City of Jesup v. Bennett
| Decision Date | 13 July 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 25824,25824 |
| Citation | 226 Ga. 606,176 S.E.2d 81 |
| Parties | CITY OF JESUP v. A. E. BENNETT et al. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. The motion to dismiss the appeal is without merit and is denied.
2. Where an Act changing the corporate limits of a municipality contains in the legal description of such changed limits an obvious misdescription of the direction of one of the calls, or legs, which, if literally followed would result in a nonclosure, it is permissible in construing the Act to substitute the word 'west' for the word 'east' appearing in the misdescribed call where to do so would result in the closure of the description and in accomplishing the purpose of the legislature rather than in defeating it. The trial court erred in holding, in effect, that the entire Act changing the corporate limits of the City of Jesup was void on account of such erroneous description.
William A. Zorn, Jesup, for appellant.
Albert E. Butler, Jesup, for appellees.
At issue in this case is the validity and effect of an Act of the legislature providing for a referendum to change the city limits of the City of Jesup. By an Act approved March 4, 1966, the legislature in § 6 of said Act provided that the corporate limits of that city shall extend to and embrace all of the following described property, to wit: 'Beginning at a point located (north) 46 30 west a distance of 9,280.0 feet from the point of intersection of the center of Cherry Street and the center of the main line track of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in said city; thence north 43 30 east a distance of 9,280.0 feet; thence south 46 30 east a distance of 18,560 feet; thence south 43 30 west a distance of 23,560.0 feet; thence north 46 30 east a distance of 18,560.0 feet; thence north 43 30 east a distance of 14,280 feet to the point of beginning.' (Emphasis supplied.) Ga.L.1966, pp. 3099, 3100. It is undisputed that this description which is embodied in the enrolled copy of the Act, as well as in the printed bound volume of the Laws, does not enclose any territory inasmuch as the fourth call or leg of the description, if literally followed, would extend from its point of intersection with the third leg in a northeasterly direction virtually parallel to the third leg, and thus when the fifth leg is projected from the terminus of the fourth leg in the direction called for by the description it cannot be made to meet with the point of beginning. It is also undisputed for the purpose of this decision that if the fourth leg were changed to read, 'north 46 30 west a distance of 18,560.0 feet,' and if the fifth leg is then projected from the terminus of the fourth leg as set forth in the Act, the description would define a rectangle or parallelogram with two sides of 18,560 feet and two sides of 23,560 respectively. Appellees contend, however, that the description is so vague and indefinite that it invalidates the whole Act and requires the holding made by the judge of the trial court that the Act is void and ineffective to extend the limits of the City of Jesup at all.
1. Appellees have filed in this court a motion to dismiss the appeal on the ground that the order appealed from, being one denying the defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint, is not a judgment from which a direct appeal will lie in the absence of a certificate of review. It is true that the judgment appealed from does recite that it was rendered 'on defendants' motion to dismiss' and it does in fact overrule the motion. If the judgment had done no more than that, it, of course, would not be an appealable judgment in the absence of a certificate of review, but it did not stop there but went on to award a permanent injunction to the plaintiffs, granting to them all the relief which they sought in their complaint. Under these circumstances, the judgment was indeed a final judgment and subject to direct appeal under the provisions of Code Ann.Supp. § 6-701(a)(1). The motion to dismiss is without merit.
2. The question thus presented...
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McClintock, In re
...that the term "validity" would encompass perfection? The Chapter does not define its meaning. The bankrupt cities City of Jesup v. Bennett, 1970, 226 Ga. 606, 176 S.E.2d 81, for the proposition that this section of the statute must be read in context with all the other parts. They urge that......
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Bendiburg v. Dempsey, Civ. A. No. 1:87-CV-1774-JOF.
...is bound to give effect to the statutory language chosen by the General Assembly. O.C.G.A. section 1-3-1; see also Jesup v. Bennett, 226 Ga. 606, 176 S.E.2d 81 (1970). The court therefore concludes that the statutory language of section 31-9-6(a) is sufficiently broad to encompass the facts......
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Mathis v. Cannon
...the language of an act is plain and unequivocal, judicial construction is not only unnecessary but is forbidden. City of Jesup v. Bennett, 226 Ga. 606(2), 176 S.E.2d 81 (1970). The plain language of OCGA § 51-5-11 requires a request for a retraction as a precondition to the recovery of puni......
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Fair v. State
...to in support of his position in its context and in "consideration of all the other parts of the statute." City of Jesup v. Bennett, 226 Ga. 606, 609(2), 176 S.E.2d 81 (1970). The following discussion shows that, when so construed, the Legislature did not simply re-state in subsection (2) t......