Court Opinion

ID: 9565729
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:26:33.742992+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:51.218203
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
concurring.
I join in the majority opinion, and offer additional views.
1. OCGA § 9-11-2 provides: “There shall be one form of action, to be known as ‘civil action.’ ” In adopting that broad statement, the General Assembly sought to bury (once again) the intricacies of “forms of action” pleading.
In this case, Alvarez set out in her complaint a “short and plain statement of the claims showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” OCGA § 9-11-8. The name affixed to that pleading — whether “Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus” or “Complaint Pursuant to the Georgia Child Custody Intrastate Jurisdiction Act” — is an irrelevancy under the Civil Practice Act.
The complaint states a cause of action; the trial court had jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter. Consequently, the complaint should not have been dismissed even if it had been called by the wrong name. In such a case, the trial court has full authority to allow the pleadings to be amended. OCGA § 9-11-15 (b).
2. As now Chief Justice Marshall stated in Dalton Carpet Industries v. Chilivis, 137 Ga. App. 266 (223 SE2d 460) (1976): “The right to amend pleadings under the Civil Practice Act is very broad, even to the extent that there is no prohibition against the pleading of a new cause of action by amendment.” This is consistent with the leading case of Ellison v. Ga. R. Co., 87 Ga. 691, 714 (13 SE 809) (1891), where Chief Justice Bleckley wrote: “From what has been said, it is apparent that nothing less is enough to amend by in matter of substance in respect to the cause of action than a plaintiff, a defendant, jurisdiction of the court, and facts enough to indicate and identify some particular cause of action as the one intended to be declared upon, . . . and that when all these elements are in the declaration, there is enough to amend by.”* *
*20Decided February 25, 1988.
Linda I. Hay, Vicky 0. Kimbrell, Phyllis, J. Holmen, John L. Cromartie, Jr., for appellant.
Paul R. Gemmette, James A. Elkins, Jr., for appellee.

 For a discussion of the right to amend, see my very early effort, “The Right to Amend — A Case of Legislative Liberality Versus Judicial Conservatism,” 12 Ga. Bar Journal 127 (1949).