Signet Bank/Virginia v. Tillis, A90A0668
Decision Date | 03 July 1990 |
Docket Number | No. A90A0668,A90A0668 |
Citation | 196 Ga.App. 433,396 S.E.2d 54 |
Parties | SIGNET BANK/VIRGINIA v. TILLIS. |
Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
David G. Crockett, D. Ruth Primm, Atlanta, for appellant.
Finn, Cunningham & Hurtt, R. Scott Cunningham, Dalton, for appellee.
Appellant-plaintiff, a Virginia-based bank, extended an offer to issue appellee-defendant a credit card by mailing a pre-approved application form to appellee's address in Georgia. When an acceptance of its offer bearing appellee's purported signature was mailed to and received by it in Virginia, appellant issued the credit card in appellee's name and mailed it to his Georgia address. The credit card was thereafter used in Georgia and some payments were mailed to appellant in Virginia. When payments ceased, however, appellant brought suit against appellee in Virginia and obtained a default judgment against him. Appellant then initiated this action against appellee in Georgia, seeking to domesticate the Virginia default judgment. Appellee answered and raised, among his other defenses, the Virginia court's lack of personal jurisdiction over him. Appellant subsequently moved for summary judgment, supporting its motion by pleading and proving the Virginia judgment and the Virginia Long Arm Statute under which personal jurisdiction over appellee in Virginia was ostensibly predicated. In opposition to appellant's motion, appellee submitted his affidavit wherein he swore that the signature purporting to signify the acceptance of appellant's offer to issue him a credit card was not his and that he had neither received nor used the credit card that appellant had issued in his name.
On this evidence, the trial court not only denied appellant's motion for summary judgment, but, on its own motion, also granted summary judgment in favor of appellee. The trial court based its ruling on the following: It is from this order that appellant brings the instant appeal.
Appellant urges that the trial court erred in granting, on its own motion, summary judgment in favor of appellee based upon the affidavit that appellee had filed in opposition to appellant's motion for summary judgment. See Thompson v. Hurt, 159 Ga.App. 656, 657(3), 284 S.E.2d 671 (1981). However, the trial court apparently concluded that appellee was entitled to summary judgment, not on the basis of any facts that had been set forth in appellee's affidavit, but on the basis that, as a matter of law, the Virginia court nevertheless lacked personal jurisdiction over appellee even under the factual circumstances upon which appellant was relying to establish the existence of such jurisdiction. If the Virginia court lacked personal jurisdiction over appellee even though he had accepted appellant's offer to extend him credit, then certainly no genuine issue of material fact remained and the trial court correctly granted summary judgment notwithstanding appellee's failure to have moved for summary judgment in his favor. (Emphasis supplied.) Golston v. Garigan, 245 Ga. 450, 451(1), 265 S.E.2d 590 (1980).
" Masters v. ESR Corp., 150 Ga.App. 658, 659(1), 258 S.E.2d 224 (1979). First United Bank of Miss. v. First Nat. Bank of Atlanta, 255 Ga. 505, 506-507, 340 S.E.2d 597 (1986). Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 474, 105 S.Ct. 2174, 2183, 85 L.Ed.2d 528 (1985). "[A]n individual's contract with an out-of-state party alone [cannot] automatically establish sufficient minimum contacts in the other party's home forum...." (Emphasis in original.) Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, supra at 478, 105 S.Ct. at 2185. See also Mayacamas Corp. v. Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., 190 Ga.App. 892, 893(1), 380 S.E.2d 303 (1989). "[P]rior negotiations and contemplated future consequences, along...
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