Ga. Code § 9-12-42 : CIVIL PRACTICE — VERDICT AND JUDGMENT — EFFECT OF JUDGMENTS —12-42 - Judgment no bar absent decision on merits

Where the merits were not and could not have been in question, a former recovery on purely technical grounds shall not be a bar to a subsequent action brought so as to avoid the objection fatal to the first. For a former judgment to be a bar to subsequent action, the merits of the case must have been adjudicated.