Mondy v. Magnolia Advanced Materials, Inc., A16A1651
| Decision Date | 08 March 2017 |
| Docket Number | A16A1651 |
| Citation | 341 Ga.App. 141,797 S.E.2d 506 |
| Parties | MONDY v. MAGNOLIA ADVANCED MATERIALS, INC. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Michael Oliver Mondy, Atlanta, for Appellant.
Erika Clarke Birg, Peter L. Munk, Atlanta, for Appellee.
Attorney Michael O. Mondy appeals the trial court's order finding him in contempt for willfully violating an order of the court and appeals the court's oral order compelling discovery. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the contempt order and do not reach the discovery issue.
1. On November 23, 2015, the trial court held a hearing on Magnolia's motion for contempt against Mondy and orally granted it, directing Magnolia to submit a proposed order within ten days. The court then announced its intention to set a hearing on Magnolia's entitlement to attorney fees based on Mondy's violation of the court's order. A week later, on November 30, 2015, Mondy filed a motion for recusal and his own affidavit. The substance of the motion is that the trial judge's action—finding Mondy in contempt—showed that the judge was biased or prejudiced against him, and in his affidavit Mondy averred that based on the judge's comments, facial expressions, and actions during the hearing, "It was clear he wanted to put me in jail."
On December 15, 2015, the trial court entered a written order memorializing the November 23, 2015 oral ruling finding Mondy in contempt, and half an hour later the court issued the following order:
Mondy argues on appeal that the trial court erred in issuing the contempt order after Mondy filed the motion for recusal, contending that after the motion was filed, the trial court was required to cease acting on the merits of the case and to determine whether another trial court should hear the recusal motion before ruling on the contempt motion. Because the trial court did not do so, he asserts, the contempt order should be reversed.
[W]hen a trial judge in a case pending in that court is presented with a motion to recuse accompanied by an affidavit, the judge's duty will be limited to passing upon the legal sufficiency of the affidavit, and if, assuming all the facts alleged in the affidavit to be true, recusal would be warranted, then another judge must be assigned to hear the motion to recuse. We note also the well-settled rule that it is as much the duty of a judge not to grant the motion to recuse when the motion is legally insufficient as it is to recuse when the motion is meritorious; nor does the simple filing of an affidavit automatically disqualify a judge.
State v. Fleming , 245 Ga. 700, 702 (1), 267 S.E.2d 207 (1980). The procedure set out in Fleming for determining recusal was codified in Uniform Superior Court Rule 25. Mayor & Aldermen of Savannah v. Batson-Cook Co. , 291 Ga. 114, 116, n. 3, 728 S.E.2d 189 (2012).
USCR 25.1 requires that motions to recuse or disqualify a judge presiding in a particular case must be filed "not later than five (5) days after the affiant first learned of the alleged grounds for disqualification, and not later than ten (10) days prior to the hearing or trial which is the subject of recusal or disqualification, unless good cause be shown for failure to meet such time requirements. and shall not be allowed to delay the trial or proceeding." USCR 25.3 provides that the trial court "shall temporarily cease to act upon the merits of the matter" to determine whether the motion for recusal is timely, the accompanying affidavit is legally sufficient, and the facts asserted therein authorize recusal, and if so, another judge must hear the motion.
Whether these three criteria are met are questions of law, and our appellate courts review de novo a trial court's decision on these threshold issues. Mayor & Aldermen of Savannah, 291 Ga. at 119 (1), 728 S.E.2d 189. The issue here, however, is not whether the trial court properly determined the timing and legal sufficiency of the motion to recuse, but rather whether the trial court erred in issuing the written order of contempt after Mondy filed the motion.1
We have found no cases, and the parties have cited to none, which consider the parameters of the prohibition against "acting on the merits" of the case, or which consider whether a motion for recusal requires the trial court to abstain from reducing to writing a previously-announced oral ruling. The pitfalls of such a requirement are evident, however, particularly when the basis for the recusal motion is the substance of the trial court's oral ruling, as it was here.
Just as a plaintiff may not foreclose a judge from acting on its orally announced intention to grant a defendant's dispositive motion by dismissing his complaint, we conclude that a party cannot foreclose a judge from acting on its orally announced intention to grant a motion for contempt by filing a motion to recuse.
The principle at the foundation of these decisions [that a plaintiff cannot foreclose such actions] is that, after a party has taken the chances of litigation, and knows what is the actual result reached in the suit by the tribunal which is to pass upon it, he can not, by exercising his right of voluntary dismissal, deprive the opposite party of the victory thus gained.
Dillard Land Investments, LLC v. Fulton County , 295 Ga. 515, 519-520 (2) (b), 761 S.E.2d 282 (2014) (citation and punctuation omitted). The same principle applies by analogy to the present case.
Based on the peculiar facts of this case, we conclude that Mondy could not forestall the trial court's oral finding of contempt by filing a motion to recuse. The trial court's issuance of a written order memorializing its previous oral ruling was not an action "on the merits" of the case. Instead, filing the written order was an administrative process that effectuated a ruling made before Mondy filed his motion to recuse. Thus, we find no merit in this enumeration of error.
2. Mondy contends that the trial court erred in granting Magnolia's motion seeking to find him in contempt for violating a previous court order. Because the trial court sought to punish Mondy for actions already taken rather than coerce him to take actions, the contempt was criminal in nature rather than civil. See generally, Ensley v. Ensley , 239 Ga. 860, 861, 238 S.E.2d 920 (1977).
On appeal of a criminal contempt conviction the appropriate standard of appellate review is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Criminal contempt is that which involves some...
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Mondy v. Magnolia Advanced Materials, Inc.
...motion must be decided before the judge may properly proceed to enter a written contempt order. In Mondy v. Magnolia Advanced Materials, Inc., 341 Ga. App. 141, 797 S.E.2d 506 (2017), the Court of Appeals held that the trial judge can ignore the pending recusal motion and enter the contempt......