Court Opinion

ID: 9625728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:49:33.905842+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:14.188040
License: Public Domain

Evans, Judge, dissenting.
The trial court had ample authority to strike the answers to interrogatories because they were filed too late. Indeed, the trial court could have gone a step further by striking all of defendant’s defensive pleadings.
The majority opinion relies upon Code Ann. § 81A-137 (Ga. L. 1972, pp. 510, 530) as to the procedure which must be followed. I do not agree. Ever since 1889 it has been the law of this state that where a party fails to answer interrogatories, or answers evasively, the trial court is fully empowered to adjudge the defaulting party in contempt of court, or to dismiss his case if he is plaintiff, or to strike his pleas if he is defendant. This is clearly the law as set forth in Code § 38-1204 (Ga. L. 1847, p. 197; Cobb, pp. 269-270, 465-466; 1853-4, p. 51; 1889, p. 87) and none of the amending statutes has amended or repealed it or even referred to it. No matter what remedies may be provided by new statutes, none of the remedies provided by Code § 38-1204 has been taken away, and they are still as potent as they ever were. Code § 38-1204 reads as follows: "A party failing to appear, without sufficient excuse, when properly subpoenaed, or failing or refusing to answer either orally or to the interrogatories filed, or answering evasively, shall be subject to attachment for contempt, and the court may also dismiss his case *386if he be plaintiff, or strike his pleas if he be defendant, or give such other direction to the cause as is consistent with justice and equity; and if either party be a corporation, the officer called on to give testimony shall be subject to attachment for contempt upon his failure to answer, and the court may dismiss the case or strike the plea, according as the party corporation may be plaintiff or defendant, upon the failure of any of its officers or agents to give testimony or to execute and return interrogatories as provided by law.”
In the recent case of Morton v. Retail Credit Co., 124 Ga. App. 728, 732 (185 SE2d 777), the writer, relying on Hobbs v. New England Ins. Co., 212 Ga. 513 (93 SE2d 653), dissented because it was held in Hobbs, supra, that if the answers to the interrogatories were before the court at the time the motion for default was made, the court was without power to dismiss same. But a majority of my bretheren on this court disagreed with me, and I now follow their holding.
I am authorized to state the Judge Pannell concurs in this dissent.