BOGGS, Judge. This case arises from a $4.75 million loan from Stillwater Asset-Backed Fund, LP ("Stillwater") 1 to Cohutta Water, Inc. Steve Carroll, Cohutta's president and CEO, guaranteed the loan and executed a security deed for seven parcels of real estate to secure it. Stillwater did not obtain a first position lien on one of the tracts (48.2 acres) due to a prior encumbrance held by Branch Banking & Trust ("BB & T") for a personal loan to Carroll. In 2008, Cohutta defaulted on the...
DOYLE, Presiding Judge. The trial court dismissed AIM DMC One, LLC's ("DMC"), AIM Disability Management and Consulting, Inc.'s ("AIM"), and Mark Easler's (collectively, "the plaintiffs") case against The Frank Gates Service Co., Forte, Inc., and Risk Management Solutions (collectively, "the defendants") on the grounds of improper venue and jurisdiction based on a forum selection clause contained in an employment agreement between some of the parties. The plaintiffs appeal, arguing that the...
BRANCH, Judge. These companion appeals mark the second appearance of this dispute before us. Plaintiff Lori Bennett brought a discrimination charge before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") against her ex-employer, Omni Builders Risk, Inc. ("Omni"), on the ground that Bennett had been terminated because she had become pregnant. After an effort at mediation, Bennett sued Omni to enforce a settlement agreement allegedly reached there and also sued James Dillard, Omni's...
McMILLIAN, Judge. We granted Mary E. Case's application seeking discretionary review of the superior court's order affirming the denial of unemployment benefits, and she filed the present appeal. 1 We reverse for the following reasons. The circumstances that led to the termination of Case's employment are undisputed. On March 22, 2012, she was employed as a licensed practical nurse supervisor at Magnolia Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation Center on St. Simons Island ("Magnolia Manor"), where...
RAY, Judge. Douglas L. Quinney and his wife sued Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, Inc. and Phoebe Putney Health System, Inc. ("the hospital"), Southwestern Emergency Physicians, P.C., Raymond E. Gutierrez, M.D., Elizabeth Kenja, R.N., and David Stalvey, R.N. (collectively referred to as "the defendants") asserting claims for professional negligence and for violations of the Federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act ("EMTALA") under 42 U.S.C 1395dd, alleging that the...
BRANCH, Judge. Global Aerospace, Inc. ("Global"), filed this lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court against Lima Delta Company, Trident AS, and Sokicat, 1 all of whom are named insureds under a broad horizon aviation insurance policy 2 ("the Policy") issued by Global. Global's complaint seeks legal and equitable rescission of the Policy, based upon what it alleges are material and fraudulent misrepresentations contained in the application for insurance. Global also seeks a declaratory...
BRANCH, Judge. Larry G. Smith suffered a knee injury when he slipped and fell while ascending a set of stairs at a facility owned and operated by his then-employer, CSX Transportation, Inc. ("CSX"). Smith subsequently filed suit against the railroad seeking to recover for the injuries he sustained as a result of his accident. The case went to trial and the jury returned a verdict in favor of CSX. The trial court entered judgment on that verdict and Smith now appeals, 1 asserting that the...
BRANCH, Judge. These companion appeals mark the second appearance of this dispute before us. Plaintiff Lori Bennett brought a discrimination charge before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") against her ex-employer, Omni Builders Risk, Inc. ("Omni"), on the ground that Bennett had been terminated because she had become pregnant. After an effort at mediation, Bennett sued Omni to enforce a settlement agreement allegedly reached there and also sued James Dillard, Omni's...
McMILLIAN, Judge. George A. Petrakopoulos, Sam Mellas and Alpha Soda Company ("Alpha Soda") appeal, claiming error in the trial court's appointment of a "receiver/special master" and its grant of preliminary and permanent injunctive relief without the proper notice and hearing in an action filed by Gus Vranas arising out of a business dispute among the parties. Petrakopoulos, Mellas and Alpha Soda also appeal the trial court's denial of their motions for summary judgment as to certain claims...
ELLINGTON, Presiding Judge. Raford and Virginia Horton filed this personal injury action in the Superior Court of Telfair County against Joseph Dennis, The Putnam Group, LLC, Horton Iron Works, LLC, and Horton Iron Works' liability insurer (collectively, "the appellees"). On the eve of trial, the Hortons added a claim for attorney fees under OCGA 13-6-11, alleging that, by denying liability until the eve of trial and then stipulating to liability and going to trial on damages only, the...
PHIPPS, Chief Judge. This is an appeal from an interlocutory injunction granted to two residential property owners in a subdivision. The interlocutory injunction prohibited a third property owner from pumping water from a pond in the subdivision pending final adjudication of the underlying petition for declaratory judgment, injunctive relief, and damages. For the reasons that follow, we affirm. Carla Jones owned residential property in a subdivision. James and Terri Morris (collectively,...
ELLINGTON, Presiding Judge. In these related personal injury cases, which arose when a mobile home exploded as a result of accumulated natural gas, Shan Eric Anderson, 1 Jason Hunter, and David Cadieux (hereinafter, "the plaintiffs") sued the Atlanta Gas Light Company ("AGLC") and Hunter's landlord, Charles Tinker d/b/a Tinker Mobile Home Park ("Tinker") (collectively, "the defendants"). In both of the above-styled cases, the plaintiffs appeal from the trial court's grant of the defendants'...
RAY, Judge. In this personal-injury action arising from a motor-vehicle accident, Amanda Newton appeals from the trial court's order denying her motion to enforce a settlement agreement with the plaintiff, Steve Ragland, and from the judgment and award of attorneys fees entered against her after a jury trial. For the reasons explained below, we reverse the trial court's orders. We apply a de novo standard of review to a trial court's order on a motion to enforce a settlement agreement....
ANDREWS, Presiding Judge. James Parton and Inkaholics, LLC (Parton's tattoo studio) sued Inkaholiks Luxury Tattoos Georgia, LLC and its owner, Uchechukwu Nwaneri, alleging trade name infringement. The suit alleged that the plaintiffs had protected rights in the name Inkaholics for their tattoo business, which operated in the metro Atlanta area, and that the defendants subsequently infringed on the name and damaged the plaintiffs' business by using a confusingly similar name, Inkaholiks, to...
BOGGS, Judge. In this discretionary appeal and cross-appeal, the parties appeal from a superior court order affirming an administrative law judge's (ALJ) decision affirming a consent order between a property owner, Lance Toland, and the Director of the Environmental Protection Division (EPD), Judson Turner. In Case No. A13A1488, the EPD contends in related enumerations of error that the ALJ and superior court erred by concluding that the Center for a Sustainable Coast, Inc. ("the Center") had...
ANDREWS, Presiding Judge. This appeal arises from a claim made by Lapolla Industries, Inc. that a competing business, Premium Spray Products, Inc., and Maclean Hess (on behalf of Premium) hired, or were attempting to hire, five former employees of Lapolla in violation of non-compete covenants in employment agreements between Lapolla and the former employees. In response to Lapolla's demand letter that Premium and Hess cease this activity with respect to the former employees, or face legal...
BOGGS, Judge. On May 16, 2011, the Georgia Supreme Court held the 2008 Georgia Charter Schools Commission Act, OCGA 20-2-2081 et seq., unconstitutional because it violated the "special schools" provision of the Georgia Constitution, Ga. Const. of 1983 Art. VIII, Sec. V, Par. VII(a). Gwinnett County School Dist. v. Cox, 289 Ga. 265 , 710 S.E.2d 773 (2011). On March 2, 2012, the Bulloch County School District ("the District"), one of seven plaintiff-appellants in the litigation, id. at...
DILLARD, Judge. Richard Bowers & Co. ("Bowers"), a real estate broker, filed a broker's lien against property owned by Clairmont Place, LLC ("Clairmont"), an owner and lessor of office space in Atlanta, and then sued Clairmont for unpaid commissions arising out of a leasing commission agreement between Bowers and Clairmont's predecessor. Clairmont denied Bowers's claims and asserted a counterclaim for slander of title. Bowers moved for summary judgment on its claims for unpaid commissions and...
BARNES, Presiding Judge. Nicholas Brown was standing on the running board of Georgia Tech's Model A mascot car while it was being driven from a fraternity house to a garage. When the car turned a corner, the handle Brown was holding detached from the car and Brown fell, striking his head on the ground. Brown sued the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, which owned the Georgia Tech car, and Eco-Clean, Inc., which had refurbished the car two years earlier. He asserted that the...
DOYLE, Presiding Judge. Pamela Elaine Kemp, individually and on behalf of the estate of David Allen Kemp, filed the instant wrongful death action alleging that WellStar Health System, Inc. ("WellStar"), was liable for the death of her husband based on the negligence of its employees. Because of alleged witness tampering, the trial court disqualified WellStar's trial counsel Henry D. Green, co-counsel David A. Sapp, and their law firm, Green & Sapp, LLP (collectively "the Lawyers"), and...
