Court Opinion

ID: 9618250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:09:32.1882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:29.340289
License: Public Domain

THOMPSON, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because I find that the trial court abused its discretion in denying husband’s motion to set aside the final judgment of divorce and grant a new trial.
After the trial court conducted the divorce trial in husband’s absence, husband pro se filed a motion seeking to set aside and for a new trial on the merits. He argued that he was prevented from attending the trial because he was hospitalized out of state on that date. Wife responded through counsel pointing out that the allegations were without proper evidentiary support. According to the trial court’s order, the pro se motion was denied solely on the written motion and wife’s written response in opposition.4
Husband then retained new counsel and through his attorney filed a second motion for new trial, this time appending evidentiary support in the form of proper affidavits from two treating physicians and a nurse employed by the Baptist East Medical Center in Montgomery, Alabama. The physicians averred that husband was admitted “emergently” to Baptist East Medical Center as an inpatient on November 10 or 11, 2008;5 that on November 12, 2008 (the day of the final hearing) husband underwent a medical proce*363dure under anesthesia; and that he was discharged from the hospital on November 14, 2008. The nurse averred that at 1:30 p.m. on November 11, 2008 (the day prior to the final hearing), husband provided her with the telephone number of the DeKalb County court and asked her to notify the court of husband’s status; she made the telephone call and left a voice mail message to the effect that husband was currently hospitalized at Baptist East Medical Center; she also provided the hospital contact information. Wife filed a response in opposition to the motion on procedural grounds; however, she did not challenge the averments contained in the several affidavits, pointed to no matters of inaccuracy in the affidavits, and offered no counter-evidence. After a hearing on the motion for new trial which was not transcribed, the trial court entered an order denying the motion upon “consideration of all matters of record, as well as oral argument by the parties’ respective legal counsel.” There is no statement that the trial court heard evidence from either party at this hearing.
In Moore v. Moore, 211 Ga. 233 (85 SE2d 12) (1954), this Court reversed the trial court’s refusal to set aside a verdict and judgment of divorce where it was shown that wife was unable to attend the final hearing because she and her child were quarantined and could not travel as a consequence of her child’s illness. Wife notified the court of her situation and obtained a one-day continuance. On the following day she was still unable to attend for the same reasons and the trial court conducted a final hearing in her absence. Relying on White v. Martin, 63 Ga. 659 (1879), in which the Court held that “a court of equity will set aside a judgment rendered against a person having a good defense who was providentially prevented from attending court because of illness and had no means of communicating with his counsel or the court,” the Moore Court determined that the trial court “erred in refusing to grant the defendant’s motion to continue [the] litigation for a reasonable period of time; and that such refusal to do so constitute^] good and sufficient cause for setting the verdict and judgment aside.” Moore, supra at 235.
Despite the lack of a transcript of the hearing on the second motion for new trial, the parties in this case are not in disagreement as to what transpired on the day of the final hearing; the uncontested evidence of record demonstrates that husband was prevented by illness from attending. In addition, I find that husband diligently and in good faith attempted to notify the trial court of his medical status in advance of the final hearing. The judgment of divorce makes clear that the court heard evidence and adjudicated issues of custody, visitation, support, and division of property in husband’s absence. The court went even further, sua sponte holding husband in contempt of court and ordering his incarceration. It thus cannot be *364disputed that husband was substantially prejudiced by his absence from the hearing.6 I would conclude on the facts of this case that husband has shown “good and sufficient cause for setting the verdict and judgment aside,” Moore, supra at 235 (2), and that the trial court’s failure to grant the requested relief constituted an abuse of its discretion.
Decided May 17, 2010
Reconsideration denied June 28, 2010.
Hill-MacDonald, Brad E. MacDonald, Vic B. Hill, for appellant.
Stacey M. Cameron, for appellee.
I am authorized to state that Justice Benham joins this dissent.

 It should be noted that this language in the trial court’s order contradicts a subsequent order in the case granting wife’s request for attorney fees. The majority points to the order on attorney fees which states that a hearing was conducted on the pro se motion for new trial at which the court heard “evidence from the mother and her counsel.” Upon inquiry from our Clerk’s office, however, the clerk of the trial court confirmed that there was no hearing conducted on the pro se motion for new trial. Thus, the language in the order on attorney fees is obviously erroneous, and we should rely on the language of the court’s order denying the pro se motion for new trial which states that it was decided based solely on the written submissions from the parties.

 One physician identified the admission date as November 10, 2008, while the other stated that it was November 11, 2008.

 While I acknowledge the burden is on husband as appellant to prove harmful error on appeal, and generally in the absence of a transcript we would presume that the trial court’s findings were proper and supported by the evidence, “the absence of a transcript does not authorize such presumption of correctness when [as here] the record plainly shows harmful error.” Freeway Junction Bakery v. Krupp Cash Plus III, 202 Ga. App. 703, 706 (415 SE2d 312) (1992).