Court Opinion

ID: 9586171
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:08:00.411071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:44.842266
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I concur fully in the dissent but wish to point out the following with respect to this Court’s jurisdiction of the appeal.
The verdict in this case was for $10,000. Accordingly, the judgment is for $10,000 plus, as usual, costs. Herr took a direct appeal from the judgment and denial of the motion for new trial. OCGA § 5-*4266-35 (a) (6) requires the discretionary appeal procedure to be followed for “[a]ppeals in all actions for damages in which the judgment is $10,000.00 or less.”
Decided March 19,1999
Reconsideration denied April 1,1999
Hyatt & Hyatt, John M. Hyatt, for appellant.
Bovis, Kyle & Burch, John H. Peavy, Jr., for appellee.
Castleberry’s Food Co. v. Smith, 205 Ga. App. 859, 861 (1) (424 SE2d 33) (1992), construed the statutory directive and held that “for establishing jurisdiction pursuant to OCGA § 5-6-35 (a) (6), a judgment is comprised of principal, plus costs, plus interest at the legal rate accrued from the date of the filing of the judgment until the date of the filing of the notice of appeal.” That means that whenever appeal is sought from a judgment in the neighborhood of $10,000, the court will have to be apprised of the amount of the costs and the amount of interest to the date the notice of appeal happens to be filed within a 30-day period. I presume it will be appellant’s burden to prove this so as to establish the jurisdictional threshold for the direct appeal.
That is problematic, as jurisdiction will in some instances rest on the date the appeal notice is filed and not, cleanly, on the amount of the jury’s verdict reduced to judgment. To be safe, a proposed appellant will have to file both an application and a notice of appeal to leave both routes open in the event the calculations are wrong.