Adderholt v. Adderholt

242 S.E.2d 11, 240 Ga. 626, 1978 Ga. LEXIS 742
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedJanuary 5, 1978
Docket32961
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 242 S.E.2d 11 (Adderholt v. Adderholt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Adderholt v. Adderholt, 242 S.E.2d 11, 240 Ga. 626, 1978 Ga. LEXIS 742 (Ga. 1978).

Opinions

Hill, Justice.

The wife appeals from the divorce decree and alimony award urging thirty-two enumerations of error.

On April 15, 1975, the wife filed suit for divorce alleging cruel treatment and seeking alimony. The husband answered on May 19 denying that his wife was entitled to divorce or alimony but asking that he be granted a divorce if one were granted to her.

Twenty months later, on January 6, 1977, the [627]*627husband filed, without leave of court, an amendment adding a counterclaim for divorce on the ground that the marriage was irretrievably broken. The following day he moved for judgment on the pleadings and the court issued a rule nisi setting the motion for hearing on February 8. At that hearing the wife opposed the grant of a divorce on the pleadings but the court granted the divorce and reserved the other issues for trial.

Attached to the wife’s original complaint were interrogatories. The husband’s answers to those interrogatories referred to several tracts of land including three owned jointly by the parties, the residence in Hall County valued at $100,000, 55 acres in Union County valued at $55,000 and 31 acres in Franklin County valued at $10,000. Also, in providing financial data required by standing order of court, the husband listed these three tracts as being jointly owned by the parties and referred to the wife’s interests in them as being among her assets. In referring to his monthly expenses the husband noted as to two of these tracts that his monthly mortgage payments increased the wife’s equity. In arguing on temporary alimony, the husband pointed to the benefit to the wife from these monthly payments.

On April 1,1977, the husband filed, without leave of court, a counterclaim asserting that he had paid for these three tracts out of his own funds, that he had exercised control over them, that he had not given any interest in them to his wife, that he alone was the rightful owner of them, and that his wife’s one-half interest in them should be divested. On April 15, the wife moved for continuance of the alimony trial set for May 9, which motion, along with an oral motion (later reduced to writing) to strike the latest counterclaim for lack of leave of court, was overruled on April 20. After the motion to strike the second counterclaim was reduced to writing, the court entered an order: "The foregoing motion having been presented orally by Plaintiff after denial of Plaintiffs motion for continuance and said motion having been considered by the Court at pre-trial conference on April 20, 1977, at which counsel for Plaintiff and Defendant were present, and the Court having granted Plaintiff leave to file said motion in writing in order to perfect the [628]*628record without the necessity for notice or further hearing on said motion, upon consideration of said motion without evidence and after having heard argument of counsel thereon, said motion is hereby overruled and denied.” (Emphasis supplied.)

1. Code Ann. § 81A-113 (f) provides: "When a pleader fails to set up a counterclaim through oversight, inadvertence, or excusable neglect, or when justice requires, he may by leave of court set up the counterclaim by amendment.”

In this case the denial of the motion to strike the second counterclaim was the equivalent of an order allowing the filing of that counterclaim. The denial of the motion to strike without evidence therefore was the equivalent of allowing the late counterclaim without evidence.

In what has become the leading Georgia case on this subject, Blount v. Kicklighter, 125 Ga. App. 159 (4) (186 SE2d 543) (1971), Judge Eberhardt held: "Before a delayed filing of a counterclaim is allowed, the court should require the submission of evidence and make a finding therefrom as to whether the delay was occasioned by oversight, inadvertence or excusable neglect. A finding of oversight or of inadvertence is unsupported if it appears from the pleadings or the facts that the defendant or his counsel had knowledge of the existence of the claim when the defensive pleadings were prepared and filed in the first instance. 'It is true that as a general rule leave to amend (and set up a counterclaim) shall be given freely, but this does not dispense with the necessity of showing that justice so requires.’ ”

It was error for the court to allow the husband’s late counterclaim in this divorce case (seeking to divest the wife of title to land) without evidence and without requiring the defendant husband to make the showing required of him by Code Ann. § 81A-113 (f).

On the other hand, whether the husband’s counterclaim seeking a no-fault divorce be considered a matter so inherently involved in the wife’s prayer for divorce as to make a counterclaim unnecessary (see Code §§ 30-106, 30-113; see also Jolley v. Jolley, 216 Ga. 51 (114 SE2d 534) (1960)), or as counterclaim maturing after [629]*629answer (see Code § 81A-113 (e)), it was not error to allow the husband’s counterclaim seeking divorce.

It was not error to grant divorce on motion for judgment on the pleadings (Dickson v. Dickson, 238 Ga. 672 (235 SE2d 479) (1977)), and it was not error to deny the motion for continuance. Leathers v. Leathers, 132 Ga. 211 (1) (63 SE 1118) (1909); Williford v. Williford, 230 Ga. 543, 544 (198 SE2d 181) (1973).

2. The wife’s motion for a directed verdict in her favor on the husband’s second counterclaim, for divestiture of her interest in jointly owned property, was denied. The jury awarded the wife’s half interest in the property to the husband and the wife enumerates as error the overruling of her motion for directed vefdict. See Code Ann. § 6-702 (b).

The wife urges that there was no evidence of an agreement or understanding between her husband and herself that the half interests in her name were to be held in trust for her husband. The wife testified that there was no such agreement.

In Scales v. Scales, 235 Ga. 509, 510 (220 SE2d 267) (1975), this court ruled: "Code § 108-116 provides: 'As between husband and wife, parent and child, and brothers and sisters, payment of purchase money by one, and causing the conveyance to be made to the other, shall be presumed to be a gift; but a resulting trust in favor of the one paying the money may be shown and the presumption rebutted.’ To rebut the presumption of a gift, the appellee must show that a resulting trust was contemplated by both parties by way of an understanding or agreement. Williams v. Thomas, 200 Ga. 767 (38 SE2d 603) (1946); Jackson v. Jackson, 150 Ga. 544, 554 (104 SE 236) (1920); Kimbrough v. Kimbrough, 99 Ga. 134 (25 SE 176) (1896); Vickers v. Vickers, 133 Ga. 383 (65 SE 885, 24 LRA (NS) 1043) (1909). 'This understanding or agreement, either express or shown by the nature of the transaction, the circumstances or the conduct of the parties, must have existed at the time the transaction was consummated. See Williams v. Thomas . . . Because the appellees offered no evidence as to any such understanding or agreement existing at the time the conveyance was made, the presumption of gift stands unrebutted.’ Whitworth v. [630]*630Whitworth, 233 Ga. 53, 57 (210 SE2d 9) (1974).”

The husband relies upon Ashbaugh v. Ashbaugh, 222 Ga.

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Adderholt v. Adderholt
242 S.E.2d 11 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1978)

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Bluebook (online)
242 S.E.2d 11, 240 Ga. 626, 1978 Ga. LEXIS 742, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/adderholt-v-adderholt-ga-1978.