Court Opinion

ID: 9618843
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:18:02.81324+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:11.745557
License: Public Domain

Pannell, Judge,
concurring specially. While I agree with the conclusion reached in Division 1 of the opinion, I cannot agree with the rule of law set forth therein as it is stated for the reason that a necessary element of the rule is omitted. The intimation in Division 1 is that there is no longer a procedure for objecting to an amendment upon the ground that the amendment does not meet the ruling on demurrer. Prior to the Civil *799Practice Act (which has abolished demurrers in all the courts of this state which are courts of record) where demurrers, either general or special, were sustained with leave to amend and the order provided for dismissal upon failure to amend and an amendment was filed to the pleadings within the time required and the defendant, without at that time also objecting to the amendment as not meeting the rulings on demurrer, merely renewed the demurrer to the petition as amended and filed additional demurrers to the petition as amended, the demurrant waived the law of the case established by the ruling made and the entire petition as amended must be considered on the renewed and additional demurrers. See Perkins v. First Nat. Bank, 221 Ga. 82, 94 (143 SE2d 474) in which it was said: “[I]t appears that when the amendment to the petition was offered neither defendant moved that it be disallowed or stricken, but both renewed their original motion and demurrer to the petition as amended and further demurred to the petition as amended. This constituted a waiver of the right to insist that the original judgment finally disposed of the case because in such renewed motion and demurrer to the petition as amended and demurrers to the petition and its amendment as a unit, the defendants recognized the original judgment sustaining their respective motion and demurrer was not final and did not dismiss the petition. See Benion v. Life & Cas. Ins. Co., 84 Ga. App. 509 (2) (66 SE2d 75).” See also Folsom v. Howell, 94 Ga. 112 (1) (21 SE 136); Jones v. Butler, 191 Ga. 126, 128 (12 SE2d 326); Smith v. Bugg, 35 Ga. App. 317, 320 (133 SE 49); Woodland Hills Co. v. Lawton, 37 Ga. App. 742 (3) (142 SE 208); Parsons v. Foshee, 80 Ga. App. 127, 130 (2) (55 SE2d 386); Olds Motor Works v. Olds Oakland Co., 140 Ga. 400 (78 SE 902).
Since this is the situation here (the motion to dismiss based upon an attack on the amendment having been made after the renewal of the demurrers to the petition as amended), the trial court did not err in overruling such motion, it having been filed too late. However, where a proper objection to the amendment is made, the question for determination is not whether the petition as amended is subject to demurrer, but the only question is whether the amendment meets the prior ruling on demurrer. *800See in this connection Kennedy v. Ayers, 164 Ga. 277, 278 (3) (138 SE 155); Lederle v. City of Atlanta, 164 Ga. 440, 441 (6) (138 SE 910); Speer v. Alexander, 149 Ga. 765 (102 SE 150). These differences in procedure were recognized by this court in McGarity v. Brewer, 84 Ga. App. 341 (66 SE2d 157); Hayes v. Simpson, 83 Ga. App. 22 (62 SE2d 441), affirmed, Simpson v. Hayes, 208 Ga. 754 (69 SE2d 567). Nothing in the case of Peacock Constr. Co. v. Chambers, 223 Ga. 515, 518, supra, rules to the contrary. That case merely ruled (a) that the pleader by amending did not waive his right to contest the correctness of the ruling on demurrer requiring amendment, and to this extent only is the case of Speer v. Alexander, supra, overruled, and held (b) that an appeal could be entered either prior to amending or after amending when a subsequent appealable order is entered or the time for amending expires, and it is only as to this that the court criticized Simpson v. Hayes, supra. There is nothing in the case of Peacock Constr. Co. v. Chambers, supra, ruling to the contrary of what is here stated as the actual question decided in the Peacock case was as to when the judgment could be appealed from and that the first ruling did not become the permanent law of the case as it did when an amendment waived the right to complain of the first ruling. I would therefore state the rule as follows: Where a plaintiff elects to amend within the time specified in an order sustaining general and special demurrers and providing for automatic dismissal upon a failure to amend within the time specified, and the defendant, without objecting to the amendment as being insufficient to meet the rulings on demurrer, renews his demurrer to the petition as amended or files additional demurrers to the petition as amended, thus waiving his right to such an objection, the plaintiff “is entitled to have his entire petition as amended considered on renewed and additional demurrers as to whether a cause of action is then alleged” (Peacock Constr. Co. v. Chambers, supra). Accordingly, the trial court in the present cases, in recognition of the rules in effect before the Civil Practice Act, did not err in overruling the motions for orders suggesting automatic dismissal of the plaintiff’s petitions.