Court Opinion

ID: 9854563
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:09:14.526619+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:09.432044
License: Public Domain

*676Beasley, Judge,
dissenting.
I agree with all in the dissent except the overruling of Knight v. Dept. of Transp., 134 Ga. App. 332 (214 SE2d 418) (1975) and would instead limit it to its facts.
The property there consisted of three contiguous tracts in' which members of the same family owned most of the interests. Errors in service were made in serving the junior instead of the senior as to two tracts, in not making proper returns on nonresidents as to one tract, and in not showing service on the bank as to one tract. (Although the court ruled that the time limitation could not run against the junior in Case No. 1232 because there was no return of service on him, it earlier stated that he had personal service in this state.)
Considering the close relationship of most of the condemnees as to whom proper service or proper returns were not shown on all of the tracts, the confusion of service attributed to the similarity of names of two of the condemnees, the interests of same in some but not all of the tracts, and so on, the court faced the question: “What is the effect of this ruling [as to returns of service] on the progress of the cases?” It appears that it took into account the circumstances of the case and the difficulties attendant to proceeding with ascertainment of compensation to only some of these joint owners and as to some of the contiguous tracts, which would be a meticulous nightmare at best, and reached a practical solution. All could participate.
I do not read Knight as establishing a general rule that where a person having an interest in the property does not timely appeal after proper service, he may still participate if there are other parties who were not properly served or with respect to whom there is not a proper return of service. Such an exception does not appear in the statute and could not with authority be engrafted into it by the court. Attributing such a cast to Knight misreads it.
The same situation is not presented here. We simply have a tardy owner, who was served on a Saturday and did not appeal until a Tuesday thirty-one days later. Having been precluded by OCGA § 32-3-14 from participating in the appeal, he cannot ride into it on the coattails of the lessees, who have a separate and different and independently measurable interest. The statute simply does not provide for this reprieve.
*677Strickland Holloway, Jr., for appellees.