Court Opinion

ID: 9562025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:20:28.433738+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:10.787065
License: Public Domain

Evans, Judge,
dissenting. I dissent from the judgment of affirmance and also the contents of Division 1 and the corresponding headnote of the opinion to which I cannot agree. It is my *745opinion that the claim and the allegations of this complaint are one and the same as another suit filed by the same four plaintiffs against these same four defendants in 1965, to which general demurrers were sustained and no appeal therefrom taken. The movants, in 'the eleventh defense to this suit, have set up the sustaining of the general demurrers, standing unreversed “as res judicata, and the law of the case as between these parties.” It is my opinion that the same is res judicata, and on the hearing of the motion for summary judgment the court should have granted the same, thus ending this litigation.
In Northside Manor, Inc. v. Vann, 219 Ga. 298, 301 (133 SE2d 32), the court held that when “it was judicially adjudged that the petition alleged no cause of action, whether rightly or wrongly, that became the law of the case, and in the absence of an amendment within the time allowed, it became final. . .” In reaching this decision the court cited Kennedy v. Ayers, 164 Ga. 277 (138 SE 155) and Lederle v. City of Atlanta, 164 Ga. 440, 441 (138 SE 910) that where a general demurrer to a petition is sustained, with leave to the plaintiff to amend, such ruling upon the demurrer fixes the law of the case, and unless the plaintiff, by amendment, sets up new facts which, when taken in connection with the allegations of the petition, make a case which will entitle him to recover, a demurrer to the petition as amended, upon the ground that the judgment sustaining the former demurrer concluded the rights of the plaintiff to recover, should be sustained. The Supreme Court continues to follow the Northside Manor case, and in Pope v. Cole, 223 Ga. 448 (3) (156 SE2d 36) again held that where a general demurrer was sustained, upon expiration of time to amend if no amendment had been filed, the court properly dismissed the petition without any hearing thereon. Again, in Peacock Constr. Co. v. Chambers, 223 Ga. 515 (156 SE2d 348), the Supreme Court granted certiorari to clarify this same type of ruling and held, at page 516, that until reversed, an express judgment sustaining a demurrer to the petition is completely final as to all rights of the petitioner asserted therein. The opinion continues: “Whether or not a formal order dismissing the petition is ever entered, the judgment sustaining the demurrer which asserts that no cause *746of action is alleged stands as an insuperable barrier to the petitioner ever obtaining the relief sought.” The ruling on the general demurrers occurred on October 13, 1965, and the petitioners were given 20 days to amend. On October 20, 1965, instead of amending, petitioners dismissed their action, and no appeal therefrom was taken. Thus none of the elections open to them by the Peacock case, as shown at page 517, were taken. Instead, petitioners dismissed their action without amending or appealing the ruling. The effect was to establish that no cause of action was alleged, which is now res judicata.
While earlier cases to the contrary may be found which hold that where a general demurrer is sustained with leave to amend, with no provision for automatic dismissal on the plaintiff’s failure to amend within the time allowed, the order is merely conditional, and an amendment may be made at any time thereafter before dismissal; yet the rulings in the Northside Manor case, the Pope case, and the Peacock case, supra, are the latest rulings of the Supreme Court on this question, which are controlling on the Court of Appeals.
While it is true that no automatic dismissal was entered in the ruling on the general demurrers which were sustained in this case, nevertheless, plaintiffs did not amend but dismissed their action, and, as a result thereof, the case below stood with a general demurrer sustained to the action unreversed which was pleaded here. The ruling in that case is res judicata in this case where the plaintiffs seek to bring the same claim more than two years later. Clearly, the plaintiffs could not wipe out the ruling of the lower court by dismissing their case.
Without considering all the other grounds of the motion for summary judgment, it is my opinion that the lower court erred in failing to grant the motion on this defense alone, and I would reverse the judgment.
I am authorized to state that Judge Pannell concurs in this dissent.