Court Opinion

ID: 9610689
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:45:20.382507+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:03.633995
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Gunter, Justice.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing asserts that the opinion of the court has misapplied W. T. Grant and North Georgia Finishing, two decisions rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States. I concede that those two decisions have been misapplied if they stand for pre-seizure notice and a hearing "in all circumstances,” except where the moving party holds a property interest in the property seized. In the instant case the appellee owned no interest in the attached property at the time of the seizure.
I do not read those two decisions in that maimer. The issue for me is whether post-seizure notice and an opportunity for a hearing are afforded in a timely and reasonable manner. And I conclude that Georgia’s statutory attachment scheme does provide for such notice and such a hearing.
The motion for rehearing also maintains that the only provision in the Georgia attachment statutory scheme for the debtor to secure possession of the property seized is contained in Code § 8-701 which provides that the defendant can post bond and secure the return of the attached property.
This contention has no merit at all. Code § 8-403 provides that an attachment is subject to the laws as to replevy, traverse, demurrer, and other modes of defense. *712Code § 8-405 provides that a party whose property has been attached without a hearing may apply to the superior court judge who issued the attachment, "stating fully and distinctly the grounds of his defense, showing why such attachments should not have been issued, or should be removed.” Code Ann. § 8-601 and § 8-117 provide that a party at whose instance an attachment is levied must file a declaration in attachment within fifteen days after the levy, and all subsequent proceedings are governed by the same rules of procedure and practice applicable in all civil actions.
In the case at bar the writ of attachment was issued by a judge of superior court on November 6; the attachment was levied on November 7; the declaration in attachment was filed on November 13; on November 13, the judge of the superior court entered an order directing the defendant in attachment to appear and plead on December 14; and the defendant in attachment on December 13 filed responsive pleadings which were later amended to attack the constitutionality of the Georgia attachment scheme for failure to provide procedural due process of law.
Because of the foregoing statutory provisions and the procedures followed in this case, it is my view that Georgia’s statutory attachment scheme adequately provides for a post-seizure hearing. And if a post-seizure hearing will pass constitutional muster, as I think it should, Georgia’s attachment statutes are not facially unconstitutional.
I concur in the court’s denial of the appellant’s motion for rehearing.