78 S.E.2d 186 | S.C. | 1953
This appeal is from an Order of the Honorable Legare Bates, Judge of the Richland County Court, in which a report of the Master in Equity for said county was confirmed.
The facts, very briefly stated, are that plaintiff obtained a judgment against defendants on a verdict rendered on March 25, 1949, in the amount of $1,000.00 which judgment was duly entered on the records of Richland County. Thereafter,
In the view that we take of the case it is necessary only to consider one exception, that being No. 2 of the plaintiff’s exceptions to the effect that the Court erred in finding and concluding that the affidavit of service could not be supplemented for the purpose of curing the defects therein.
Section 440, Yol. 1 of the 1942 Code (now Section 10-409 of the 1952 Code), which is applicable to the controversy here, provides:
“At any time in its discretion and upon such terms as it deems just the court may allow any process or proof of service thereof to be amended, unless it clearly appears that material prejudice would result to the substantial rights of the party against whom the process issued.”
In construing the foregoing section of the Code, the Master in Equity evidently failed to consider the amendment to Section 440 of the 1932 Code which appears as the same section in the 1942 Code. This amendment was added in 1941 and is to the general effect that at any time in the discretion of the Court and oh such terms as it deems just the Court may allow any process or proof of service to be amended unless it clearly appears that material prejudice will result to the substantial rights of the party against whom the process issued.