Court Opinion

ID: 9580973
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:10:45.709054+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:38.116932
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur in the judgment and in the analysis advanced but must point out two things which otherwise might be misunderstood. The reason the allegation that tenant occupies “at will or sufferance” is not fatally defective is because it does not constitute an allegation of more than one ground in the alternative. As stated clearly in Brinson v. Ingram, 120 Ga. App. 271, 272 (2) (170 SE2d 39) (1969): “An affidavit seeking a dispossessory warrant must allege at least one of its grounds positively.” The ground is that the defendant had no legal status vis-a-vis the premises entitling him to possession. Whether his status was that of a tenant at will or at sufferance, plaintiff alleged, he had no right to remain. As I see it, that is only one ground. The Code supports this construction by setting our certain grounds for dispossessory and states that one of them is “where lands or tenements are held and occupied by any tenant at will or sufferance.....” OCGA § 44-7-50.
Second, the pleading in Brinson v. Ingram, supra, did not contain the “and/or” language but rather alleged more than one ground in the alternative, by the use of “or.” The court held that to be defective because it did not state at least one ground positively. The court then went on to point out that another instance of defect would be where the pleading joined the grounds with “and/or.” The case which disapproves that is Ralls v. E. R. Taylor Auto Co., 202 Ga. 107 (42 SE2d 446) (1947).