Current Problems with Venue in Georgia

Georgia\u27s first constitution, the Constitution of 1777, contained a section providing that all matters in dispute between contending parties, residing in different counties, shall be tried in the county where the defendant resides, except in cases of real estate, which shall be tried in the county where such real estate lies. The practice of specifying rules of venue in the constitution thus dates from the very beginning of our state and has been repeated and expanded in subsequent constitutional revisions. The Constitution of 1798, for example, added the rule that joint obligors, residing in different counties, may be sued in the county of residence of either. The Constitution of 1861 included an explicit provision governing the place of venue for equitable actions, and with the adoption of the Constitution of 1868, all the present-day rules of venue had been fixed as part of the fundamental law of the states