Georgiacarry.org, Inc. v. Allen

• Decision Date: 03 October 2016
• Docket Number: S16A1257
• Citation: 791 S.E.2d 800,299 Ga. 716
• Parties: Georgiacarry.org, Inc. v. Allen et al.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

299 Ga. 716
791 S.E.2d 800

Georgiacarry.org, Inc.
v.
Allen et al.

S16A1257

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: October 3, 2016

John R. Monroe, John Monroe Law, PC, 9640 Coleman Road, Roswell, Georgia 30075, for Appellant.

Cristina Maria Correia, Assistant Attorney General, Samuel S. Olens, Attorney General, Dennis R. Dunn, Deputy Attorney General, Russell David Willard, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christian Alexander Fuller, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334–1300, Wayne Roberts Allen, Elizabeth Penn Howerton, Shawn Marie Story, Office of Legislative Counsel, 316 State Capitol, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334–1140, for Appellee.

MELTON, Justice.

299 Ga. 716

Georgiacarry.org (“Georgia Carry”) is a nonprofit corporation with the stated purpose of “focus[ing] ... on public interest matters of self-defense and gun laws of the State of Georgia and the United States of America.” On October 29, 2015, Georgia Carry filed in Fulton County Superior Court an “Application for Leave to File an Information in the Nature of Quo Warranto,” against members of the Code Revision Commission (the “Commission”),¹ in an effort to challenge the right

791 S.E.2d 802

of every individual Commission member to continue serving on the Commission. The superior court denied the application, finding that Georgia Carry lacked standing to pursue a writ of quo warranto, and Georgia Carry appeals from this ruling. As explained more fully below, because the trial court correctly concluded that Georgia Carry did not have individual standing or associational standing on behalf of its members to pursue a writ of quo warranto, we affirm.

“Quo warranto is an extraordinary remedy which exists solely by virtue of statute.” (Citations omitted.) Richardson v. Phillips, 285 Ga. 385, 385, 677 S.E.2d 117 (2009). In this regard, OCGA § 9–6–60 provides:

The writ of quo warranto may issue to inquire into the right of any person to any public office the duties of which he is in fact discharging. It may be granted only after the application by some person either claiming the office or interested therein.

299 Ga. 717

In order to determine whether Georgia Carry is authorized to pursue a writ of quo warranto under this statute, we must first determine the proper interpretation of OCGA § 9–6–60 by applying fundamental rules of statutory construction, which

require us to construe [the] statute according to its terms, to give words their plain and ordinary meaning, and to avoid a construction that makes some language mere surplusage. At the same time, we must seek to effectuate the intent of the legislature.

(Citations omitted.) Slakman v. Continental Cas. Co., 277 Ga. 189, 191, 587 S.E.2d 24 (2003).

Bearing these principles in mind, we must determine whether Georgia Carry qualifies as a “person either claiming the office [of the Commission members] or interested therein” pursuant to OCGA § 9–6–60 such that it would be authorized to pursue a writ of quo warranto. As explained below, a straightforward reading of OCGA § 9–6–60 reveals that the legislature did not intend for a nonprofit corporation such as Georgia Carry to be considered a “person” for purposes of pursuing a writ of quo warranto.

By its plain terms, OCGA § 9–6–60 indicates that the type of “person” who may pursue a writ of quo warranto to challenge the right of a “person” to a public office must be someone who is capable of “claiming” the public office occupied by another person, or a “person” who is otherwise interested in the office in question even if that person is not making a direct claim to the office itself. The text itself suggests that, as only individual natural persons can hold or claim to hold a public office, only natural individual persons can be otherwise interested therein. See White v. Miller, 235 Ga. 192, 192–193, 219 S.E.2d 123 (1975) (interested citizen and taxpayer may institute quo warranto proceedings to inquire into right of another person to hold public office the duties of which he is discharging). Indeed, as this Court has long recognized,

[w]here the purpose is to declare the [public] office vacant, any citizen and taxpayer may file a proceeding in the nature of quo warranto. If the relator happens to be the defeated candidate, his right to file the information is in his capacity as an interested citizen, and not in his capacity of a defeated candidate.

Hathcock v. McGouirk, 119 Ga. 973, 978, 47 S.E. 563 (1904). Here, the fact that Georgia Carry may claim...