Court Opinion

ID: 9585132
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:56:41.227539+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:30:20.944728
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
1. I concur for the reason that Haralson’s suit was instituted in December 1996, before the date of applicability of the holding of the Supreme Court of Georgia in Eckles v. Atlanta Technology Group, 267 Ga. 801, 806 (2) (485 SE2d 22) (1997). Sales lot manager Ogltree was served for M & M on January 14, 1997, and filed the corporation’s answer on February 11. Eckles was decided in March. The Court expressly provided that its holding have effect only prospectively, beginning “on and after the date that this opinion appears in the advance sheets.” Id. Without that concession, the corporation would be left without an answer. Had Eckles applied, then regardless of whether the answer was sufficient in its content under OCGA § 9-11-12 as judicially interpreted, it would not be an answer cognizable at law and the trial court would have been correct in not giving it that stature. Eckles held that “[a] layman’s legal representation in a court of record of another ‘person’ in the form of a separate corporate entity is . . . proscribed.” M & M would only have been permitted to be represented by a licensed attorney.
This case points up a notification problem that may exist postEckles, if the summons form used when Ogltree was served for M & M Homes is still in vogue. It tells the defendant, ‘You are hereby summoned and required to file with the Clerk of said court and serve *752upon the Plaintiff’s attorney, ... an answer to the complaint which is herewith served upon you. . . .” It does not tell a corporate defendant that only a licensed attorney can file an answer on its behalf and represent it in the litigation. The myriad of small corporations out in the marketplace would not know that not even an officer could respond, and that it could not represent itself pro se in a court of law.
Decided July 31, 1998.
Joel D. Burns, for appellant.
Martin L. Fierman, for appellee.
2. The opinion leaves the impression that the verdict and judgment were only against M & M. The jury awarded separate damages and attorney fees against each of the two defendants and added punitive damages against M & M. Likewise, separate judgments were entered accordingly.
I am authorized to state that Judge Ruffin joins in this special concurrence.