Court Opinion

ID: 9621263
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:54:51.288493+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:00.177691
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
In Du Bose v. Gormley, 189 Ga. 321 (5 S. E. 2d 909), followed in Beasley v. Burt, 201 Ga. 144 (39 S. E. 2d 51), this court construed Code § 13-905 to mean that the Superintendent was not vested with an absolute discretion, and that Code §§ 13-1701, 13-1702, and 13-1703 did not authorize a mandamus action, but merely an action in the nature of mandamus which was not subject to the terms of Code § 64-102, and that, on the trial of such action, the court’s opinion based on the facts and circumstances, as made to appear by the evidence submitted at the trial, deter*482mines whether a certificate shall issue. Those rulings were made despite the fact that the statute, as it then stood, empowered the Superintendent to make an investigation, and upon that information to decide whether or not he approved the application for charter, and further that the court could compel him to approve it only when the court finds that approval has been wrongfully or improperly refused, and that the facts and circumstances “authorized and required” the approval thereof.
Counsel base their motion for a rehearing upon these decisions despite the fact that our opinion cites the 1951 amendment (Code, Ann. Supp., § 13-905; Ga. L. 1951, pp. 287, 288), which was enacted subsequently to those decisions. That amendment expressly vests in the Superintendent discretion in deciding whether or not he will approve the charter. It also construes the court procedure to be mandamus, which of course subjects it to Code § 64-102. It is therefore clear that neither of the above decisions is applicable, and that our opinion conforms to the law as amended.

Judgment adhered to on rehearing.

All the Justices concur.