Court Opinion

ID: 9846851
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:49:28.608711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:54.822103
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The appellants have made a motion to rehear in this case contending that the judgment appealed from dismissing the case for lack of prosecution must be set aside insofar as the language “with prejudice” is involved under the authority of Johnson v. Hooks, 156 Ga. App. 257 (274 SE2d 666) (1980) and Maolud v. Keller, 153 Ga. App. 268 (265 SE2d 86) (1980). Both these cases reversed an order of dismissal which had become final based on Spyropoulos v. John Linard Estate, 243 Ga. 518 (255 SE2d 40) (1979). Our decision is in line with Trice v. Howard, 234 Ga. 189 (214 SE2d 907) (1975) which held that the dismissal of a complaint for want of prosecution operates as an adjudication on the merits unless the order of *532dismissal specifies otherwise, and that it operates both as res judicata and as estoppel by judgment. A dissent by two justices conceded that such a dismissal operates as res judicata but does not agree that it should also operate as an estoppel by judgment, the operative issue in that case.
Spyropoulos v. John Linard Estate, 243 Ga. 518, supra, without referring to Trice, held that the trial court was not without authority to set aside a judgment entered for lack of prosecution “where the circumstances warrant such relief... A dismissal with prejudice for failure to prosecute should not be based solely on absence but on all the circumstances of the case... The trial court erred in ruling that it had no authority to set aside the dismissal.”
Thereafter, Maolud (1980) and Johnson (1980) without referring to Trice reversed orders of dismissal. We interpret Maolud as holding that the dismissal there “was solely on the ground of the defendants’ absence from trial” and the case was reversed and remanded to “exercise his discretion” in the matter, a judgment which comports with the Spyropoulos case, and also with Trice. In the Johnson case, the trial court affirmatively stated in its order that it “had no discretion to either order a new trial on the matter or to set. aside the judgment.” This was error under both Spyropoulos and Trice, the Trice holding being (p. 191) that “the dismissal of a complaint for want of prosecution ‘operates as an adjudication upon the merits’ unless the order of dismissal specifies otherwise.”
The Trice and Spyropoulos rulings were harmonized in Burns & Ledbetter, Inc. v. Primark Marking Co., 244 Ga. 341 (260 SE2d 58) (1979) at page 344 where the court, following the Trice ideology, held that where the appellants failed to show that the trial court in granting the appellee’s motion for summary judgment on a motion to set aside a default judgment based on a failure to appear on the trial date “in any way failed to take all the circumstances of the default judgment into account” the denial of the motion to set aside would be affirmed. The burden is clearly on the appellant to show that the trial judge failed to exercise his discretion in the matter. Where he fails to do so, as in Mosley v. Lankford, 244 Ga. 409 (260 SE2d 322) (1979) the refusal to set aside the dismissal for lack of prosecution is error. In Mosley the plaintiff was a minor and was entitled to representation, and it appeared from the face of the record both that no one appeared in his behalf (although his father was acting as next friend) and that the court failed to appoint a guardian ad litem in his behalf. No such circumstances occur in this case.

Judgment adhered to.