Court Opinion

ID: 9605777
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:41:39.685128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:30.325906
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
1. "None but citizens of the United States, residing in this state are qualified to be made administrators. . .” Code § 113-1203. "A man may have several residences, but only one place of domicile.” Davis v. Holt, 105 Ga. App. 125, 129 (123 SE2d 686). "The court of ordinary being a court of general jurisdiction, ... it is to be presumed in favor of its judgments that every fact necessary to make it valid and binding was before the court... When the record of a judgment appointing [an] administrator is equivocal in its terms as to the residence of the decedent, the presumption in favor of the validity of the judgment requires that the ambiguity be relieved by a construction which would make the decedent a resident of this State at the time of his death.” Jones v. Smith, 120 Ga. 642 (1) (4) (48 SE 134). In the latter case it was alleged that the decedent "died testate in the City and State of New York,” but the court nevertheless presumed in favor of the judgment appointing the administrator that the decedent was in fact a resident of Georgia. In the present case, where the application for letters testamentary gave the petitioner’s residence as Washington, D. C., it was indeed subject to attack by motion on that ground, but, no attack having been made, the statement was also subject to explanation that the residence in Washington, D. C. was temporary and that the applicant was also domiciled in, and therefore a resident of, the State of Georgia. We should presume in favor of the judgment that such fact *762was made to appear, where no issue on this question was made by the pleadings. Code Ann. § 81A-115 (b).
2. The grant of letters of administration c.t.a. was appealed and tried de novo in the superior court. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the appellee. The same reasoning applies to the jury trial as to the evidence offered before the ordinary. The question at issue is not, as the majority opinion postulates, one of law by estoppel, but is evidentiary in character. Since no transcript of evidence appears in this record, no enumeration of error requiring a consideration of evidence can invoke any ruling by this court. Tate v. Tate, 220 Ga. 393 (139 SE2d 297); Ga. Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Williamson, 124 Ga. App. 549 (184 SE2d 665); Commercial Nat. Bank of Cedartown v. Moore Ford Co., 121 Ga. App. 424 (174 SE2d 201); Buffington v. Ray-O-Lite Southeast, 119 Ga. App. 799 (168 SE2d 662); Nadler v. Okarma, 114 Ga. App. 275 (150 SE2d 846). The jury verdict should therefore be affirmed.
I am authorized to state that Judge Evans concurs in this dissent.