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Deberry v. Johnson

Summary judgment is not the appropriate procedural vehicle to address pleas of abatement.

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Patricia Ann Deberry appeals the trial court’s order granting summary judgment in favor of Georgia Ann Johnson in Deberry’s personal injury action. For the following reasons, we vacate the order and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

In 2012, Deberry filed the present renewal action against Georgia Ann Johnson for injuries she sustained in a car crash. Deberry hired a private process server, who served Terry Johnson at an address in Hahira, Georgia. Terry Johnson stated that Georgia Ann Johnson lived at that address, but that she was not present at the time of service. He accepted the papers on her behalf and agreed to deliver them to her. Johnson filed a timely answer, but argued that she did not live at the Hahira address; she raised the defenses of, inter alia, insufficiency of process, insufficiency of service, and statute of limitation. Johnson then filed a motion for summary judgment, claiming that the action was barred by the statute of limitation and that the complaint should be dismissed for insufficiency of process and insufficiency of service of process. In support of her response brief to Johnson’s summary judgment motion, Deberry filed two affidavits of the special process server.

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