Court Opinion

ID: 9540956
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:21:08.664317+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:01:49.917610
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
dissenting.
I agree with Judge Sognier’s dissent.
Here is a litigant pursuing her cause on her own; possibly, because she is seeking to proceed in forma pauperis, she cannot afford an attorney. In the trial court she filed a document entitled “Affidavit in Support in Request to Proceed in Forma Pauperis.” It contains all the appropriate language of an affidavit, and she signed it, but there is no jurat. In this “affidavit,” she states among other things that she has not been employed since 1972, has no cash or checking or savings account, and in effect states that she has no source of income for herself and son except $202 social security benefits (presumably monthly). She answered “yes” to the question whether she “owned” any real estate, and that the home’s approximate value was $49,950. However, whether or not it was paid for does not appear, and it is common knowledge that “homeowners” have mortgages. Above her signature, she “declare[s] under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.”
The trial court “read and considered” the situation and denied permission for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. No reason was initially given for the denial, but it is clear that the court took account of the “affidavit” and waived its defect. The amendment to the order demonstrates this. If the court did not overlook or allow oral cure of the defect, why else would the court have ruled at all?
If it had regarded the “affidavit” as defective in the manner found by this court, no doubt it would have said so, bottoming the denial on the lack of a jurat, or it would have not ruled at all because there was nothing to rule on without a sworn affidavit. If the court had done the former, the pro se litigant could have then corrected the absence of a jurat.
Instead, the court issued an order showing a ruling on the merits, the effect of which prevented correction and a proper ruling on whether she was or was not a pauper.
The Georgia Bill of Rights guarantees access to the courts to its *145citizens by attorney or pro se. 1983 Georgia Constitution, Art. I, Sec. I, Par. XII. It should not be denied in the circumstances here. The court below erred when it ruled on the merits of an unsworn “affidavit.”
Decided March 8, 1985
Rehearing denied March 26, 1985.
Eileen Bradley D’Zesati, pro se.
R. Wayne Pressley, for appellees.
It appearing on the face of the record that the ruling was on the question of indigency and without a hearing pursuant to OCGA § 9-15-2 (b), I would remand for reconsideration in light hereof, for the court had no authority to find “no indigency” when there was no hearing and no complete affidavit on which to hold a hearing or make such a finding.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge McMurray and Judge Pope join in this dissent.