Johnny Haygood v. Deanna Stiles

• Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia
• Decided: October 9, 2012
• Docket: A13D0043
• Status: Published

Opinion

Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia

ATLANTA,__________________ October 09, 2012

The Court of Appeals hereby passes the following order:

A13D0043. JOHNNY HAYGOOD et al. v. DEANNA STILES et al.

This case is one of several actions between Johnny and Donna Haygood and their neighbors, Deanna and Greg Stiles. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss, asking the court to dismiss the Haygoods’ complaint and schedule a bench trial for their counterclaims. On August 27, 2012, the trial court entered an order granting the defendant’s motion. The Haygoods have now filed an application for discretionary appeal from that order. We lack jurisdiction. From the materials submitted with the application, it appears that the defendants’ counterclaims remaining pending below. Because no final judgment has been entered, the Haygoods were required to follow the interlocutory appeal procedures to obtain review of the August 27 order. OCGA § 5-6-34 (b); Scruggs v. Ga. Dept. of Human Resources, 261 Ga. 587 (408 SE2d 103) (1991). Thus, they were required to obtain a certificate of immediate review from the trial court before filing their application. See Scruggs, supra at 588 (1). Moreover, an appellate court generally will not review the trial court’s discretionary decision to refuse a certificate of immediate review of interlocutory rulings. See id.; B & D Fabricators v. D. H. Blair Inv. Banking Corp., 220 Ga. App. 373, 375 (3) (469 SE2d 683) (1996). The Haygoods have not followed the interlocutory-appeal procedures, and their failure to do so deprives this Court of jurisdiction to consider this application. Accordingly, this application is hereby DISMISSED. Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia 10/09/2012 Clerk’s Office, Atlanta,__________________ I certify that the above is a true extract from the minutes of the Court of Appeals of Georgia. Witness my signature and the seal of said court hereto affixed the day and year last above written.

, Clerk.