Court Opinion

ID: 9583276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:36:53.983291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:55.043285
License: Public Domain

Sognier, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The majority has determined that the Supreme Court’s decision in Balboa Ins. Co. v. A. J. Kellos Constr. Co., 247 Ga. 393 (276 SE2d 599) (1981) implicitly overruled its earlier decision in Houston &c. Co. v. Brock Constr. Co., 241 Ga. 460 (246 SE2d 316) (1978), and by declining to apply Balboa retroactively, the indirect effect of the majority’s opinion is to hold that the Supreme Court in Balboa established a new principle of law. See Flewellen v. Atlanta Cas. Co., 250 Ga. 709, 712 (300 SE2d 673) (1983).
I disagree. I find nothing contrary in the decisions of Balboa and Houston. Moreover, I find that the Balboa decision did not establish a new principle of law, but was instead clearly foreshadowed by the warning in Houston that “[w]hether particular rules established under that Title [former Title 103, now OCGA § 10-7-1 et seq.] differ from the law to be applied to compensated sureties must be decided on a case-by-case basis.” Id. at 464. (Emphasis supplied.)
Therefore I cannot agree with the majority’s refusal to apply Balboa retroactively. In Flewellen, supra, which adopted the test in Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97 (92 SC 349, 30 LE2d 296) (1971) for retroactivity the Supreme Court stated that in deciding a retroactivity question the court should: “Consider whether the decision to be applied nonretroactively established a new principle of law, either by overruling past precedent on which litigants relied, or by deciding an issue of first impression whose resolution was not clearly foreshadowed.” Flewellen, supra at 712. Balboa did not explicitly overrule any past precedent, and while the issue may have been one of first impression, the Balboa resolution was foreshadowed by the language used in Houston, supra at 464.
Although I feel that the Supreme Court’s decision in Balboa is harsh in requiring one who has paid a surety to take additional steps before collecting from that surety the benefits for which one has paid, nevertheless the holding in Balboa is the law and we are constrained to follow it. I would affirm the trial court’s grant of appellee’s motion for summary judgment.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Birdsong, Judge Carley and Judge Beasley join in this dissent.