Justia Georgia Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Gary and Lori Steagald sued David, Cheryl, and Joshua Eason, alleging that the Easons failed to keep Joshua’s dog properly restrained, and asserting that the Easons, therefore, were liable for injuries that Lori sustained when the dog attacked her as she was visiting the Eason home.The Easons filed a motion for summary judgment, contending that the Steagalds had no evidence that the Easons had reason to know the dog to be vicious or dangerous and, therefore, in need of restraint. The trial court granted that motion, the Steagalds appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed. After review, the Supreme Court reversed, finding that whether the Easons had knowledge that the dog had a propensity to bite another without provocation was a question for the jury, and summary judgment was the inappropriate resolution of this case. The Court of Appeals was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "Steagald v. Eason" on Justia Law

In January 2015, Janice Eversole filed a divorce action against Jay Eversole seeking, among other things, an award of alimony, child custody, and child support. Wife alleged Husband had left the marital home in Georgia less than six months prior to the filing of the complaint and was living at a stated address in South Carolina. With respect to personal jurisdiction over Husband for the award of alimony and child support, Wife alleged Husband was subject to the jurisdiction of the court pursuant to the Georgia Long Arm Statute (OCGA 9-10-91 (5)). When Wife was unable to perfect personal service on Husband, the trial court granted her motion for service by publication. Husband failed to file a timely answer, and a hearing in the matter was conducted at which Husband failed to appear. After the hearing but before the trial court entered an order granting the divorce and other relief sought by Wife, Husband filed a late answer in which he admitted jurisdiction as pleaded in the complaint and admitted the marriage was irretrievably broken. He raised no objection to sufficiency of service. Husband denied other allegations of the complaint and sought custody of the parties’ minor child, along with an award of child support, and sought alimony from Wife. Nevertheless, the trial court entered the final judgment and decree of divorce which it dated nunc pro tunc to July 13, 2015, the date the hearing was conducted. In the order, the trial court awarded child custody to Wife, and also awarded, among other things, child support, alimony, and attorney fees and costs. Husband then filed a motion to set aside the judgment on two grounds: (1) that although he was served by publication he never received personal service or service by mail, and (2) that the trial court lacked personal jurisdiction because he was a resident of South Carolina. The trial court granted Husband’s motion in part and set aside its award of alimony, child support, and attorney fees and costs because it found it lacked personal jurisdiction over Husband to make these awards. The trial court did not set aside the grant of divorce, the division of personal property located in Georgia, the award of real property located in Georgia, or the child custody award, since it concluded personal jurisdiction was not required for those decisions. Wife filed an application for discretionary appeal which the Georgia Supreme Court granted. The Supreme Court found final judgment in this case had not been executed or entered at the time Husband filed his responsive pleading, even though the judgment was later executed and back-dated. The trial court erred in granting, part, Husband’s motion to set aside because he was bound by his admission of jurisdiction and waiver of the defense of insufficiency of service. Because the Supreme Court reversed in part the order granting Husband’s motion to set aside the divorce judgment, Wife’s remaining enumerations of error were moot and need not be addressed. View "Eversole v. Eversole" on Justia Law

This appeal arose from a trial court order determining that Father-appellant George Denney was the legal and biological father of minor child M. S. G., and ordering the state registrar to issue a new birth certificate for the child listing Father’s name. The Georgia Supreme Court granted Father’s discretionary application to address whether the court erred in ruling that it was without authority to correct the child’s surname. The Court agreed with Father that the trial court erred in its conclusion, albeit for a reason other than that urged by Father, and therefore vacated the judgment in part and remanded this case with direction and further proceedings. View "Denney v. Denney" on Justia Law

Husband Imran Rasheed appealed the trial court’s grant of a motion to enforce a settlement agreement filed by wife Maryam Sarwat and its incorporation into a final decree of divorce. Husband contended that no settlement had ever been reached and that, in any event, the trial court’s order setting forth what it found as a complete settlement and the subsequent decree of divorce incorporating that settlement were too incomplete to be enforced. After review, the Supreme Court agreed that the terms of the settlement agreement as found by the trial court were incomplete, and those terms did not address all required aspects of the divorce: “Though visitation is cursorily addressed, the word custody never even appears in the order. Furthermore, the order setting forth the settlement does not contain a permanent parenting plan that complies with OCGA 19-9-1. The order regarding settlement terms also appears to be incomplete with regard to property holdings, or, at the very least, requires a great deal of inferences from unspecified sources to determine who actually owns what, what must be sold, and how any proceeds should be split between the parties. A trial court errs when it seeks to enforce what amounts to a settlement containing incomplete terms of a divorce. By incorporating such an incomplete settlement into the parties’ divorce decree and using that settlement as the decree’s operative terms, the infirmities of the incomplete settlement agreement became the infirmities of the divorce decree, which omits fundamental considerations such as the custody of the minor children.” Accordingly, the Court reversed the trial court’s order and remanded for further proceedings. View "Rasheed v. Sarwat" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellee J.B. was injured when certified registered nurse anesthetist (“CRNA”) Paul Serdula sexually assaulted her in a surgical suite in the dental practice of defendant-appellant Goldstein, Garber and Salama, LLC (GGS). Serdula was hired by GGS as an independent contractor through anesthesia staffing agency Certified Anesthesia Providers; in accordance with its standard practice, that agency conducted an independent credentialing process on Serdula prior to placing him in any medical or dental facilities. The Georgia Supreme Court granted certiorari to the Court of Appeals to determine whether the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that a reasonable jury could find that a third party’s sexual molestation of J.B. was an act foreseeable by GGS, whether the appellate court erred in affirming the trial court’s denial of GGS’s motion for a directed verdict on the issue of negligence per se, and whether GGS waived any objection to the jury verdict’s apportionment of fault. Finding that appellate court misinterpreted OCGA 43-11-21.1, GGS’s motion for a directed verdict should have been granted. View "Goldstein, Garber & Salama, LLC v. J.B." on Justia Law

Glen and Danielle Rollins divorced in December 2013, and they agreed at that time to submit to binding arbitration of their respective claims to certain furniture and furnishings in the marital home. The arbitrator rendered an award in July 2014, and Glen promptly moved for judicial confirmation. While his motion was pending, in August 2014, the trial court ordered Danielle to account for some of the furniture and furnishings that the arbitrator had awarded to Glen that he could not find. Dissatisfied with her accounting, Glen filed a motion to hold Danielle in contempt of the August 2014 order. In April 2015, the trial court found Danielle was in willful contempt of the August 2014 order in at least one respect, and it entered an initial contempt order that directed Danielle to show cause why she ought not be incarcerated for her contempt. Danielle appealed the initial contempt order, both by filing an application for discretionary review with the Supreme Court, and by filing a notice of direct appeal. In May 2015, the Supreme Court denied the application for discretionary review. The direct appeal was not docketed until November 2015. In December 2015, the Supreme Court dismissed the direct appeal, explaining that any appeal of the initial contempt order had to come by application, and noting that it already had denied an application for discretionary review. In the meantime, the trial court held a final hearing on the motion for contempt and entered a final order on November 24, 2015, finding Danielle in contempt of the August 2014 order in additional respects, directing her to immediately surrender any property awarded to Glen, ordering her to pay Glen for any such property that had gone missing or was damaged, and ordering her to pay fines for 34 separate instances of contempt. The trial court also awarded Glen attorney fees. Danielle then applied for discretionary review of the final contempt order, and the Supreme Court granted her application. Danielle argued that the trial court was without jurisdiction to enter a final contempt order while her direct appeal from the initial contempt order still was pending with the Supreme Court. The Supreme agreed, reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Rollins v. Rollins" on Justia Law

After Dale Lyman and his wife, Helen, left Cellchem International, Inc. to work for a competitor, Cellchem sued the Lymans and two companies with which they had affiliated (collectively the “Lymans”), asserting claims for computer theft and computer trespass under the Georgia Computer Systems Protection Act(GCSPA, breach of fiduciary duty, and tortious interference with business relations. Cellchem claimed that the Lymans stole data from Cellchem and used it to their competitive advantage. At trial, the jury found the Lymans liable on all claims and awarded Cellchem compensatory damages and attorney fees, as well as punitive damages of $5.1 million. On appeal, the Court of Appeals reversed the judgment against the Lymans on the tortious interference claim. The Court of Appeals also remanded the case to the trial court for a new trial as to punitive damages, reasoning that, despite the fact that the tortious interference claim no longer existed to support a potential award for punitive damages, the remaining claims for breach of fiduciary duty and violations of the GCSPA could still support such a claim. In this regard, because the verdict form at trial did not designate to which claims the punitive damages were assigned, or in what proportion, a new determination had to be made with regard to punitive damages that eliminated any consideration of damages associated with alleged tortious interference and focused only on the remaining tort claims upon which the Lymans had been found liable at trial. After its review of the matter, the Supreme Court concluded that the GCSPA did not authorize an award of punitive damages. Accordingly, the Court reversed the Court of Appeals with respect to the availability of punitive damages under the GCSPA, and remanded this case with directions that the appellate court clarify that any remand to the trial court for a new trial on the issue of punitive damages could not involve any purported award for such damages based on alleged violations of the GCSPA. View "Lyman v. CellChem International, Inc." on Justia Law

This case arose out of the refusal of Richard Alexander, in his capacity as clerk of court in Gwinnett County, to file a motion to compel discovery under a particular case number requested by the filing party, Thomas Gibson. The requested case number had previously been assigned to a case to which the motion to compel was directly related, and Gibson filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in an effort to force Alexander to file the motion to compel under this case number. The trial court granted the mandamus petition, and Alexander appealed that ruling. Because the Supreme Court found that Alexander had a clear duty as the Clerk of the court to file the motion to compel under the requested case number without making an independent determination about whether a new case number should be assigned, it affirmed. View "Alexander v. Gibson" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court granted a discretionary appeal of a superior court’s orders setting aside, in part, a final judgment and decree of divorce, and amending the final judgment of divorce. After a proceeding in which Wife was held in contempt, she filed in late 2013, a motion to set aside the March 2009 judgment and decree claiming, inter alia, that in his 2008 financial affidavit, Husband failed to disclose his interest in certain real properties. Husband opposed the motion to set aside, contending that the three-year statute of limitations barred any such claim under OCGA 9-11-60 (f). The trial court held that the three-year “statute of limitations” of OCGA 9-11-60 (f) was tolled until Wife became aware that Husband possessed certain previously undisclosed funds. However, the Supreme Court found that motion to set aside the judgment under OCGA 9–11–60 (d) was filed more than three years after the 2009 judgment. Because the motion to set aside the judgment was filed outside he exclusive time limitation for such a motion, the trial court’s order setting aside the judgment, as well as its subsequent order, was reversed. View "Myles v. Myles" on Justia Law

In 2014, Brooks Keel, president of Georgia Southern University, terminated the employment contract of tenured professor Lorne Wolfe for violation of University policies, and the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia denied Wolfe’s application for review of his termination. Wolfe then filed a complaint for breach of contract and mandamus against the Board and Keel seeking reinstatement and other relief. The superior court granted the Board’s motion for summary judgment, and Wolfe again appealed. The Supreme Court found that this appeal fell within the scope of OCGA 5-6-35 (a) (1), and an application to appeal was therefore required. Because Wolfe did not file a discretionary application, the Supreme Court lacked jurisdiction to consider the merits of his case. Accordingly, the Court dismissed the appeal. View "Wolfe v. Regents of the University Sys. of Georgia" on Justia Law