Winslett v. Guthrie

755 S.E.2d 287, 326 Ga. App. 747, 2014 Fulton County D. Rep. 590, 2014 WL 961126, 2014 Ga. App. LEXIS 144
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedMarch 13, 2014
DocketA13A1891
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 755 S.E.2d 287 (Winslett v. Guthrie) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Winslett v. Guthrie, 755 S.E.2d 287, 326 Ga. App. 747, 2014 Fulton County D. Rep. 590, 2014 WL 961126, 2014 Ga. App. LEXIS 144 (Ga. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

McFadden, Judge.

This discretionary appeal concerns Bonnie Winslett’s attempt to have a default judgment against her either set aside or vacated after the end of the term of court in which the trial court entered the judgment. There is no dispute that the plaintiff, Terry Guthrie, served Winslett with the complaint or that Winslett failed to file any defensive pleadings before the default judgment was entered. Winslett, however, argues that the default judgment is fundamentally unfair and must be set aside or vacated for two main reasons — because she was mentally incompetent and because she was not notified of the entry of the default judgment. But as detailed below, the trial court found that Winslett was not mentally incompetent, and there was evidence to support that finding. And Winslett’s various arguments pertaining to her failure to receive notice do not demonstrate a ground for either setting aside or vacating a judgment outside the term of court in which it was entered. Accordingly, we affirm.

1. Facts and procedural history.

On February 26, 2012, Winslett and Guthrie were involved in a vehicular collision in which Winslett was driving a car she did not own and Guthrie was riding a bicycle. In May 2012, Guthrie filed a personal injury action against Winslett in the Superior Court of Muscogee County and served the complaint on her. Winslett did not answer or otherwise respond to the complaint. On Wednesday, August 1, 2012, the trial court entered a default judgment of $2,916,204 against Winslett. In the judgment, the trial court ordered Guthrie to provide Winslett a copy of the order entering the judgment by certified mail. A new term of court began the following Monday. See OCGA § 15-6-3 (8) (D) (regarding terms of court for Superior Court of Muscogee County).

Guthrie did not provide Winslett with a copy of the default judgment. He represents this was because he could not locate her. Instead, on August 8, 2012, he sent a copy of the judgment to the insurance carrier that had issued coverage on the car Winslett had been driving. An attorney provided by the insurance carrier to represent Winslett located her on September 20,2012. On September 28, 2012, through that attorney, she moved to set aside or vacate the default judgment, arguing among other things that she was mentally incompetent and had not received notice of the judgment.

At a hearing on Winslett’s motion, the parties presented conflicting evidence concerning her mental competence. The trial court subsequently denied the motion.

[748]*7482. Winslett’s mental competence.

Winslett argues that the trial court should have set aside the default judgment because she was mentally incompetent when she was served with the complaint and when the judgment was entered against her, rendering that judgment voidable. See Keith v. Byram, 225 Ga. 678, 679 (1) (171 SE2d 120) (1969) (a “judgment rendered against an insane person who has no legal guardian and for whom no guardian ad litem has been appointed for the purpose of appearing for him in that proceeding is voidable, even in a case where the insane person was represented by counsel”) (citation omitted); Chapman v. Burks, 183 Ga. App. 103, 104 (1) (357 SE2d 832) (1987) (explaining that the term “insane person” and the term “mentally incompetent person” mean the same thing). The trial court instead found that Winslett was not mentally incompetent. Because the trial court acted as factfinder in making this determination, we will not disturb its findings on appellate review if they are supported by any evidence. See Savannah Cemetery Group v. DePue-Wilbert Vault Co., 307 Ga. App. 206-207 (1) (704 SE2d 858) (2010).

The parties have not pointed to any authority on how to determine if a person is mentally incompetent for the purpose of rendering a judgment voidable. But in another civil context, we have defined mental incompetence as

whether the individual, being of unsound mind, could not manage the ordinary affairs of his life. It means an individual lacking in the capacity to manage his own affairs---[E] vidence that he was without sufficient mental capacity to perform or understand his conduct during the relevant period would meet the test.

Chapman, 183 Ga. App. at 105 (1) (citations and punctuation omitted).

Applying this definition, we find evidence supporting the trial court’s finding that Winslett was not mentally incompetent. Although Winslett had a lifelong history of significant mental illness, she had never been adjudicated or declared mentally incompetent. Two attorneys who had represented her in guilty pleas to criminal charges in 2011 and 2012 testified that, as a general matter, they would not advise a client to proceed with a guilty plea if she had appeared mentally incompetent to them. The law enforcement officer who served Winslett with the complaint in this case testified that she did not appear to him to be mentally incapacitated. A corrections officer who had interacted with Winslett in jail during a period of time [749]*749ending in early 2012 testified that Winslett asked cogent questions about her criminal case, her sentence, and her monetary account at the jail.

Finally, a psychiatrist testified that Winslett displayed borderline intellectual functioning in her video-recorded deposition, which the psychiatrist watched. He explained that persons with such functioning “are usually responsible for themselves, they have jobs, they marry, they don’t have guardians.” He testified that he “[didn’t] see anything that indicates that [Winslett] is functionally and mentally a minor child,” and he disputed portions of the affidavit of a psychiatrist who had treated Winslett sporadically over the years and who had averred that she was not capable of managing her affairs or understanding the need to respond to the lawsuit. Winslett argues that the trial court “erred in denying [her] Daubert challenge,” in which she argued that the psychiatrist’s testimony was inadmissible because his review of her video-recorded deposition provided an insufficient foundation for his opinion. See Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U. S. 579, 592-593 (C) (113 SCt 2786, 125 LE2d 469) (1993) (describing trial court’s role in ensuring that expert evidence heard by factfinder meets certain threshold requirements). The admissibility of the psychiatrist’s testimony rested “in the broad discretion of the court, and consequently, the .trial court’s ruling thereon cannot be reversed absent an abuse of discretion.” Agri-Cycle LLC v. Couch, 284 Ga. 90, 93 (5) (663 SE2d 175) (2008) (citation and punctuation omitted). “Our review of the record shows no abuse of discretion in this case, particularly since the trial court, as the trier of fact in the [hearing], was free to accept the parts of [the psychiatrist’s] testimony that were credible and useful and to reject the rest.” Walls v. Walls, 291 Ga. 757, 758-759 (3) (732 SE2d 407) (2012) (citation omitted).

It was for the trial court as factfinder to assess the credibility of the conflicting evidence on Winslett’s mental competency. Savannah Cemetery Group, 307 Ga. App. at 206-207 (1). We find no error in the trial court’s determination that she was mentally competent.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

In Re Estate of Michael Todd Madlem
Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2025
Geico Indemnity Company v. Whiteside
Supreme Court of Georgia, 2021
Fife M. Whiteside v. GEICO Indemnity Company
977 F.3d 1014 (Eleventh Circuit, 2020)
CENTRAL MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY v. KICKLIGHTER Et Al.
794 S.E.2d 258 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2016)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
755 S.E.2d 287, 326 Ga. App. 747, 2014 Fulton County D. Rep. 590, 2014 WL 961126, 2014 Ga. App. LEXIS 144, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/winslett-v-guthrie-gactapp-2014.