Court Opinion

ID: 9566559
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:40:52.699033+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:28.344587
License: Public Domain

HUNSTEIN, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority erroneously holds that appellees must be members of the Alabama class in order to have “standing” to seek the injunctive relief granted by the trial court. In so holding the majority muddles the standing required of a party to intervene in a class action with a party’s right to obtain equitable relief for protection against imminent and irreparable harm. To the extent the majority’s “standing” requirement is just a misstatement of the rule that only those persons who may be injured by an act may seek to enjoin that act, the majority *210is wrong that appellees have not shown the requisite personalized harm, both individually and in their representative capacities. The majority’s rejection of the individualized harm is based on its improper refusal to apply the facts as they existed at the time the trial court granted the injunctive relief; its refusal to recognize the harm to appellees in their representational capacity stems from its misunderstanding of the nature of the equitable relief sought by appellees and the well-established law authorizing Georgia courts to grant that relief. The end result of the majority’s confusion is the undermining of the authority of Georgia courts to uphold this State’s law and protect our citizens from illegal and unconscionable class action settlements that Georgia domiciliaries have negotiated in foreign states for the purpose of evading Georgia law. Because the majority’s reversal of the trial court is unwarranted both factually and legally, as detailed below, I must dissent.
The Alabama suit was filed in June 2002. Although the majority stresses that this was “almost two years” before appellees’ suit was filed in Georgia, nothing in the record refutes appellees’ assertion that they were unaware of the Alabama action when they filed their class action. Indeed, the record in this case reflects the lackadaisical manner in which the Alabama litigation was conducted: although filed in June 2002, it was not until December 2003, 18 months later, that the Alabama court pushed the parties to begin the process of certifying the class when it issued an order setting forth a schedule of class certification deadlines. In contrast, in appellees’ suit — filed in March 2004, a mere three months after the Alabama scheduling order — the entire certification process was completed and the actual class was certified by the court less than six months after the filing date.
Appellants and the Alabama plaintiff negotiated a proposed stipulation of settlement which contained a definition of the class members covered by the agreement. It must be emphasized that that definition remained subject to change pending final approval of the settlement by the Alabama court. It was after the Alabama court gave temporary approval to the proposed settlement that appellees sought the equitable relief at issue in this case. They asked the trial court to enjoin appellants from sending out notices of the proposed settlement to the Georgia members of the Alabama class because those notices inadequately informed them of the many legal remedies under Georgia law they stood to forfeit if they did not affirmatively opt out of the Alabama class action. The trial court granted the requested relief only after hearing extensive evidence, including testimony by the former Georgia Commissioner of Insurance, about the illegal terms of the proposed Alabama settlement. Although recognizing the Alabama court’s authority under Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts, 472 U. S. 797 (II) (105 SC 2965, 86 LE2d 628) (1985) to settle the *211multi-state class action, the trial court found that well-established principles of equity demanded that it intervene after appellees carried their burden of showing that the “purpose, or necessary effect, of [the Alabama action was] to obtain an unconscionable or inequitable advantage to which [appellants] would not be entitled in the domicile of the parties. [Cits.]” McDaniel v. Alford, 148 Ga. 609, 610 (1) (97 SE 673) (1918). Specifically, the trial court expressly found that appellants were parties in Alabama to a proposed class action settlement which imposed on Georgia members of the class terms that were “illegal and unconscionable” under Georgia law and which was entered into for the purpose of evading Georgia law.
The majority does not refute or otherwise challenge the trial court’s findings about the illegality of the Alabama settlement. Nor can it challenge the trial court’s subsequent finding that appellees are fully qualified to represent the putative Georgia plaintiffs in their class action, given this Court’s unanimous denial of appellants’ application for interlocutory appeal from the trial court’s order certifying the Georgia class and finding that appellees will “fairly and adequately protect the interests” of that class. See American Med. Sec. Group v. Parker, Case No. S05I0274 (denied November 22, 2004). Instead, the majority reverses the trial court based on the misconception that appellees’ standing, or lack thereof, to contest the Alabama class action somehow controls the issue whether appellees may seek and obtain injunctive relief to protect themselves and the Georgia plaintiffs they represent against the imminent and irreparable harm created by appellants’ actions.
At this point it is important to stress that Georgia law has long recognized that Georgia courts have the authority under their inherent equitable powers to order any party over whom the court has personal jurisdiction to act or refrain from acting in regard to litigation being conducted in another state. Sanders v. Yates, 215 Ga. 218, 219 (109 SE2d 739) (1959) (court of equity may act in personam and direct parties by injunction to proceed no further in foreign state lawsuit); see also Guerra v. Texaco Exploration & Prod. (In re Lease Oil Antitrust Litig. (No. II)), 48 FSupp.2d 699, 704-705 (S.D. Tex. 1998) (court’s injunctive power to control a party’s actions extends to defendants and includes the power to enjoin defendants from entering into settlement agreements in cases pending in other courts).9 This power of a court in equity to restrain all parties involved in litigation in a foreign court “rests upon the basis that the person *212whom it is sought to enjoin is within the jurisdiction of the court, and he can be prevented from doing an inequitable thing. [Cit.]” Ambursen Hydraulic &c. Co. v. Northern Contracting Co., 140 Ga. 1, 7 (78 SE 340) (1913). The majority does not controvert that Georgia courts have the equitable authority to enjoin the actions of defendants such as appellants in circumstances involving the settlement of litigation initiated in other states.
However, the majority refuses to allow the trial court here to protect appellees and the other members of the Georgia class appellees represent because of appellees’ lack of “standing.” The majority’s first error is confusing the commonality requirement of class actions, codified in Georgia in OCGA § 9-11-23 (a), with the legal analysis applicable to a request for injunctive relief. The correct legal analysis is not whether appellees have standing to contest the Alabama class action but whether they have shown the requisite imminent and irreparable harm required to justify the grant of equitable relief. See generally Morton v. Gardner, 242 Ga. 852, 856 (252 SE2d 413) (1979). The factual overlap that these two issues present should not confuse the separate legal analyses each issue involves. Appellees do not need “standing” as that term is defined in OCGA§ 9-11-23 because they are not seeking here to intervene in or otherwise overturn the Alabama class action settlement.10 Nor are they seeking to enjoin the Alabama court. It is beyond cavil that no Georgia court has any right or power to dictate the behavior of a sister state’s judiciary. “The power of a court of equity to interfere by way of injunction with other judicial proceedings is not addressed to [the] other court but is directed to and acts only on the litigant party.” (Footnote omitted; emphasis supplied.) 42 AmJur2d, Injunctions § 185, p. 776. See also Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Pope, 209 Ga. 187, 189 (71 SE2d 243) (1952), rev’d on other grounds, 345 U. S. 379 (73 SC 749, 97 LE2d 1094) (1953).
All appellees sought was to protect their interests and the interests of the Georgia class they represent in the Georgia action from appellants’ actions insofar as those actions adversely affected them. Thus, contrary to the majority’s assertion, the trial court here was not legally required to determine appellees’ “standing” to contest another state’s class action ruling: it was only legally required to determine if appellees had carried their burden of showing that they stood to suffer imminent and irreparable harm as a result of appellants’ actions. Morton, supra, 242 Ga. at 856. See also, e.g., Commonwealth United Corp. v. Rothberg, 221 Ga. 175, 176 (143 SE2d 741) *213(1965); Ferrell v. Wight, 187 Ga. 360 (4) (200 SE 271) (1938) (setting forth the general rule that an action at law will not be enjoined at the instance of a stranger to the proceeding who would not be bound by the judgment).
Looking to the substance of the majority’s ruling, as opposed to the inappropriate nomenclature, the majority concludes appellees failed to show how they could be injured by appellants’ actions in their individual capacities because the majority determined that appellees have been excluded as members of the Alabama class and thus cannot be affected by the settlement. However, the majority ignores the fact that the definition of the Alabama class had not received final approval at the time appellees sought and were awarded injunctive relief in Georgia. The record reflects that appellees’ motion to enjoin appellants’ actions was filed in May 2004 and granted in June 2004. No ruling approving the class definition had been entered as of the date this appeal was docketed in this Court in August 2004.11 The majority’s conclusion that appellees were not harmed as individuals is thus necessarily based on the premise that a party’s “standing” is determined not on the facts existing at the time injunctive relief is sought and awarded; rather, it is determined on the possibility that the party might lose standing at some later point in time. The majority’s conclusion is factually and legally insupportable.12
Nor is the majority’s position aided by the Alabama court’s “clarification” order that appellees would be excluded from the Alabama class. That order was not entered until six weeks after the injunctive relief was ordered. “ [W] e are bound by law to consider only that evidence which the trial court had before it and which was in the record before the trial court when it made its ruling.” Baez v. State, 206 Ga. App. 522, 528 (2) (425 SE2d 885) (1992). See also T & R Custom v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 227 Ga. App. 144 (1) (488 SE2d 705) (1997). By relying on the “clarification” order, the majority improperly seeks to justify its reversal of the trial court’s order based upon a set of circumstances that did not exist at the time the ruling was issued.
The majority also rejects appellees’ argument that they faced imminent and irreparable injury from appellants’ behavior in their *214capacity as representatives of all the putative plaintiffs in the Georgia class action. According to the majority, appellees seek to “do indirectly what they cannot do directly,” but the majority then incorrectly asserts that appellees’ goal is “to enjoin the Alabama settlement.” The majority misunderstands both the applicable law and appellees’ goal. Appellees’ goal was to enjoin appellants’ activities that undermined appellees’ class action. To reach that goal, appellees did directly what they are fully authorized under Georgia law to do: obtain injunctive relief against a Georgia defendant whose litigation activities in another state threatened imminent and irreparable harm to appellees as representatives of all the unknowing Georgia victims of appellants’ actions. There was no indirect action involved. Georgia law authorized the trial court to order appellants to desist with the settlement notice, i.e., “ ‘to proceed no further in such suit,”’ because appellees had shown that “ ‘the purpose, or necessary effect, of such action [was] to obtain an unconscionable or inequitable advantage to which [appellants] would not be entitled in the domicile of the parties.’ [Cit.]” Sanders v. Yates, supra, 215 Ga. at 219. The trial court exercised its equitable power in an appropriately sparing manner by enjoining appellants only in regard to their actions that affected the Georgia members of the Alabama class. See Tennessee Farmers &c. Ins. Co. v. Wheeler, 170 Ga. App. 380, 381-382 (2) (317 SE2d 269) (1984) (“[t]he power of a court to enjoin a party from proceeding with an action in the court of another state should be exercised ‘sparingly, not capriciously, and not unless a clear equity is presented requiring the interposition of the court to prevent manifest wrong and injustice.’ [Cits.]”).
The majority incorrectly refuses to acknowledge the harm sustained by appellees, both individually and in their representative capacity on behalf of the unsuspecting victims of the unconscionable settlement appellants negotiated in Alabama. Instead, the majority has grafted an inapplicable “standing” requirement into Georgia law that serves only to aid and abet collusive behavior by out-of-state class action litigants. Instead of affirming a Georgia court’s duty to uphold this State’s law and protect our citizens, the majority empowers the stratagems of parties like appellants who would use class action litigation as a means of depriving Georgians of their legal rights and remedies. I cannot condone a result that is neither supported nor warranted by applicable Georgia law. I would recognize a Georgia court’s authority to exercise its equitable powers to protect Georgia residents and prevent parties from evading Georgia law. Accordingly, I would affirm the trial court’s grant of injunctive relief to appellees and uphold the trial court’s finding that appellants acted in contempt of court when they failed to comply with the injunction order.
*215Decided March 31, 2005 —
Reconsideration denied April 14, 2005.
Moore, Ingram, Johnson & Steele, Robert D. Ingram, Burr & Forman, Gregory F Harley, Bruce H Beerman, James E. Fleenor, Jr., Wilson F. Green, William C. Collins, Jr., for appellants.
Roy E. Barnes, John F. Salter, Jr., Allison B. Salter, Jennifer A. Jordan, Hollis & Wright, L. Andrew Hollis, Jr., Steven W. Couch, for appellees.
I am authorized to state that Justice Benham and Justice Hines join in this dissent.

 Federal courts thus exercise this authority to prevent defendants before them from settling cases in other courts notwithstanding the additional constraints on their authority placed on them - but not on state courts — by Federal laws, such as the All Writs Act and the Anti-Injunction Act, 28 USC §§ 1651 and 2283.

 Because appellees did not seek to intervene in the Alabama class action in order to object to the terms of the stipulation of settlement, the cases on which the majority relies, e.g., Ex Parte Anderson (In re Dyer v. Monsanto Co.), 807 So2d 505 (Ala. 2000), see Majority Opinion, fn. 3, have no applicability whatsoever in this case.

 Appellants subsequently submitted a reply brief to which they attached a copy of the Alabama court’s September 29, 2004 order certifying the class and approving the settlement.

 Likewise, the special concurrence overlooks numerous facts establishing that appellees did not “opt out” of the Alabama class action by filing the Georgia suit, namely, the uncontroverted evidence that appellees’ suit was filed in ignorance of the pending Alabama suit; it was filed weeks before the Alabama court even temporarily approved the stipulation of settlement containing the proposed class definition; and the injunctive relief in this case was awarded before issuance of the notices setting forth the “opt out” date for membership in the Alabama class action.