Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Griffith

36 S.E. 859, 111 Ga. 551, 1900 Ga. LEXIS 677
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedAugust 7, 1900
StatusPublished
Cited by73 cases

This text of 36 S.E. 859 (Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Griffith) 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
Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Griffith, 36 S.E. 859, 111 Ga. 551, 1900 Ga. LEXIS 677 (Ga. 1900).

Opinion

Fish, J.

When this case came on to be heard at the October term of this court, counsel for Mrs. Griffith presented a motion to dismiss the writ of error, on the ground that the Augusta Railway and Electric Company was a necessary party thereto, but had not been named as such in the bill of exceptions. Thereupon counsel for the Telegraph Company, without conceding that the Railway Company was (an indispensable party, asked leave to amend the bill of exceptions “from the record in the casé,” agreeably to the provisions of the Civil Code, § 5570, by inserting the name of the latter company as a coplaiutiff in error. After argument had as to the right of the Telegraph Company to make the proposed amendment, we granted it permission so to do, and overruled the motion to dismiss. This was, as we shall undertake now to show, in accord with a rule of practice which has been uniformly adhered to and consistently applied during a period of more than half a century.

1. Under the procedure which obtained both in England and in this country at the time the Supreme Court of this State was organized, all persons affected by the judgment of a trial court, including securities upon an appeal bond even though they might not be formal parties to the record, were indispensable [553]*553parties to a writ of error sued out to review the judgment; and it was accordingly held by this court that a strict compliance with this rule of practice was imperative. Dill v. Jones, 2 Ga. 79; Morris v. Wiley, Ibid. 287. In discussing the necessity and reasonableness of such a requirement, Judge Lumpkin, who delivered the opinion filed in the latter case, pointed out what provision was made for cases in which one only of several parties on the losing side might wish to except, saying, in this connection (page 289): “One of several parties [can not] be subjected to the hardship and loss of being deprived of his writ of error because the others refuse to join in it; one may sue out a writ of error in the name of all, and if the others refuse to join in the prosecution, they may be brought before this court and severed at their own request, after which he or they who sued out the writ of error may go on alone. In this manner all inconvenience may be avoided, justice administered, and the harmony and conformity of the record preserved.” The right to amend the bill of exceptions by the record, and thus bring before the court necessary plaintiffs not joined in the first instance, was recognized both in the case of Long v. Strickland, 2 Ga. 348, and in that of Carey v. Rice, Ibid. 408. Such an. amendment was alloived in Beall v. Fox, 4 Ga. 403, it appearing from the record in that case that the parties plaintiff thus sought to be introduced were codefendants with the plaintiff in error in the court below.

Then came the practice act of 1847, which wrought no change in the rules of procedure save to provide that thereafter it should not be necessary to join in the writ of error securities on appeal or upon injunction bonds, but that such persons only as were formal parties to the pleadings iri the lower court should be considered indispensable parties to a writ of error sued out to review a judgment therein rendered. See Carey v. Giles, 10 Ga. 8, wherein this statute was cited and construed. The court in that case declared it necessary not only to include in the writ of error all essential parties thereto, but to observe the equally important requirement that they be therein joined “in the order in which they stand in the record below.” As explanatory of what was meant by the phrase just quoted, and as affording an illustration of how this requirement could and should be met, [554]*554it was said (p. 2): “When, therefore, one of two or more defendants against whom a decree has been rendered brings a writ of error to reverse it, it is necessary for him to join his codefendants as plaintiffs in error, and upon the trial they may unite with him and assign error against the decree, or they may sever and be heard in defense of the decree. And if such plaintiff in error has failed to make his codefendants parties plaintiff to the writ of error, they may be added by motion, without delay or cost, with the same privilege of assigning errors or severing.” Commenting upon the act of 1850, which declared that writs of error could be amended in conformity with the record, without delay or cost and as a matter of right, Judge Nisbet remarked (pp. 8-9): “It is useless to talk about the mockery of adding parties here, on motion, without giving them notice to appear. . . So far as these parties are concerned, they have . . very little cause of complaint. The plaintiff in error now before the court could have used their names and brought them here as parties plaintiff without their consent and without notice. They are now being made parties upon motion, in a condition very little worse than they would have been in had the plaintiff taken that course. In neither case has the law provided for notice to them, and in both cases they are presumed to know what are the public laws; to know that under the law's they are liable thus to be made parties; and in both cases their rights are the same; that is, they can assign errors with the primary plaintiff and co-operate with him in procuring the reversal of the judgment below, or they can sever and be heard in support of the judgment. It is their privilege to elect.” See, also, what was said upon the same line by Bleckley, J., in McNulty v. Pruden, 62 Ga. 138. In the course of his discussion he observed that if the case “had been brought up by the complainant below', and not by some of the defendants, other rules w'ould apply,” for there was a vast difference between introducing proper plaintiffs in error, who were not.entitled to notice, and attempting to add by amendment necessary defendants in error who had not been made parties to or served with the bill of exceptions agreeably to statutoiy provisions which were imperative. For instances where this distinction was drawn and the writ of error was dismissed for w’ant of proper parties defendant in this [555]*555court, see Barksdale v. Bunkley, 26 Ga. 398; Carey v. Hitch, 57 Ga. 197; Bird v. Harris, 63 Ga. 433; Jordan v. Kelly, Ibid. 437; Brown v. Wylie, 64 Ga. 435; Maynard v. Hunnewell, 65 Ga. 281; Jowers v. Baker, Ibid. 611; Haines v. Clary, 66 Ga. 519; and Price v. Lathrop, Ibid. 247. In the ease last cited, it appeared that an assignee in bankruptcy, who was a necessary party defendant in-error, had not been named as such in the bill of exceptions. With a view to meeting a motion to dismiss the writ of error, the plaintiffs offered to amend by making him a co-party with them, but the court refused to allow this to be done, holding: “Such assignee cannot be made a party plaintiff in error with complainants by an amendment to the bill of exceptions instan ter, because he was not on the same side of the litigation in the court below, as was the case in 62 Ga. 135, and 10 Ib. 1. His interest as well as his position in the court below show him to have been antagonistic to the case made by complainants, and therefore he can not be made a party on the same side of the litigation in this court.”

In the year following that in which this decision was rendered, the General Assembly passed what we may term the “saving act.” Acts of 1880-81, p. 123.

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Bluebook (online)
36 S.E. 859, 111 Ga. 551, 1900 Ga. LEXIS 677, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/western-union-telegraph-co-v-griffith-ga-1900.