Opinion
37201.
DECIDED JULY 3, 1958.
Garnishment. Fulton Civil Court. Before Judge Parker. April 10, 1958.
James A. Bagwell, for plaintiff in error.
William H. Whaley, contra.
1. The failure to traverse the answer of a garnishee, who answered a first summons of garnishment that he was not indebted to the debtor of the plaintiff and had no property of the defendant in his custody or possession, and the rendition of a judgment that the garnishee is discharged from said summons, bars any further attempt to investigate the state of the relations between the garnishee and the plaintiff's debtor prior to the time when the answer was made to such summons.
2. The ruling of the trial court in granting a new trial is not the law of the case that the converse of the proposition stated in headnote one was true as a matter of law under the facts of the case as they then stood, especially where it did not appear on the first trial that the garnishee had obtained a discharge from the first summons.
DECIDED JULY 3, 1958.
Peaslee-Gaulbert Corporation instituted garnishment proceedings against Alton B. Okarma based on a judgment it had obtained against Clifford R. Morgan on September 25, 1956, in the Civil Court of Fulton County. On November 6, 1956, Okarma filed his answer to the garnishment summons answering "not indebted." This answer was not traversed. A second summons of garnishment was filed by said corporation on November 7, 1956, and Okarma filed his answer to the second summons on December 3, 1956, again answering "not indebted." To the answer of Okarma filed December 3, 1956, the plaintiff corporation filed its traverse and on June 12, 1957, the issue formed by the traverse to Okarma's two answers came on for a hearing before the Honorable A. L. Henson, sitting without a jury. On June 12, 1957, Judge Henson entered an order finding against the traverse of the plaintiff. The plaintiff made a motion for a new trial which the said judge granted on the ground that the issues should not have been restricted to the period of time from the service of the first summons of garnishment to the time of the answer to the second summons. After the grant of the new trial and on November 1, 1957, the Honorable E. A. Wright, another Judge of the Civil Court of Fulton County, passed an order granting a discharge to Okarma as to his first answer filed in the Civil Court on November 5, 1956, which order recited that there was no traverse to the answer to the first summons. Thereafter on February 4, 1958, the case came on for trial before the Honorable J. Wilson Parker, Chief Judge of the Civil Court of Fulton County, sitting without a jury. The evidence on this trial showed that the garnishee Okarma had been discharged on his answer to the first summons of garnishment and the court restricted the evidence to the question whether the garnishee was indebted to the defendant from the time of the service of the second garnishment to the time of the garnishee's answer to the second summons and entered a judgment in favor of the garnishee Okarma and discharged him from liability on the second summons. The plaintiff in execution in this appeal excepts to the order overruling its amended motion for a new trial and its motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
The court neither erred in denying the motion for a new trial nor in denying the motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
1. When a garnishee files his sworn answer denying indebtedness and the same is not traversed, the garnishee is entitled to be discharged, and a judgment of discharge is an adjudication as to indebtedness or custody of property up to the time of the filing of the untraversed answer in garnishment. Knight v. Herring McGhee, 161 Ga. 58 ( 129 S.E. 526).
2. The plaintiff in error contends that the judgment of Judge Henson granting a new trial is the law of this case. This would be true if the facts on the first trial had been the same as they were on the second trial, but they were not. On the second trial the evidence showed that the garnishee had been discharged as to his liability under the first summons and the principle stated in Knight v. Herring McGehee, supra, enters into the case and controls the issue here involved. The ruling on a first trial is not binding on a second trial where there has been a change in the case by a substantial change in either the evidence ( Jackson v. Jackson, 209 Ga. 85, 70 S.E.2d 592), the pleadings ( Interstate Life c. Ins. Co. v. Hulsey, 82 Ga. App. 559, 61 S.E.2d 783), or both ( Callaway v. Armour, 208 Ga. 136, 65 S.E.2d 585). Generally, see Adair-Levert, Inc. v. Atlanta Envelope Co., 70 Ga. App. 685 ( 29 S.E.2d 323); Aiken v. Smith, 68 Ga. App. 538 ( 23 S.E.2d 584); Singer Sewing Machine Co. v. Southern Grocery Co., 2 Ga. App. 545 ( 59 S.E. 473).
The court did not err in confining the evidence to the question of indebtedness between the time of the service of the second garnishment and the answer thereto and in rendering judgment in favor of the garnishee, and did not err in either of the other rulings complained of.
Judgments affirmed. Quillian and Nichols, JJ., concur.