Court Opinion

ID: 9590683
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:57:34.624911+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:40:19.081174
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
This case is illustrative of a prospective appellant walking on egg shells or minefields through the narrow winding passageway of a spaghetti junction, while seriously striving and seeking to select and identify the proper pathway of either an interlocutory, discretionary, or a direct appeal. Acknowledging that statutory requirements and conditions precedent in selecting the appropriate appellate process are jurisdictional, the fact that our published reports, as well as unpublished opinions, are liberally littered with the corpses of cases where the death penalty of dismissal has been speedily carried out, confirms the difficulties, pitfalls, and dangers of one’s seeking to maneuver around on the one hand, the “narrow path between the Scylla . . . and the Charybdis” on the other. Brogdon v. McMillan, 116 Ga. App. 34 (2) (156 SE2d 828) (1967). If one single appellate technicality and hurdle is avoided and overcome in this area, forty-nine other damnations sometime seem to appear to snag appellant’s effort to appeal. “Forty-nine distinct damnations; one sure if another fails.” Coolik v. Hawk, 133 Ga. App. 626, 628 (212 SE2d 7) (1974).
This much at least seems to obtain. Legislative directions and requirements as to jurisdiction must receive strict, serious, and sound scrutiny and exacting compliance. In contrast, our court directions, rules, and court orders directed to appellants, on the other hand, may be taken lightly, cavalierly, or many times totally ignored and mostly without any type of sanction. Endless extensions are enlisted and extravagantly indulged. In sending out its docketing notice, pursuant to court rule, our court directs, instructs, or orders appellant to file a brief and enumeration of errors within twenty days. On many occasions this time limit is ignored. Often an extension of time is requested and almost always an appellant is provided additional time in *477an extension. If the latter court order granting an extension deadline is also ignored by appellant, the court still does not impose sanctions of contempt or dismiss the appeal until further action of the court. Once again, the court issues still another order providing an extension of five additional days to file before we indicate the case will theoretically be dismissed if there is a noncompliance. If the case is a civil case, the court, by another subsequent court order, then and only then, dismisses the case. If the appeal is a criminal case, although all designated time limits have been ignored, we generally nevertheless always subsequently consider all the merits of the case. Rarely, if ever, are repeated threatened sanctions of dismissal and contempt considered, or contempt hearings held, whether civil or criminal cases are involved. Our court orders, in contrast to legislative direction, may rightfully appear as “a toothless tiger” and a “fish that cannot swim.” Tanner v. State, 160 Ga. App. 266, 267 (287 SE2d 268) (1981).
Decided February 10, 1989
Rehearing denied February 27, 1989
Billy L. Spruell, for appellant.
Lewis R. Slaton, District Attorney, George J. Robinson, Jr., Joseph J. Drolet, Richard E. Hicks, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.
Seemingly, the same equal fairness of either strict scrutiny toward all appeals should obtain, or a similar type of liberal treatment by the court toward all litigants in rendering a decision on the merits of every case sought to be appealed should be our goal. All appellants should be fed out of the same spoon. This might require statutory changes or court-rule modifications allowing for issuing court orders permitting out-of-time perfecting of an appeal by an amendment relating back, secured from the trial court. At this time, the mechanics, whether statutory or by court rule, of out-of-time jurisdictional corrections or perfecting of an appeal by amendments relating back do not exist. With these observations, I respectfully concur in the judgment of the majority opinion in the instant case.