Court Opinion

ID: 9623556
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:36:14.031545+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:30.694855
License: Public Domain

MELTON, Justice,
concurring.
Although I concur in the judgment of the majority, I write separately to correct some confusion caused by our decision in Fulton County v. Galberaith, 282 Ga. 314 (647 SE2d 24) (2007). In that case, as pointed out by the majority, the appellees were allowed to raise an “as applied” and facial constitutional attack against provisions of a sign ordinance which directly harmed them. In discussing the appel-lee’s standing to bring these claims, however, our citations to authority were imprecise. Specifically, we cited to Union City Bd. of Zoning Appeals v. Justice Outdoor Displays, 266 Ga. 393 (467 SE2d 875) (1996), and, in a parenthetical, characterized this case as “affirming a superior court’s finding of unconstitutionality of various provisions of a local sign code which were not directly implicated in the underlying appeal from denial of application of variance.” This description of Union City, because it was incorporated in our discussion of standing, gave the erroneous implication that standing to bring “as applied” and facial attacks to sign ordinances would be extended to various provisions of a sign ordinance not implicated by the harm suffered by the challenger. That simply is not the case, as shown by the majority opinion in this case, and it was not our intent to imply in Galberaith otherwise.