Bank Of Dearing v. Howard, 21677.

• Decision Date: 09 February 1932
• Docket Number: No. 21677.,21677.
• Citation: 162 S.E. 644,44 Ga.App. 663
• Parties: BANK OF DEARING. v. HOWARD et al.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

44 Ga.App. 663

162 S.E. 644

BANK OF DEARING.

v.HOWARD et al.

No. 21677.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 2.

Feb. 9, 1932.

Error from Superior Court, McDuffie County; C. J. Ferryman, Judge.

Proceedings between the Bank of Dearing and F. J. Howard and others. Appeal by the Bank of Dearing to a jury in the justice's court was dismissed, and certiorari to the superior court was overruled, and the bank brings error.

Judgment of the superior court affirmed.

Randall Evans, Jr., of Thomson, for plaintiff in error.

B. J. Stevens, of Thomson, for defendants in error.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court.

JENKINS, P. J.

"The person who swears to an affidavit must do so in his own name, and not in the name of another." Accordingly, on an appeal to a jury in a justice's court, where the pauper's affidavit, as entered in the body of the affidavit, was by the "Bank of Dear-ing, " and was signed "Bank of Dearing by [a named person describing himself as] Liquidating Agent of the Bank of Dearing, and in charge of the affairs of said Bank of Dearing, " the affidavit did not show that any individual swore to the truth of the allegations necessary to furnish a basis for the proceeding. Clark v. Smith, 142 Ga. 200 (3, 3(a), 82 S. E. 503. While it is true that the signature of the bank to the affidavit discloses the name of the agent by whom the bank's name was signed, the signature as thus entered amounted to nothing more than the signature of the bank itself. Where the bank itself could not take an oath, and the agent himself did not purport to do so, but only purported by his own signature to indicate how and in what manner the bank itself sought to affix its signature, there was no personal signature such as would subject the signer to punishment for the offense of false swearing if the averments as made had been proved untrue. The ease differs from that of Bennett & Co. v. Gray, 82 Ga. 502 (2), 9 S. E. 469, where a partnership name was signed to the affidavit by one signing as a member thereof, but where the affidavit itself specifically stated that the individual signing the affidavit personally made the affidavit as the duly authorized agent of such firm. A corporation cannot swear. Coffee v. McCaskey Register Co., 7 Ga. App. 425, 429, 66 S. E. 1032. In this respect, as in other respects, it acts only through its agents, but the agent himself must swear for the corporation: and, where the affidavit itself purports to be made by the corporation, and the agent's name...