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57 Ga. 63

Killen v. Compton

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided July 15, 1876

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1876-07-15

<p>A motion by defendant to dismiss the action because the matter of the declaration has been adjudicated in a former suit between the same parties, is not available unless the former adjudication appears on the face of the declaration. A defense which is appropriate alone to a plea cannot be presented by a mere motion.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1876-07-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently December 1964

5 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Bleckley, Judge.

¶1We have never read or heard of a motion likathis. Former recovery is matter for plea in bar, or, under the Code, in abatement: Code, section 3476. Doubtless, if it appeared on the face of the declaration, it might be taken by demurrer, or, since the Code, by motion: section 3459. But here there is no trace of it in the plaintiff’s pleadings. It is brought forward by the defendant; and he presents it, not by plea of any kind, but by way of written motion to dismiss the action at the appearance term. His counsel cites as authority Kimbro & Morgan vs. Virginia and Tennessee Air Line Railway, 56 Georgia Reports, 185, but certainly that case gives no hint that the vehicle of defense may be motion, or anything but plea.

¶2We have no occasion now to rule whether, in ejectment, dismissal of a first action, by the court, for defects in the declaration, and non-suit in a second, awarded on demurrer to the plaintiff’s evidence, are sufficient to abate or tobara third action for the same cause. These are the matters set up in the motion. If they were presented by plea they might or *64might not be good: Code, sections, 3362, 3063, 2897, 3577, 3826, 2932. On demurrer to evidence, see 42 Georgia Reports, 53; 15 Ibid., 492; 13 Ibid., 334; 12 Ibid., 424.

¶3Judgment affirmed.

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