111 Ga. 24 | Ga. | 1900
This ivas a suit brought in the superior court of Sumter county, by J. L. Hammett against the DeSoto Plantation Company, upon an open account. The petition of the plaintiff contained three paragraphs. In the first it was stated that the DeSoto Plantation Company was a corporation under the laws of Georgia, doing business and having its principal •office in Sumter county, Ga. The answer of defendant admitted the truth of the allegation in the first paragraph. The second paragraph charged that defendant was indebted to petitioner in the sum of $708.13 on an open account, besides interest, a copy of which was attached, marked Exhibit A. The third paragraph charged that, although said amount was long past due, defendant refused to pay the same, or any part thereof. In the second paragraph of defendant’s answer he expressly ■denied the allegations contained in paragraphs two and three •of plaintiff’s petition. Upon the call of the case for trial, it Avas, upon motion of plaintiff’s attorney, ordered by the court that the answer filed by the defendant be stricken as insufficient; to which ruling plaintiff in error excepts.
Civil Code, §5051, declares: “In all cases when the defendant desires to make a defense by plea or otherwise he shall therein distinctly answer each paragraph of plaintiff’s petition, .and shall not file a mere general denial, commonly known as the plea of ‘ general issue.’ He may in a single paragraph deny any or all of the allegations, or in a single paragraph admit any •or all of the allegations in any or all of the paragraphs of the petition.” That is exactly what the defendant did in this case. This was simply a suit upon an open account, and defendant pleaded in answer to each paragraph thereof. The first paragraph is admitted. It charges no liability whatever on the defendant. The second and third paragraphs simply charge liability upon defendant on an open account, and it, in the second paragraph of its answer, simply'denies the truth of these allegations. Its denial would not have been more specific and more definite in reply to plaintiff’s charges, if it had undertaken to have gone further into detail, and explained why it
In the case of Smith v. Holbrook, 99 Ga. 256, cited and relied upon by counsel for defendant in error, it was decided that a plea simply of the general issue does not in law amount to a denial of averments distinctly and plainly made in plaintiff’s petition, and all such averments not otherwise denied are to be taken as prima facie true. It was accordingly held in that case that where the action was upon an open account, with appropriate allegations, a plea of the nature above indicated raised no issue as to the correctness of the amount of the account sued upon. We have examined the record in that case, and the pe
Judgment reversed.