Court Opinion

ID: 9623085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:27:34.93632+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:23.420870
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Judge,
concurring. I am in agreement with the majority opinion. However, there are some observations that I feel it proper to make.
I agree that when a statute provides that an official performing a judicial or a quasi-judicial function may exercise a discretion, there is a correlative duty upon him to do so when he is confronted with a motion or other situation involving an exercise of discretion. See cases cited in American Liberty Ins. Co. v. Sanders, 120 Ga. App. 203. I agree, too, that the failure or refusal of such an officer to rule on a matter properly presented for the invoking of a ruling is tantamount *217to an adverse ruling, and if the matter invoked the exercise of a discretion it is tantamount to a failure to exercise a discretion at all. See Waldrop v. Wolff & Happ, 114 Ga. 610, 613 (40 SE 830). And an arbitrary or capricious use of, or an abuse or discretion is the equivalent of. a failure to exercise it at all. South View Cemetery Assn. v. Hailey, 199 Ga. 478, 483 (34 SE2d 863).
However, there is a presumption that officials perform their duties in accord with the requirements of law. Marshall v. Russell, 222 Ga. 490 (1) (150 SE2d 667). I think Judge Whitman, for the majority, properly concludes that “we may assume that the board considered the application [to hear additional testimony] but found it to be without merit.” To state it another way, since there is nothing in the record to indicate that the board either failed to exercise its discretion or abused its discretion in this respect, it is presumed that it did exercise it and did so properly. Milton v. Mitchell County Elec. &c. Assn., 64 Ga. App. 63, 64 (12 SE2d 367); Chambless v. Oates Plumbing &c. Co., 97 Ga. App. 80, 81 (102 SE2d 83).
The recital in a certificate of the secretary-treasurer of the board that there was never a ruling on the application amounts to no more than a certificate that no order or ruling on it appears in the record on file with him. It is provided in Code § 114-710 that within 30 days after the filing of an appeal to the superior court the board shall “cause certified copies of all documents and papers then on file in their office in the matter, and a transcript of all testimony taken therein, to be transmitted with their findings and order or decree to the clerk of the superior court to which the case is appealable.” And see Rourke v. U. S. Fidel. &c. Co., 187 Ga. 636 (4) (1 SE2d 728).
The situation in American Liberty Ins. Co. v. Sanders, 120 Ga. App. 203, supra, was altogether different. In that case, and in cases cited, it affirmatively appeared from the order of. the court or from other circumstances that there was no exercise of discretion.