Vickers v. Coffee County, 42669
| Decision Date | 03 March 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 42669,42669 |
| Citation | 340 S.E.2d 585,255 Ga. 659 |
| Parties | VICKERS et al. v. COFFEE COUNTY et al. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
James D. Hudson, Douglas, for Gary Vickers et al.
William V. Evans, Douglas W. Mitchell III, Douglas, for Coffee County, Ga. et al.
This appeal centers on the validity of a purchase by defendant-appellee Coffee County of a tract of land owned by defendant-appellee Winston Batten for use as a landfill. Plaintiffs-appellants, residents of Coffee County, sued Coffee County, Batten, and the defendants-appellees county commissioners, seeking a declaration that the contract to purchase the Batten tract was null and void, and other relief.
On April 10, 1985, the court held a hearing as to a request by appellants for interlocutory relief, and on July 2, 1985, issued an order denying the relief. The plaintiffs appeal, and we reverse. Appellants bring five enumerations of error, but we need only address their fourth, which encompasses their contention that the contract to purchase the Batten tract was invalid because one of the commissioners, Thurston Paulk, had a conflict of interest. We agree with this contention.
In its interlocutory order the court found that "Thurston Paulk, one of the commissioners, who participated in the specially called meeting on February 22, 1985, and who voted at that meeting to purchase the Winston Batten tract, acquired, along with a co-grantee, on November 30, 1984, a tract of land in the vicinity of the other two proposed landfill sites--the Jerome Adams and Bill Evans tracts--which he purchased with the intention of developing as a subdivision.
"The ownership by Commissioner Paulk of a tract of land in the vicinity of the two proposed sites, neither of which was purchased by the Board of Commissioners for the new sanitary landfill, and the possibility had one of these two sites been selected rather than the Winston Batten tract as the site for the new sanitary landfill, that such selection would have a negative economic impact upon the value of the land does not constitute a conflict of interest with respect to Commissioner Paulk's participation in the specially called meeting of February 22, 1985, and his voting in favor of the purchase of the Batten tract."
Based on this finding, the court concluded that "[t]he contract to purchase the Batten tract is not null and void because of any conflict of interest upon the part of Commissioner Thurston Paulk. In Dept. of Transportation v. Brooks, 254 Ga. 303 at page 317, 328 S.E.2d 705, it was held, 'we delineate that kind of conflict of interest which, in law, is the equivalent of fraud and corruption, as follows: when a public officer, in the discharge of his public function, acts upon a measure relating to a specific transaction and such transaction shall directly and immediately affect his pecuniary interest.'
(Emphasis in original.)
We disagree with the trial court's ruling, because its finding that Commissioner Paulk was not directly and immediately affected by the contract to purchase the Batten tract, and the court's consequent conclusion that Paulk did not have a conflict of interest, are directly contradicted by evidence which was presented at the April 10, 1985, evidentiary hearing. At that hearing Commissioner...
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