Court Opinion

ID: 9565644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:25:03.196544+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:48.586241
License: Public Domain

HINES, Justice,
concurring specially.
I must concur with the determination that the ruling at issue is not within the purview of OCGA § 5-6-34 (a) (2), which confers a right of direct appeal for judgments in “contempt cases.” I am persuaded to do so because the superior court itself considered the gravamen of its ruling as one for sanctions under OCGA § 9-11-37 (b) (2) (C) rather than a judgment of contempt.
Following entry of this October 3, 2006 order sanctioning the appellants by striking their answer and entering a judgment of liability against them, the appellants filed a notice of appeal to the *111Court of Appeals; however, the appellees filed a motion in the superior court to dismiss the appeal as premature, contending that the order was interlocutory. On November 2, 2006, the superior court issued an order granting the motion to dismiss the appeal as premature.26 In this dismissal order, the superior court made plain that regardless of its finding in the October 3, 2006 order that the appellants were in “wilful contempt” of a prior court ruling regarding discovery, the purpose of the order was not to hold appellants in contempt or to impose penalties based upon any acts of contumacy; instead, the intent of the order was to sanction appellants for abuse of discovery under OCGA § 9-11-37. Indeed, the dismissal order expressly finds that the October 3, 2006 order “did not attach [the appellants] for contempt and no penalty or punishment for contempt was levied,” but instead that order “imposed discovery abuse sanctions under O.C.G.A. § 9-11-37.”
Decided July 7, 2008.
Moore, Ingram, Johnson & Steele, Robert D. Ingram, Alexander T. Galloway III, Christopher D. Gunnels, for appellants.
Roy E. Barnes, John E Salter, Jr., Allison B. Salter, Steven W. Couch, for appellees.
A superior court has the authority to interpret and clarify its own orders, including the power to shed light on the scope of an earlier ruling. Barlow v. State, 279 Ga. 870, 872 (621 SE2d 438) (2005); Blair v. Blair, 272 Ga. 94, 96 (1) (527 SE2d 177) (2000); King v. Bishop, 198 Ga. App. 622, 624 (402 SE2d 307) (1991). Here, by its subsequent order, the superior court made plain that it did not intend to enter a substantive judgment of contempt against the appellants and that its finding regarding the appellants’ “wilful contempt” was, in effect, superfluous. Although unquestionably it is for this Court to make the ultimate legal determination as to the nature of the order at issue, this Court should not ignore the clear intent behind the order. Consequently, I cannot conclude that this is a “contempt case” subject to the right of direct appeal under OCGA § 5-6-34 (a) (2).

 Appellants sought a direct appeal from the dismissal order to the Court of Appeals. Citing Rolleston v. Cherry, 233 Ga. App. 295, 296 (504 SE2d 504) (1998), the Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal on the basis that “an appeal from an order entered by the trial court to dismiss an unauthorized appeal of an interlocutory order must itself comply with the interlocutory appeal procedures.”