Court Opinion

ID: 9854581
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:09:26.152688+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:09.815814
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur in the judgment because when the lienor sued, it did not file the statutory notice “at the time of filing such action,” as expressly and clearly required by OCGA § 44-14-361.1 (a) (3). I would agree with the dissent in American Hosp. &c. Corp. v. Starline Mfg. Corp., 171 Ga. App. 790 (320 SE2d 857) (1984).
The legislature obviously did not mean the notice had to be filed at the same instant as the claim was filed, since the lienor would have to first ascertain the number given to the action by the clerk, as well as the date of filing if it was mailed rather than hand-delivered. All other information would be or could be determined in advance. Thus the only elasticity which might be imported into the legislature’s mandate would be mailing time, such as the legislature has provided for with respect to action to be taken after service. OCGA § 9-11-6 (a) and (e). The legislature recognizes in that section of the Civil Practice Act that legal filings are often accomplished by mail, so it accommodates this common practice by allowing a three-day period to be added to specifically prescribed periods.
This case illustrates the wisdom of the legislature in setting a clear and easily calculable, objective requirement, rather than providing for a subjective “reasonable time” standard which would invite litigation. The court’s import of “a reasonable time” into the statute carries with it the allowance and need for the trial court to exercise its discretion, considering all the circumstances of a particular case. This renders the statutory lien law uncertain, subject to varying applications and, as here, differences in judicial opinion: the trial judge *544reasoned that two months was not unreasonable under the circumstances, and this court disagrees “as a matter of law.”
Decided March 17, 1988
Rehearing denied March 28, 1988
S. Gregory Joy, George A. Smith, for appellants.
John Tye Ferguson, for appellee.
The purpose of the materialman’s lien law is to assure prompt payment to furnishers of labor and material which improves real property. Gignilliat v. West Lumber Co., 80 Ga. App. 652, 653 (1) (56 SE2d 841) (1949). It is not meant to tie up real property, however. We contribute to the latter when we create a litigable issue of procedural compliance in every instance where the notice of commencement of the action to enforce the lien is not filed “at the time of filing such action,” promptly, without delay, posthaste.
Here the lien was filed in September 1984. It has taken three and-a-half years to achieve finality as to whether a straightforward, common materialman’s lien is enforceable, and but for the bond which was bought to free the real property from the lien, it would have been subject to this encumbrance through this long period. Over a year has passed since the defense of the notice delay was pressed by Ford’s filing of affirmative defenses, and significant amounts of judicial resources have been brought to bear on the question. This surely was not the intention of the legislature, when our constitution sets a requirement “for the speedy, efficient, and inexpensive resolution of disputes . . .” Ga. Const. 1983, Art. VI, Sec. IX, Par. I.