19 Ga. App. 495 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1917
(After stating the foregoing facts.) The court had the right, and it was its duty, under the facts in this case, to grant the order to perfect service at the term subsequent to the appearance term. As soon as it came to the plaintiff’s knowledge that service had not been perfected, it moved to have service perfected, and it should not suffer by the conduct of the sheriff, whose entry had misled the plaintiff. In Branch v. Mechanics Bank, 50 Ga. 413, 416, it was said by Judge Trippe that “five terms of the court had passed after the filing of the declaration and the return made by the sheriff of non est inventus and of the death of the president of the corporation. In the meantime no step whatever had been taken by the plaintiff. At the sixth term the motion was made to perfect service under § 3370 of the new Code [of 1873]. This, of course, involved the necessity of amending the process, or rather the issuing of a citation by the clerk as required by that section. No legal reason was shown for such long delay. In fact, none whatever has been given.” The right.to amend the process and to have service perfected was therefore denied. In the case of Brunswick Hardware Co. v. Bingham, 110 Ga. 526 (35 S. E. 772), it was held that “it is too late for the trial judge to pass an order to perfect service on the defendant after seven terms of the court have elapsed since the filing of the declaration, when no legal reason is given for the delay.” In that case there was a return by the sheriff “to the effect that the defendant corporation had no public place of business in the county, nor any office nor any officer or agent upon whom service could be perfected.” At the appearance term, when the foregoing entry of the sheriff was made, the plaintiff undertook to make an affidavit as prescribed by the code, in order to perfect service by publication. The so-called affidavit was sworn to before some one attesting it as a notary public of Wayne county, Michigan. On the filing of this affidavit the court ordered that service be perfected by publication, and thereafter judgment by default was rendered against the defendant. At a
In the instant case the plaintiff duly filed its petition, to which process,- regular in form, was attached, and caused -it to be de
Judgment affirmed.