Court Opinion

ID: 9585989
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:06:07.791016+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:18.396419
License: Public Domain

CARLEY, Justice,
concurring.
I concur fully in the majority’s affirmance of the judgment of the Court of Appeals. I write separately only to clarify that today’s opinion should not be read as authority for the proposition that a metes and bounds description will invariably control over an incorporated plat. As recognized in 2 Hinkel, Pindar’s Georgia Real Estate Law and Procedure, § 19-160, p. 460 (6th ed. 2004), “an analysis of Georgia cases reveals a definite tendency to accept the first description over the second.” Thus, there is authority for the proposition that an initial description which takes the form of an incorporated plat can control over a succeeding metes and bounds description. See Williams Bros. Lumber Co. v. Massey, 179 Ga. 508 (1) (176 SE 378) (1934). If there is any general rule for construing a deed such as that presented in this case it is that “[t]hat which is most material and certain in a description prevails over that which is less material and certain... Harrison v. Durham, 210 Ga. 187, 188 (5) (78 SE2d 482) (1953). Here, the description in the deed referring to the conveyance of access rights between the grantor’s remaining property and “the LIMITED ACCESS HIGHWAY and approaches thereto on the above-numbered Highway” is certainly more material and certain than the vague and otherwise unexplained notations on the incorporated plat which, as the majority correctly notes onp. 723, “relat[es] to a different project... not mentioned in the language of the deed.” Therefore, the notations on the plat cannot be construed as effectuating a conveyance of access rights between the grantor’s remaining property and U.S. Highway 29. Accordingly, I agree that the Court of Appeals correctly affirmed the trial court’s grant of partial summary judgment in favor of Meadow Trace.
*724Stewart, Melvin & Frost, Frank Armstrong III, Alston &Bird, T. Michael Tennant, Kilpatrick Stockton, Tim Carssow, Curtis A. Garrett, Jr., Thomas C. Harney, for appellees.