Court Opinion

ID: 9865659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 19:19:31.899812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:46:52.407914
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
The gist of the motion for rehearing is based on the principle that this court did not properly construe, or misapplied, the decision of the Supreme Court to the effect that in a situation as appears in the instant case the husband or wife is not to be included as “one of the nearest adult relatives to be served with notice” under the Code, § 49-604. We must confess that prior to the decision of the Supreme Court in Phillips v. Phillips, to the effect that the provision of the law set forth in that section, does not limit the nearest relative referred to to relationship by blood, but that the husband and wife are the closest relationship that people can assume, was the writer’s opinion along with counsel for movant. We had based our view of the law on Wetter v. Walker, 62 Ga. 142, and 53 C. J. p. 1188, which counsel for movant say we did not mention. We wrote the decision in the instant case in conformity with what we interpreted to be *181the ruling of the Supreme Court in the Phillips case. The Wetter case was not on all fours with the instant case. We do not mean to offer any criticism of the Supreme Court decision, but before it was rendered we felt bound to the view now urged by counsel for the movant. But since the decisión of the Supreme Court in the Phillips case, we feel that the construction of the Code section is correct and that the husband or wife should be served as one of the nearest relatives if accessible to notice and in a position to protect the public, and to look after the interest of the alleged lunatic, is the better view. This is true regardless of the view or procedure which has heretofore been followed by the bar and the trial bench in such cases. And we have no divergent views or opinion contrary to the decision of the Supreme Court in the Phillips case.

Rehearing denied.

MacIntyre, P. J., and Townsend, J., concur.