Court Opinion

ID: 9578917
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:49:36.628816+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:32.545456
License: Public Domain

Undercofler, Presiding Justice,
dissenting.
The majority construction that Code Ann. § 81A-152 (a) is mandatory conflicts with the principle announced in CTC Finance Corp. v. Holden, 221 Ga. 809 (147 SE2d 427). That case construed Georgia Laws 1959, p. 353,354 (Code Ann. § 6-1608) relating to the first grant of a new trial and which provided: ". . . that the trial judge shall state in all cases the ground or grounds upon which said new trial is granted. . .” (Emphasis supplied.) In holding that this provision is directory and not mandatory this court said: "The Constitution, Art. VI, Sec. IV, Par. VI (Constitution of 1945; Code Ann. § 2-3906) confers unqualified power upon superior and city courts, not the legislature, to grant new trials. Art. I, Sec. I, Par. XXIII, of the Constitution (Constitution of 1945; Code Ann. § 2-123) requires that legislative, judicial and executive powers shall forever remain separate and distinct, and no person discharging the duties of one, shall, at the same time, exercise the functions of either of the others, except as herein provided.’ These constitutional clauses constitute insuperable barriers to any legislative control or interference with the courts in the exercise of their powers to grant new trials. If the legislature can qualify and restrict the power of the courts as it appears to have undertaken by Ga. L. 1959, p. 353, it could add additional qualifications and restrictions to the point of nullifying the unrestricted constitutional power of the courts which the Constitution limits only to the point that the grant of a new trial be 'on legal grounds.’ While the trial court did not rule upon the constitutionality of Ga. L. 1959, p. 353, and hence we are unable to do so here, yet a decision here requires a construction of that Act, and in making that construction the rule we must follow is that if it is susceptible of two meanings, one of which would render it unconstitutional and the other would render it constitutional, we must give it the latter construction. [Cits.]
"Since, as pointed out above, if the Act be construed to be mandatory it would be legislative exercise of a purely judicial function and hence unconstitutional, but if *264it is construed to be merely directory and not mandatory, it would be constitutional, we apply the rule as stated in the foregoing decisions and construe the Act not to be mandatory but merely advisory. With this construction placed upon the Act, the judges may comply with it if they wish, but a failure to do so is not error and constitutes no grounds for reversing the judgment granting a new trial.” CTC Finance Corp. v. Holden, 221 Ga. 809, 810, supra.
Code Ann. § 8 LA-152 (a) was intended to improve the decision-making process and make the judgment more definitive. It was not intended as a prerequisite to the entry of a valid judgment. A judgment that is right should not be disturbed though the reason assigned therefor is erroneous. By the same token a judgment that is right should not be disturbed because no reason therefor is given.
The CPA was designed to promote the disposition of litigation on its merits as rapidly as possible. The interpretation of this one section by the majority of the court has an opposite effect. Under it the judgment is vacated, the case is returned to the trial court for entry of findings, for entry of a new judgment which presumably will be the same as the original judgment, and for the filing of another appeal.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Nichols joins me in this dissent.