Court Opinion

ID: 9848062
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:12:15.193778+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:59.463010
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
concurring specially.
It is certainly true, as the majority opinion observes, that OCGA § 51-4-2 vests the cause of action (as opposed to the right to participate in its proceeds) in a surviving spouse. That, however, cannot serve to oust a superior court of its general equitable powers to supervise litigation pending before it in such a manner as fairly shall protect the substantive and procedural rights of any party at interest.
It is not difficult to suppose a situation where a surviving spouse simply might refuse to initiate litigation, which would result in the bar of the statute of limitations to any participation by surviving children. Nor is it any exercise in the imagination to suggest that bad blood between step-children and step-parent might continue beyond death, so that the desires of one might be in irresolvable opposition to the interests of another.
The residuum of supervisory powers of a court of equity alone, I suggest, can provide for the protection of all parties’ rights in a difficult situation — as exemplified by this very case. I would favor a rule which would recognize the availability of equitable protection upon application to a superior court.
I am authorized to state that Justice Bell joins in this special concurrence.
*375Cheeley & Chandler, Robert D. Cheeley, James E. Butler, Jr., Albert M. Pearson III, for appellants.
Webb, Fowler & Tanner, J. Michael McGarity, Long, Weinberg, Ansley & Wheeler, Meade Burns, Swift, Currie, McGhee & Hiers, Michael H. Schroder, Loikey & Bowden, Glenn Frick, for appellees.