Court Opinion

ID: 9609785
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:31:34.455701+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:52.403849
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
This is not a case involving dismissal after five years where no order is taken in the litigation. Here, one defendant was served promptly after filing of the suit and two others were not. The plaintiff, for whatever reason, was unaware of this. fact. The sheriff, charged with the duty of service, made no entry of attempted service or non est inventus. The court found from evidence received that *704there was no indication where these defendants were at the time the petition was filed; that the failure to serve process was not due to the negligence of plaintiff or his attorney but of the sheriff’s department and that "the doctrine of laches cannot extend from the sheriffs department to plaintiff”; that in such case it is a responsibility of the court to notify the proper parties "when a function mandated by law has not been executed,” and that a plaintiff should not be penalized because of a failure of the court to serve the petition or to notify the plaintiff of its failure to do so. I agree with this philosophy in general, and in particular I do not think this court has any right to hold that the trial judge abused his discretion in so holding. A refusal to dismiss by the trial court for lack of service cannot be reversed by this court except for a manifest abuse of discretion, as Judge Stolz pointed out in Delcher Bros. &c. Co. v. Ward, 134 Ga. App. 686 (Judges Been and Evans concurring).
As a matter of history, service of process until the Pleading and Practice Act of 1946 had to be made at the first term, and if not so made it took an order of court to extend the time. "Mere service of the original petition and process on a defendant made after the appearance term of the court to which it is returnable is a nullity, in the absence of an order to perfect service.” Brown v. Tomberlin, 137 Ga. 596, 597 (e) (73 SE 947) (1911).
In 1946 (Ga. L. 1946, pp. 726, 769) former Code § 81-202 was amended by striking reference to the first term and stipulating that a petition was to be served within five days. It was under this Code section that American Mut. Liab. Ins. Co. v. Satterfield, 88 Ga. App. 395 and Gulf Oil Corp. v. Sims, 112 Ga. App. 68, cited and followed in the majority opinion, were written.
Under the Civil Practice Act (Ga. L. 1966, p. 609, 610), Code § 81A-104 (c) has been added and provides: "When service is to be made within this State, the person making such service shall make such service within five days from the time of receiving the summons and complaint; but failure to make service within such five-day period will not invalidate a later service.” (Emphasis supplied.) There is not now, as there formerly was, a hard and fast rule that there must be an order by the trial court *705to allow late service. There may well be times when service is not perfected due to negligence on the part of the plaintiff; in such cases, if the five-year dismissal statute does not come into play, at least it is a discretionary matter with the trial judge whether service should be allowed. But in any event there is no prima facie inference, as there formerly was, that late service is no service.
I would affirm the judgment.