Mortg. Alliance Corp. v. Pickens Cnty.

• Decision Date: 25 November 2013
• Docket Number: No. S12G1885.,S12G1885.
• Citation: 294 Ga. 212,751 S.E.2d 51
• Parties: MORTGAGE ALLIANCE CORPORATION v. PICKENS COUNTY.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

294 Ga. 212

751 S.E.2d 51

MORTGAGE ALLIANCE CORPORATION

v.PICKENS COUNTY.

No. S12G1885.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Nov. 4, 2013.

Reconsideration Denied Nov. 25, 2013.

Roy E. Barnes, John Raymond Bevis, James Cameron Tribble, Marietta, GA, for Appellant.

Phillip Edward Friduss, Ellen Louise Ash, Deborah V. Haughton, Landrum & Friduss, LLC, Woodstock, GA, for the Appellees.

NAHMIAS, Justice.

This case involves an effort by Mortgage Alliance Corporation (“MAC”) to develop property in Pickens County as a residential subdivision called Silverstone. In August 2008, MAC filed a complaint in superior court against the county and various county officials alleging, among other things, that an August 2006 letter to MAC from the county's sole commissioner (the “August 2006 Letter”), which said that the county's position was that any proposal to develop MAC's property as a subdivision would need to comply with a recent amendment to the county's land use ordinances, resulted in a taking of MAC's property without just compensation. The trial court granted summary judgment to the defendants on the ground that MAC's complaint was untimely under OCGA § 5–3–20.¹ The Court of Appeals affirmed, see Mortgage Alliance Corp. v. Pickens County, 316 Ga.App. 755, 730 S.E.2d 471 (2012), and we granted MAC's petition for certiorari.

The question that we posed to the parties in granting certiorari focused on whether and when the August 2006 Letter was “entered” and “filed” within the meaning of OCGA § 5–3–20, thereby triggering the 30–day deadline for MAC to file an appeal to the superior court. We have concluded, however, that this case is properly resolved on the ground that the August 2006 Letter was not a “decision” within the meaning of OCGA § 5–3–20, and indeed the county never made a final decision on MAC's Silverstone proposal. Consequently, MAC's inverse condemnation claim never ripened for judicial review, and the trial court should have granted summary judgment to the defendants on this ground. Although the trial court and the Court of Appeals erred in concluding there was an appealable decision, they reached the right result, and we therefore affirm the Court of Appeals' judgment. See WMW, Inc. v. Am. Honda Motor Co., 291 Ga. 683, 683, 733 S.E.2d 269 (2012) (affirming the Court of Appeals' judgment on certiorari under the right-for-any-reason doctrine). Because the August 2006 Letter was not a “decision,” there is no need for us to address—and the Court of Appeals did not need to address—whether and when the letter was “entered” or “filed”; the portion of the Court of Appeals' opinion discussing that issue should be treated as dicta.

1. In reviewing an order granting a motion for summary judgment, we view the evidence in the record and make all reasonable inferences from it in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and decide de novo whether the grant of summary judgment was appropriate. See Smith v. Ellis, 291 Ga. 566, 567, 731 S.E.2d 731 (2012); Cowart v. Widener, 287 Ga. 622, 624, 697 S.E.2d 779 (2010). So viewed, the record shows as follows. In late 2004, MAC purchased a 180–acre parcel of land in Pickens County for the purpose of developing a residential subdivision. MAC had recently submitted to the county a preliminary plat to develop the property as a 240–lot subdivision called “Silverstone,” with an onsite private sewer system and .75–acre lots. Norman Pope, the county's director of planning and zoning, had reviewed the plat informally and advised MAC that the proposal was feasible and would be evaluated under the county land use restrictions then in effect. Rodney Buckingham, the county's land development officer, was quoted in the local newspaper saying that the Silverstone proposal would be reviewed under the existing ordinances.

In January 2005, Robert Jones took office as the sole commissioner of Pickens County.² The commissioner made final decisions about zoning and land use for the county.³ At a public meeting on February 7, 2005, Commissioner Jones adopted a resolution imposing a county-wide, six-month-long moratorium, which was later extended to August 8, 2006, on the issuance of construction permits for properties with privately owned sewer systems, due to an asserted lack of adequate regulation. On February 11, 2005, Buckingham denied approval of the Silverstone preliminary plat, asserting various shortcomings unrelated to its sewer plan, and on May 20, 2005, MAC submitted a revised preliminary plat, which was not approved for non-sewer reasons.

At a public meeting on August 8, 2006, the day that the private sewer moratorium expired, Commissioner Jones adopted a resolution amending the County Code to require, among other things, a minimum lot size of one acre for residential subdivisions with private sewer systems or septic tanks (the “2006 Code Amendment”). A few days later, Jones sent a letter to MAC's CEO indicating that the Silverstone project would be evaluated under the amended County Code despite the previous indications by county officials that the project would be evaluated under the pre-amendment standards.⁴ The August 2006 Letter said:

The purpose of this letter is to follow up on several conversations you have had with various employees of Pickens County regarding your development of [the property].... It is the County's position that any proposal to develop this property as a subdivision shall comply with the current code of ordinances of Pickens County.

Shortly thereafter, MAC submitted a new preliminary plat to develop its property as a 39–lot subdivision called “Hampton Farms,” with septic tanks and three- to five-acre lots, and MAC later submitted an application to rezone the property to accommodate the new proposal. On October 10, 2006, at a public meeting, Commissioner Jones approved the rezoning, and the Hampton Farms project went forward. That project apparently was unsuccessful, as the real estate market entered a steep decline.

Almost two years after the August 2006 Letter, on August 6, 2008, MAC filed a complaint for inverse condemnation against Pickens County, Jones, Pope, and Buckingham (collectively, the “County”) and for punitive damages against Jones, Pope, and Buckingham.⁵ The complaint alleged that the August 2006 Letter “constitutes a final decision by Pickens County officials to apply the current zoning and development procedures” to MAC's property and this decision forced MAC to abandon the Silverstone proposal as economically unfeasible.

On June 18, 2010, the County filed a motion for summary judgment on the ground that the complaint was untimely under OCGA § 5–3–20. On February 14, 2011, the trial court granted the County's motion, ruling that the August 2006 Letter was a “decision” because it stated the County's “position” that any development of the property must comply with the current County Code; that the decision was entered by filing as required by OCGA § 5–3–20 because the letter was maintained as an official record in the commission office; and that MAC's failure to file its complaint within 30 days of the letter barred its claim for inverse condemnation based on that decision. The trial court also ruled that MAC's punitive damages claim was moot in light of the grant of summary judgment to the County on the underlying condemnation claim.

After the Court of Appeals affirmed those rulings, see Mortgage Alliance Corp., 316 Ga.App. at 758, 730 S.E.2d 471, we granted certiorari.

2. OCGA § 5–3–20 establishes a jurisdictional deadline for “all appeals to the superior court, any other law to the contrary notwithstanding.” OCGA § 5–3–20(c). See Fortson v. Tucker, 307 Ga.App. 694, 696, 705 S.E.2d 895 (2011). All “[a]ppeals to the superior court shall be filed within 30 days of the date the judgment, order, or decision complained of was entered.” OCGA § 5–3–20(a) (emphasis added). Final determinations by county authorities regarding the application of land use restrictions to a particular property constitute “decisions” within the meaning of OCGA § 5–3–20. See Chadwick v. Gwinnett County, 257 Ga. 59, 59, 354 S.E.2d 420 (1987) (county commission's denial of request for rezoning); Taco Mac v. Atlanta Bd. of Zoning Adjustment, 255 Ga. 538, 539, 340 S.E.2d 922 (1986) (city board of zoning adjustment's denial of variance application); Hollberg v. Spalding County, 281 Ga.App. 768, 771 & n. 13, 637 S.E.2d 163 (2006) (county commission's grant of request for rezoning). The 30–day deadline applies even if the challenge to the county's land use decision is couched in terms of inverse condemnation. See Mayor of Savannah v. Savannah Cigarette & Amusement Servs., Inc., 267 Ga. 173, 174, 476 S.E.2d 581 (1996).

As noted above, MAC alleged in its complaint that the August 2006 Letter constituted a “final decision” by the County not to grandfather the Silverstone project and instead to evaluate MAC's proposal under the zoning and development procedures as amended on August 8, 2006. In opposing summary judgment and on appeal, MAC has contended that the letter did not constitute a final decision by the County with respect to the application of the 2006 Code Amendment to the Silverstone project. Contrary to the view of the trial court and the Court of Appeals, see Mortgage Alliance Corp., 316 Ga.App. at 756–757, 730 S.E.2d 471, however, MAC's subjective understanding of the letter does not control the legal determination of whether the letter qualified as a “decision” under OCGA § 5–3–20.

The trial court looked to the definition of “decision” in Black's Law Dictionary, which is “[a] judicial or agency determination after consideration of the facts and the law; esp., a ruling, order, or judgment pronounced by a court when considering or disposing of a case.” However, at the time Commissioner Jones sent the August 2006 Letter, there was no “case” before him to be disposed of, because MAC had not appealed Buckingham's February 2005 denial of the preliminary plat for...