Arnold v. Alexander

• Court: Georgia Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Boggs, Chief Justice.
• Citation: Arnold v. Alexander, 914 S.E.2d 311 (Ga. 2025)
• Docket Number: S24O1335
• Decision Date: 18 March 2025
• Parties: ARNOLD v. ALEXANDER, Clerk.
• topic: Administrative Law,Constitutional Law,Civil Procedure

914 S.E.2d 311

ARNOLD

v.ALEXANDER, Clerk.

S24O1335

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: March 18, 2025

Superior Court, Fulton County

Deandre Arnold, 740 Loworn Rd. Apt B6, Carrolton, Georgia 30117, for Appellant.

Y. Soo Jo, Fulton County Attorney’s Office, 141 Pryor Street, SW, Suite 4038, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Che Alexander, Superior Court Clerk, Fulton County, 136 Pryor Street, SW, Room 106, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Mathew Eli Plott, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Kaye Woodard Burwell, Assistant County Attorney, Sandy Milord, Office of the Fulton County Attorney, 141 Pryor Street SW, Suite 4038, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, for Appellee.

Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Stephen John Petrany, Solicitor-General, Ross Warren Bergethon, Deputy Solicitor-General, Zachary Mullinax, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, for Other Party.

Boggs, Chief Justice.

Petitioner Deandre Arnold filed a petition in this Court seeking a writ of mandamus against Ché Alexander, the Clerk of the Fulton County Superior Court, alleging that the Clerk has subjected Petitioner, as an indigent pro se litigant, to a Catch-22 situation that unlawfully prevents him from filing any civil complaint. For the reasons explained below, we conclude that, except in very limited circumstances not present here, we lack original jurisdiction to grant the sort of relief Petitioner seeks and that the case does not fall within our appellate jurisdiction. Accord- ingly, we transfer the original petition to the Court of Appeals for resolution.

In his verified original petition, Petitioner alleges that he attempted to file a civil complaint, accompanied by an affidavit of indigence, through the Fulton County Superior Court’s e-filing system, which is mandatory even for pro se filers unless they are incarcerated. However, the complaint was rejected because it was not accompanied by an order authorizing him to file "using a waiver payment account." Petitioner called the Clerk’s office and was told that any person seeking to file a complaint accompanied by an affidavit of indigence must first obtain an order authorizing indigent status. He was also advised that to obtain such an order, he had to present the complaint in person and be sworn before a superior court judge, who would either grant or deny the request for indigent status. Finally, he was told that the Clerk would not accept the filing by mail. Petitioner represents that he is unable to drive or to walk the 25 miles from his home to the Clerk’s office and that there is no private party available to transport him. He asserts that the Clerk’s policy of not accepting complaints accompanied by an affidavit of indigence is contrary to OCGA § 9-15-2, which sets forth procedures for a party to present an affidavit as to the party’s indigence in lieu of payment of costs.¹ He also asserts that the Clerk’s policy violates the Clerk’s ministerial duty to file papers and that the policy violates his federal constitutional rights to equal protection, due process, and access to the courts. He also contends he has no adequate remedy other than filing an original petition in this Court because if he attempted to file a mandamus petition in superior court, he would run into the exact same difficulty because he cannot appear in person to present a writ of mandamus and affidavit of indigence and the Clerk would not accept such a filing by mail. He seeks an order from this Court directing the Clerk and her staff to accept all filings accompanied by an affidavit of indigence and to present such filings to a judge.

[1–5] 1. It is well established that this Court has a "duty to inquire into [its] jurisdiction in any case in which there may be a doubt about the existence of such jurisdiction." State of Ga. v. Fed. Defender Program, Inc., 315 Ga. 319, 324, 882 S.E.2d 257 (2022) (cleaned up).² Here, it appears that Petitioner is asserting that this Court has jurisdiction to consider his original petition under Article VI, Section I, Paragraph IV of the 1983 Constitution ("Paragraph IV"). "When we inquire into the meaning of a constitutional provision, we look to its text, and our object is to ascertain the meaning of the text at the time it was adopted." Lathrop v. Deal, 301 Ga. 408, 428, 801 S.E.2d 867 (2017) (cleaned up). We "view the text in the context in which it appears, and read the text in its most natural and reasonable way, as an ordinary speaker of the English language would." Id. at 429, 801 S.E.2d 867 (cleaned up). "In so doing, we typically refer to the rules of English grammar, inasmuch as those rules are the guideposts by which ordinary speakers of the English language commonly structure their words." Walton Electric Membership Corp. v. Georgia Power Co., 320 Ga. 740, 911 S.E.2d 559 (Jan. 28, 2025) (S24G0314, S24G0318) (cleaned up). Additionally, "for relevant context, we may look to, among other things, the other law—constitutional, statutory, and common law alike—that formed the legal background of the constitutional provision in question at the time of its adoption." Lathrop, 301 Ga. at 429, 801 S.E.2d 867 (cleaned up).

[6] Although Petitioner references the "original jurisdiction" of this Court,³ the term "original jurisdiction" does not appear in our current Constitution. However, shortly after the ratification of the 1983 Constitution, we used the phrase "original jurisdiction" in Brown v. Johnson, 251 Ga. 436, 436, 306 S.E.2d 655 (1983), and suggested that Paragraph IV authorized this Court to grant a writ of mandamus to a superior court judge as an exercise of "original jurisdiction." Since Brown, we have on occasion in published opinions dismissing similar original petitions referred to our "original jurisdiction." See, e.g., Gay v. Owens, 292 Ga. 480, 483, 738 S.E.2d 614 (2013); Graham v. Cavender, 252 Ga. 123, 123, 311 S.E.2d 832 (1984). But we have not addressed the scope of the "powers" granted in Paragraph IV. And while we and the Court of Appeals have both used the phrase "original jurisdiction" in published opinions since 1983, we have not expressly held that the Constitution of 1983 grants such jurisdiction.

[7] As we noted in Brown, every constitution since the creation of this Court, except the 1983 Constitution, expressly provided that this Court "shall have no original jurisdiction."⁴ From at least the 1800s, the term "original jurisdiction" has been understood as the authority of a court to hear and decide a case from the beginning as opposed to the appellate jurisdiction of a higher court to review a judgment from a lower court. See Black’s Law Dictionary (1st ed. 1891) (defining original jurisdiction as "[j]urisdiction in the first instance; jurisdiction to take cognizance of a cause at its inception, try it, and pass judgment upon the law and facts. Distinguished from appellate jurisdiction." (em- phasis in original)). An appellate court’s issuance of a writ of mandamus that is not connected to a pending or impending appeal is also considered an exercise of "original jurisdiction." See Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 175-176, 1 Crunch 137, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803) (explaining that the issuance of a writ of mandamus by that Court to the Secretary of State, which writ was not necessary to enable the Court to exercise its appellate jurisdiction, would be an exercise of the Court’s original jurisdiction). However, an appellate court’s issuance of a writ of mandamus in aid of its jurisdiction is an exercise of appellate jurisdiction. See id. at 175, 1 Crunch 137.

So, with this background, the question is what are we to make of the suggestion in Brown that Paragraph IV was a source of "original jurisdiction." Paragraph IV, which is captioned "Exercise of Judicial Power," provides:

Each court may exercise such powers as necessary in aid of its jurisdiction or to protect or effectuate its judgments; but only the superior and appellate courts and state-wide business court shall have the power to issue process in the nature of mandamus, prohibition, specific performance, quo warranto, and injunction. Each superior court, state court, and other courts of record and the state-wide business court may grant new trials on legal grounds.⁵

[8] The plain language of Paragraph IV does not mention "original jurisdiction," and the framers could have, but did not, include an original jurisdiction provision in Paragraph IV or in any other provision of the 1983 Constitution. Compare U. S. Const. Art. III, Sec. II, Cl. II (granting United States Supreme Court "original jurisdiction" over certain cases). But, as noted above, Paragraph IV, which first appeared in the 1983 Constitution, authorizes every court to exercise "such powers as necessary in aid of its jurisdiction or to protect or effectuate its judgments," but authorizes only certain courts, including this Court, "to issue process in the nature of mandamus, prohibition, specific performance, quo warranto, and injunction." In construing this provision, we observe that the use of the semicolon relates the first clause to the second. See Springtime, Inc. v. Douglas County, 228 Ga. 753, 755, 187 S.E.2d 874 (1972) ("The semicolon is normally employed in marking off a series of sentences or clauses of coordinate value, that is, to separate consecutive phrases or clauses which are independent of each other grammatically, but dependent alike on some word preceding or following."). Here, the first clause references "powers" that each court may exercise and the second clause refers to "the power to issue process" and describes the nature of that power as "mandamus, prohibition, specific performance, quo warranto, and injunction." Therefore, the exercise of Paragraph IV’s grant of authority to issue writs of mandamus is connected only to "such powers as necessary in aid of its jurisdiction or to protect or effectuate its judgments." It does not grant...