Justia Georgia Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Tomari Jackson drowned to death while on a school trip to Belize. His mother, Adell Forbes, individually and as administrator of Jackson’s estate (collectively, “Forbes”), filed a wrongful death action in Georgia. Because Forbes filed the action outside the applicable limitation period provided for under Belize law but within the period that would be applicable under Georgia law, the issue presented for the Georgia Supreme Court's review entered on whether Georgia’s or Belize’s limitation period applied to that wrongful death action. The Court of Appeals held that Georgia law, and not Belize law, controlled the limitation period governing the wrongful death claim. The Supreme Court disagreed and reversed. View "Auld v. Forbes" on Justia Law

Lowndes County, Georgia sued the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (“DCA”) and members of the DCA board over DCA’s application of the Service Delivery Strategy Act (“SDS Act”). The SDS Act authorized and promoted coordination and comprehensive planning among municipal and county governments to “minimize inefficiencies resulting from duplication of services and competition between local governments and to provide a mechanism to resolve disputes over local government service delivery, funding equity, and land use.” Lowndes County and the cities within the County (“the Cities”) operated under a service delivery strategy agreement implemented in 2008. In November 2016, when DCA had not received communication from the County and Cities that they had agreed either to revise their Strategy Agreement or to extend the existing one, DCA notified the County and Cities that they would be ineligible for state-administered financial assistance, grants, loans, or permits until DCA could verify that Lowndes County and the Cities had done so. The County sued the mayors and councils of the Cities, DCA, and DCA commissioner Camila Knowles, seeking declaratory, injunctive, and mandamus relief, as well as specific performance, arguing the 2008 Strategy Agreement remained in effect, and that the County and Cities remained eligible for state-administered financial assistance. Knowles and the DCA board members moved to dismiss on the basis that sovereign immunity barred the claims for injunctive and declaratory relief. They argued that those claims actually sought to order Knowles and the DCA board members to take action in their official capacities. The trial court granted the motion to dismiss. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The Georgia Supreme Court found the Georgia Constitution allowed only the General Assembly to waive the State’s sovereign immunity. "But that rule requires waiver only for claims that sovereign immunity actually bars." The Court found that one narrow limitation on such claims was that the State could not be the “real party in interest.” The Court of Appeals held that the relief sought here by a Lowndes County would actually control the actions of the State and potentially affect state expenditures; the Court of Appeals thus concluded that the State was the real party in interest and that sovereign immunity barred the county’s claims for injunctive and declaratory relief against the state officials in their individual capacities. "But the real-party-in-interest limitation is not so broad; our case law has applied it primarily when the claimed relief would control or take the State’s real property or interfere with contracts to which the State is a party. No such relief is sought here, and applying the limitation as broadly as the State seeks would eviscerate Georgians’ well- established rights to seek redress against their government." The Court therefore reversed the Court of Appeals and held that sovereign immunity did not bar the claims at issue in this case. View "Board of Commissioners of Lowndes County v. Mayor & Council of City of Valdosta et al." on Justia Law

Thomas Edvalson was tried by jury and found guilty of 22 counts of sexual exploitation of children, for possession of 11 digital images depicting a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. With respect to each digital image, he was found guilty of both possession and possession with intent to distribute. At sentencing, the trial court merged the "simple" possession counts under OCGA 16-12-100(b)(8) into the counts of possession with intent to distribute under subsection (b)(5), and sentenced Edvalson on the remaining 11 counts to a total of 60 years, with 19 to be served in prison. Edvalson appealed, asserting, among other enumerations of error, that the trial court erred in failing to merge his convictions into a single count. The Court of Appeals affirmed in an unpublished opinion, concluding that OCGA 16-12-100(b)(5) permitted a defendant to be separately convicted and sentenced for each of the images in his possession. The Georgia Supreme Court granted review to consider whether the Court of Appeals erred in failing to merge the remaining 11 convictions under (b)(5) into a single conviction. In accordance with Coates v. Georgia, 818 SE2d 622 (2018), the Court concluded the plain language of OCGA 16-12-100(b)(5), interpreted in the context of the entire statute, was unambiguous and permitted only one prosecution and conviction for a single act of possession of child pornography, regardless of the number of images depicted. The Court therefore reversed the Court of Appeals and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Edvalson v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Property owners and the contractors they hired to build a house had a dispute. The Georgia Supreme Court granted the owners' request for review to consider: (1) whether anticipated profits could be included in a materialmen’s lien; and (2) if so, whether the improper inclusion of such profits rendered the entire lien void. Because the Court of Appeals correctly held that anticipated profits could not be included in a lien and that their inclusion does not invalidate the entire lien, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Massey et al. v. Duke Builders, Inc." on Justia Law

Wendy and Janet Norman alleged that Xytex Corporation, a sperm bank, sold them human sperm under false pretenses about the characteristics of its donor, and that the child conceived with that sperm once born suffered from a variety of impairments inherited from the sperm donor. The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of all but one of the Normans’ claims on the basis of Etkind v. Suarez, 519 SE2d 210 (1999), and Atlanta Obstetrics & Gynecology Group v. Abelson, 398 SE2d 557 (1990). The Georgia Supreme Court granted review, and held that claims arising from the very existence of the child were barred, but claims arising from specific impairments caused or exacerbated by defendants’ alleged wrongs could proceed, as could other claims that essentially amounted to ordinary consumer fraud. Therefore, the Court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Norman et al. v. Xytex Corp., et al." on Justia Law

The Georgia Supreme Court granted certiorari to the Court of Appeals in five consolidated appeals to address two discrete issues – one related to pleading vicarious liability, and the other related to vicarious liability and apportionment. In 2009, Shannon Trabue suffered a catastrophic brain injury resulting from pulmonary edema leading to full cardiac arrest within days of giving birth to her daughter at Northside Hospital in Atlanta. At the hospital, Shannon was treated by physician-employees of AWS, including Dr. Stanley Angus and Dr. Rebecca Simonsen. Kenneth Trabue (husband) and the bank serving as his wife’s conservator (Plaintiffs) later filed a medical malpractice action naming as defendants only Dr. Angus and Atlanta Women’s Specialists, LLC (AWS), although the complaint contained allegations regarding Dr. Simonsen’s conduct and alleged that AWS was vicariously responsible for the acts and omissions of both Dr. Angus and Dr. Simonsen. The complaint did not allege any independent acts of negligence on the part of AWS. The issues the appellate court presented for the Supreme Court's review were: (1) whether the Court of Appeals erred in holding that plaintiffs sufficiently pled a claim for vicarious liability against AWS based on Dr. Simonsen's conduct; and (2) whether the appellate court erred in holding that, to obtain apportionment of damages with regard to the negligence of Dr. Simonsen, the defendants were required to comply with OCGA 51-12-33 (d) by filing a pretrial notice of nonparty fault? The Supreme Court answered both questions in the negative and affirmed the Court of Appeals’ judgment. View "Atlanta Womens Specialists, LLC et al. v. Trabue et al." on Justia Law

Antonio Wallace was tried by a jury and convicted of the murder of Leroy O’Hara. Wallace appealed, claiming: (1) the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction; (2) the trial court erred when it denied his motion for new trial on the general grounds; and (3) that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel. The Georgia Supreme Court found no merit in these claims, and affirmed. View "Wallace v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Johnathan Ellison was convicted of malice murder for the stabbing death of Antwane Hyatte. Ellison appealed, arguing the trial court erred in admitting DNA evidence obtained from a buccal swab performed on him without a warrant while he was in custody. He argued that the admission of that evidence violated his constitutional rights because he did not knowingly and voluntarily consent to the buccal swab, and he was not given any Miranda-type warning. The Georgia Supreme Court determined the DNA evidence obtained from Ellison’s buccal swab did not match any of the DNA found at the crime scene or inculpate him in any other way, thus its admission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The Court therefore affirmed. View "Ellison v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Upon retrial, appellant Ronald Fisher was found guilty of malice murder and related crimes in connection with the shooting death of Derek Cullins. In this appeal, Fisher contended the evidence presented at his retrial was insufficient to support his convictions because the only witness to identify him as the shooter, David Lewis, was an accomplice. Further, Fisher argued the trial court erred by allowing the lead detective to testify that Lewis was not an accomplice, and that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to object to the prosecutor’s closing argument. Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. View "Fisher v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Khaleil Barton-Smith was tried by jury and convicted of murder and other crimes in connection with the 2014 fatal shooting of Alexander Hunter. Barton-Smith appealed, contending that the trial court erred when it denied his request to charge the jury on voluntary manslaughter as a lesser offense and when it interrupted his lawyer’s cross-examination of a witness. Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. View "Barton-Smith v. Georgia" on Justia Law