McCoy v. Bovee, S16A1660

• Decision Date: 06 February 2017
• Docket Number: S16A1660
• Citation: 796 S.E.2d 679,300 Ga. 759
• Parties: MCCOY et al. v. BOVEE et al.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

300 Ga. 759
796 S.E.2d 679

MCCOY et al.
v.
BOVEE et al.

S16A1660

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: February 6, 2017
Reconsideration Denied March 20, 2017

Barrow & Ballew, Walter W. Ballew III ; Hall Booth Smith, Steven P. Bristol, Michael G. Frick, for appellants.

Fisher Broyles, Robert B. Lovett; Gannan, Gnann & Steinmetz, Christian J. Steinmetz III, for appellees.

Blackwell, Justice.

In January 2016, the Superior Court of Chatham County granted a petition for an interlocutory injunction, pursuant to which it removed Leonard McCoy as President of the Board of Directors of the Willow Lakes Plantation Homeowners Association. McCoy and the Association appeal, but upon our review of the record and briefs, we see no error and affirm.¹

796 S.E.2d 680

The Association was created to manage Willow Lakes Plantation, which is a residential development near Savannah. The Board, which consists of five members, is elected by the homeowner-members of the Association, and McCoy was elected as the President of the Board in 2011 (and he has been reelected several times since then). In 2012, Joyce Bovee and several other homeowner-members of the Association filed a complaint alleging that McCoy and the Board were mismanaging the Association and that McCoy had converted Association funds to his own use. After a hearing, the trial court appointed Hamrick Gnann as receiver to monitor the Association and control its finances. Gnann later reported that he was encountering difficulties with McCoy.

In 2015, a petition was filed to enjoin the Board—and particularly McCoy—from exercising any management authority over the Association. According to the petition, McCoy and the Board had undermined Gnann's authority, and their actions led to the resignation of the property management company that Gnann had hired (and made it difficult for him to identify any company willing to manage the property). In response, McCoy filed a motion to recuse and a motion to dismiss. The trial court denied the motion to recuse in June 2015.² Following a hearing, the trial court issued an order that denied McCoy's motion to dismiss,³ found that he had "actively worked to the detriment of the [Association]," removed him from the Board, and called for an election to fill his unexpired term in accordance with the Association's bylaws. The order did not enjoin the remaining members of the Board from exercising management authority over the Association, but it required them to cooperate with Gnann and the property manager "to effectively operate the [Association]."

1. McCoy claims that the trial court erred when it removed him as President of the Board, asserting that the evidence presented to the trial court did not show that he had acted improperly. But we must defer to the trial court's credibility determinations, weighing of the evidence, and resolution of disputed factual issues. See Danforth v. Apple Inc. , 294 Ga. 890, 893 (1)...