Citizens & Southern Nat. Bank v. Rayle
| Decision Date | 25 November 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 36564,36564 |
| Citation | 273 S.E.2d 139,246 Ga. 727 |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
| Parties | CITIZENS & SOUTHERN NATIONAL BANK v. RAYLE et al. |
McClain, Mellen, Bowling & Hickman, A. O. Bracey, III, Cornelia B. Brewer, Atlanta, for appellant.
R. M. Bernhardt, Atlanta, for appellees.
The bank filed an action seeking declaratory judgment and injunctive relief against Dr. Albert A. Rayle, Jr., Metropolitan Radiology, P. C., and others. The bank asserted a security interest in the accounts receivable of the Bolton Road Hospital. It sought a declaratory judgment that its security interest had priority over Rayle's and Metropolitan Radiology's claims to certain funds and an injunction to prevent them from interfering with the bank's efforts to correct the hospital's accounts receivable. The defendants counterclaimed as to those same funds.
The trial judge appointed an auditor pursuant to Code Ch. 10-1 "to determine the validity of the (bank's) security interest and the priority of claims to the cash and of the payment items payable to ..." the hospital held by a third defendant, and to make findings of fact and of law and to report the same to the court. The Internal Revenue Service intervened and the case was removed to the district court where the auditor appointed by the state court was appointed to serve as a special master for the federal court. The special master filed his report, finding that, pursuant to a written contract, the hospital acted solely as the billing and collection agent for the defendants and that the funds in issue were not funds of the hospital subject to the bank's security interest. When the IRS was dismissed, the case was remanded.
The superior court overruled the bank's exceptions and approved the auditor's report. The defendants moved for entry of judgment. The court denied declaratory relief to the bank based upon the approved auditor's report and denied injunctive relief based on the finding that injunctive relief would be inconsistent with the approved auditor's report. On motion by the bank, the defendant's motion for entry of judgment based on the auditor's report was The bank filed in the Court of Appeals an application to appeal as to the approval of the auditor's report and filed a notice of appeal to the Court of Appeals as to the grant of summary judgment. The Court of Appeals denied the application to appeal and thereafter when the appeal was docketed transferred it to this court.
treated as a motion for summary judgment as to the counterclaims. The trial court found that there were no genuine issues of material fact in the testimony before the auditor or elsewhere as to the counterclaims and granted summary judgment to the defendants on those counterclaims, reserving determination of the amount of attorney fees.
On this appeal the bank enumerates 16 errors, 10 of which complain of errors alleged to have been committed by the auditor and another which asserts error in the trial court's denial of declaratory judgment to the plaintiff. The bank also enumerates error on the denial of a jury trial; in treating (on the bank's motion) the defendants' motion for entry of judgment as a motion for summary judgment, without notice, and in granting it; in treating the motion for entry of judgment as one for summary judgment without requiring compliance with Code Ann. § 81A-156(c) and local rule 21(e); in impressing a trust on sums found by the auditor due from the bank to defendants; and in awarding costs and allowing attorney fees (as yet not assessed). The defendants urge that the Court of Appeals' denial of the application to appeal renders the trial court's approval of the auditor's report res judicata and renders those enumerations of error based thereon moot.
Appeals may be taken to this court and the Court of Appeals from judgments and rulings of the superior and certain other courts:
1. "Where the judgment is final that is to say where the cause is no longer pending in the court below", Code Ann. § 6-701(a)(1) (see also Code Ann. § 81A-154(b); but see Code Ann. § 50-127(11));
2. From certain specified interlocutory (non-final) orders (e. g., applications for discharge in contempt cases, orders granting or refusing interlocutory injunctions) identified by the General Assembly as warranting immediate appellate review notwithstanding their lack of finality, Code Ann. § 6-701(a)(3);
3. From other interlocutory orders timely certified by the trial judge to be of such importance to the case that immediate review should be had, where the appellate court agrees with the trial judge's assessment that an interlocutory appeal should be allowed, Code Ann. § 6-701 (a)(2); and
4. From orders granting partial summary judgment, Code Ann. § 81A-156(h). 1
The determination of which appellate court has jurisdiction of an appeal is fixed basically by the Constitution; 2 certain specified cases (e. g., constitutionality of Georgia and federal laws, equity cases, divorce and alimony cases) come to this court (Code Ann. § 2-3104); other cases (e. g., workers' compensation cases) go to the Court of Appeals (Code Ann. § 2-3108).
The foregoing provisions allowing appeals from all final judgments and numerous interlocutory orders generated such a massive caseload in the appellate courts (1726 matters decided by the Supreme Court in the year September 1, 1977, to August 31, 1978, resulting in 760 written opinions), that the General Assembly in 1979 enacted Ga.L.1979, p. 619 (Code Ann. § 6-701.1), which reads in part as follows:
Commission and probate courts, and cases involving ad valorem taxes and condemnations.
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