128 Ga. 669 | Ga. | 1907
(After stating the facts.) The act establishing the Supreme Court of Georgia divided the State into five supreme judicial districts; and a term of court was held twice in each year in every district. The court sat at two places in each district, except the fifth, where all of its sessions were held at the seat of the government in the City of Milledgeville. In order to carry a ease to the Supreme Court it was necessary for the losing party to tender the bill of exceptions to the judge within four days after the trial. When the bill of exceptions was tendered, if true, the judge was required to certify the same. Within ten days thereafter notice was required to be served upon the opposite party or his counsel, and when such bill of exceptions and evidence of service were filed in the office of the clerk of the trial court, it was the duty of that officer to certify and send up to the Supreme Court a complete transcript of the entire record in the case within ten days after he received the original notice with a return of service thereon. Cobb’s Dig. 451; 1 Oa. VIII, IX. Provision was made by the rules of the court for writs of error, citation, assignments of error on the bill of exceptions, etc. Eule XIX et seq., 1 Oa. XVI et seq. The rules of court provided, “All cases returned to this court shall be entered on” the bench docket and numbered, on or before the court meets on the first day of the term to which they are respectively returned, and the cases first received by the clerk shall be first entered.” Eule VII, 1 Oa. XIV. It will be noted that it was by a rule of the court and not by statute that the Supreme Court first determined when the docket should be closed for the entry of cases for the term. The docket was closed on the first day of the term, and records and bills of exceptions thereafter received were docketed to the next term of the court. In 1855 an act was passed requiring the clerk of the Supreme Court to arrange the eases on the docket by circuits, and to give notice, by publication in a newspaper at the place where the court was to be held, of the order in which the circuits were arranged; it being also in this act provided that if a case reached the office of the clerk in time to be entered upon the docket before all the cases from that circuit were heard, the same should be construed as being docketed in
It appears from the foregoing history of the practice in this court that at its origin it fixed, by rule, the time that the docket should be made up and closed for the term. The General Assembly thereafter saw fit to regulate the matter by-providing that certain eases should be treated as of the term, although not within the operation of this rule; that is, cases arriving after the first day of the term but before arguments on the circuit to which they belonged had been finished. The General Assembly recognized, even by the passage of this act, that there must be some way to fix the business of the term and ascertain the time when the docketing of eases should stop. The original rule provided that the docketing of eases should stop 'on the first day of the term. The General Assembly, recognizing that there must be some rule in reference to this matter, simply provided that cases reaching the court during the term might be added to the docket of that term, provided arguments on the circuit had not been concluded when the bill of exceptions and record were filed in the clerk’s office. The act of 1870, in reference to applications for injunction, brought into existence a class of eases before unknown to the practice of the
Let us for a moment consider what would be the consequences if this power did not exist and were'not exercised. The court
We recognize the importance of the case involved in this ruling. We also recognize the importance of all the other cases. We do not know what is in these other records. But every case which