Mcginty v. Chambers, 11016.
| Decision Date | 16 April 1936 |
| Docket Number | No. 11016.,11016. |
| Citation | 182 Ga. 341,185 S.E. 513 |
| Parties | McGINTY et al. v. CHAMBERS et al. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. A journal or newspaper which has been published and mailed to a bona fide list of subscribers for a period of twenty years, and which for a like period of time has published the official and legal advertisements of the county, though such journal or newspaper he not published in the county, is the official organ of the county, and has a legal right to publish the official and legal advertisements in preference to one which has not been continuously published and mailed to a bona fide list of subscribers for a period of two years, even though such latter journal or newspaper be published in the county.
2. The trial judge erred in refusing an injunction.
Error from Superior Court, Murray County; C. C. Pittman, Judge.
Suit for injunction by J. Roy McGinty, Sr., and another against Robert E. Chambers, as clerk of the superior court, and an other. To review a judgment refusing an injunction, plaintiffs bring error.
Reversed.
Jesse M. Sellers, of Chatsworth, for plaintiffs in error.
H. H. Anderson, and W. B. Robinson, both of Chatsworth, for defendants in error.
J. Roy McGinty, Sr., and J. Roy McGinty, Jr., owner and editor respectively of the Chatsworth Times on July 3, 1935, filed their petition against Robert E. Chambers as clerk of the superior court, and B. H. Wilbanks as sheriff, to restrain them from designating the Murray Herald as the official organ of the county and from publishing the legal advertisements therein. General demurrers to the petition were overruled, and no exception was taken to that ruling. On interlocutory hearing the following facts appeared: For a period of twenty years the Chatsworth Times has publised the legal advertisements of the county at the rates allowed by law, and is ready and willing to continue to do so. Before 1930 all the work of editing and publishing the Chatsworth Times was done at Chatsworth, the county seat of Murray county, but because of economic depression the actual mechanical work of typesetting, proofreading, and printing has been done at the Calhoun plant in Gordon county, approximately twenty-eight miles from Chatsworth, and the paper is labeled to be mailed to subscribers at the Calhoun plant and brought to Chatsworth where it is mailed. The plaintiffs have contributed their time, efforts, and material means toward the upbuilding of various community interests in Chatsworth and Murray county, paying large sums in taxes, rents, insurance premiums, and salaries to those whom they have employed. On July 3, 1935, the defendants notified the plaintiffs that from and after July 10, 1935, the legal advertisements of Murray county would be published in the Murray Herald, which is published in Chatsworth, but has been published for only a few months.
The judge refused an injunction, and the plaintiffs excepted.
The Code of 1933, § 39-1101, provides that: "The sheriffs and coroners shall publish weekly, for four weeks, in some newspaper published in their counties re-spectively, --and if there be no such paper published in the county, then in the nearest newspaper having the largest or a general circulation in such county--notice of all sales, " etc. Section 39-1101. Under this section, it is the duty of such officers to publish legal advertisements in a newspaper published in the county. Braddy v. Whiteley, 113 Ga. 746(2), 39 S.E. 317; Dollar v. Wind, 135 Ga. 760, 70 S.E. 335. However, section 39-1101 must be construed in connection with section 39-1103, which declares: "No journal or newspaper published in this State shall be declared or made the official organ of any county for the publication of sheriff's sales, ordinary's citations or any other advertising commonly known and termed 'official or legal advertising' and required by law to be published in such county official...
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