P&J Beverage Corporation v. the Bottle Shop, LLC

Supreme Court of Georgia·Decided August 12, 2025·No. S25G0016·Published

Opinion

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion.

In the Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided: August 12, 2025

S25G0016. P&J BEVERAGE CORPORATION v. THE BOTTLE SHOP, LLC.

WARREN, Presiding Justice.

Under Georgia law, “[a]ny person who takes an active part in the initiation, continuation, or procurement of civil proceedings against another shall be liable for abusive litigation if such person acts: (1) With malice; and (2) Without substantial justification.” OCGA § 51-7-81. 1 A person who is injured by abusive litigation may file a lawsuit against the person who has engaged in that abusive litigation. But before such a suit can be filed, certain statutory prerequisites must be met. In particular, OCGA § 51-7-84 (a) requires that “[a]s a condition precedent to any claim for abusive

1Under OCGA § 51-7-80 (6), “Person” is defined as “an individual, corporation, company, association, firm, partnership, society, joint-stock company, or any other entity, including any governmental entity or unincorporated association of persons with capacity to sue or be sued.”

litigation, the person injured” must send notice “to any person against whom such injured person intends to assert a claim for abusive litigation.” That notice has several requirements, including that it “shall identify the civil proceeding, claim, defense, motion, appeal, civil process, or other position which the injured person claims constitutes abusive litigation.” OCGA § 51-7-84 (a). A plaintiff who provides this notice and prevails in an abusive litigation claim “shall be entitled to all damages allowed by law as proven by the evidence, including costs and expenses of litigation and reasonable attorney’s fees.” OCGA § 51-7-83 (a).

We hold that under the plain terms of OCGA § 51-7-84 (a), the notice must identify a civil proceeding and indicate that the party sending the notice contends that the proceeding it identifies was abusive litigation. As explained more below, The Bottle Shop— which filed a suit for abusive litigation against P&J Beverage Corporation (“P&J”) and was awarded damages for abusive litigation by a jury—did not satisfy this condition. Although The Bottle Shop sent P&J an email that indicated a plan to file a claim

for wrongful injunction based on the injunction P&J secured to prevent The Bottle Shop from operating its store and asked P&J to consent to a stay of the injunction pending appeal, the email did not constitute the notice required by OCGA § 51-7-84 (a) because it failed to “identify the civil proceeding, claim, defense, motion, appeal, civil process, or other position” The Bottle Shop “claim[ed] constitutes abusive litigation.” Id. And because we cannot determine which portion of the damages awarded by the jury is attributable to The Bottle Shop’s abusive litigation claim and which portion is attributable to its wrongful injunction claim, we vacate the trial court’s order and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

1. (a) As explained by the Court of Appeals, the history of this case is as follows:

In [2016], P&J Beverage Corporation filed a lawsuit against the City of Columbus “seeking a writ of mandamus to prevent Columbus from issuing an alcoholic beverage license to The Bottle Shop, LLC, and then seeking to revoke the license once issued.” P&J sought the writ of mandamus, arguing that The Bottle Shop’s proposed location was within 600 feet of The Growing

Room, a for-profit daycare facility, which P&J argued was a “school.” Therefore, P&J claimed that the proposed location for The Bottle Shop would violate a provision of Columbus’s city ordinances which prohibited the issuances of liquor licenses to establishments within 600 feet of a school.

After all of the parties, including The Bottle Shop, which had intervened in the action, filed motions for summary judgment, the trial court granted P&J’s motion, ordering that Columbus declare The Bottle Shop’s license “improperly issued, and . . . treated as invalid from the outset, and shall not grant authority to any person to operate any business using said license.”

P&J Beverage Corp. v. Bottle Shop, LLC, 372 Ga. App. 461, 461 (904 SE2d 125) (2024) (citations omitted).

After the trial court signed the order granting P&J summary judgment, The Bottle Shop’s attorney sent P&J’s attorney an email indicating that The Bottle Shop planned to appeal and asking P&J to consent to a stay of the injunction preventing The Bottle Shop from operating with its alcoholic beverage license while the appeal was pending. In relevant part, the email said:

INADMISSIBLE SETTLEMENT COMMUNICATION ...

What we wanted to discuss was whether P&J will agree to a stay of the relief against The Bottle Shop and the City/Angelica Alexander pending the ruling of the appellate court. I did some research on the issue and a party applying for an injunction or restraining order “does so at its own peril because if it succeeds in obtaining a restraint that is later determined to have been wrongful, then the wrongfully restrained party may recover actual damages caused by that restraint from the applicant.”

Cox v. Altus Healthcare & Hospice, Inc., 308 Ga. App. 28, 32, 706 SE2d 660, 665 (2011).

If the Defendants win on appeal but the Bottle Shop shut down in the interim, The Bottle Shop will assert a damages claim against P&J for wrongful injunction for the time that The Bottle Shop is shut down. P&J can keep that from being an issue by consenting to a stay of the Court’s Order and waiting on the Appellate ruling. Of course, if you don’t consent (which you of course have the right to do) we intend to seek a Stay from Judge Culpepper and, if not successful from the Appellate Court.

[Co-counsel] and/or I are available to discuss this with you further if you would like. I’m hopeful we can avoid having to have a hearing on this issue and reach an agreement.

P&J declined to consent to the stay. The Bottle Shop then filed a motion to stay in the trial court, which was denied. The Bottle Shop filed a notice of appeal of the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to P&J and filed an emergency motion in the Court of

Appeals asking for supersedeas pending appeal, to allow its store to remain open during the appeal. The Court of Appeals granted the supersedeas. As to the substantive appeal, the Court of Appeals held that the trial court erred by granting injunctive relief and reversed the trial court. See Consol. Govt of Columbus, Georgia v. P&J Beverage Corp., 344 Ga. App. 482, 487 (2018) (concluding that P&J’s argument that the daycare near The Bottle Shop was a “school” was “unpersuasive” and holding: “P&J has failed to show that Columbus violated any clear legal duty by exercising its statutorily-granted discretion to both determine that The Bottle Shop should be granted an alcohol license, and to decline to revoke it”).

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

P&J Beverage Corporation v. the Bottle Shop, LLC, (Ga. 2025).

P&J Beverage Corporation v. the Bottle Shop, LLC (P&J Beverage Corporation v. the Bottle Shop, LLC) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Cox v. Altus Healthcare and Hospice, Inc.
706 S.E.2d 660 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2011)
Deal v. Coleman
751 S.E.2d 337 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2013)
Hall Cnty. Bd. of Tax Assessors v. Westrec Props., Inc.
809 S.E.2d 780 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2018)
City of Guyton v. Barrow
828 S.E.2d 366 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2019)
Lyman v. Cellchem International, LLC
803 S.E.2d 375 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2017)