, Percy J. Blount, for appellant.
George W. Fryhofer, for appellee.

Judgment reversed.

Bell, C. J., Hall P. J., Eberhardt, P. J., Quillian and Clark, JJ., concur. Pannell and Been, JJ., concur specially. Evans, J., dissents.