Michael T. Ireland v. Vera Blackshear Williams

Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia

ATLANTA,____________________

August 02, 2018 The Court of Appeals hereby passes the following order:

A18A1185. IRELAND v. WILLIAMS.

In the above-referenced case, this Court granted Michael Ireland’s application for an interlocutory appeal from the trial court’s denial of his motion for summary judgment in Vera Williams’s negligence action against him. In his notice of appeal, Ireland requested that the clerk of the trial court “please include everything and omit nothing from the [r]ecord on appeal[,]” including, but not limited to, all hearing transcripts. But while the appellate record appears to include most court filings, orders, and hearing transcripts, much of the underlying evidence submitted to and considered by the trial court in deciding Ireland’s summary-judgment motion and cited by the parties in their briefs, such as deposition transcripts, is absent from the appellate record. Limited to the record as it now stands, this Court cannot conduct meaningful review of Ireland’s appeal. And this Court, of course, cannot consider evidence that was not part of the trial court’s record prior to appeal.1 Although it appears that there are several deposition transcripts and other discovery materials necessary to resolve this appeal that were filed in the trial court and not ultimately transferred to this Court, we are unable to determine exactly what evidentiary items should be requested from the trial court.

It is unclear how long it will take the trial court to complete this process, and this Court is constitutionally mandated to “dispose of every case at the term for which it is entered on the court’s docket for hearing or at the next term.” Ga. Const. Art. 6, § 9, ¶ II. Given that the parties must be provided “a fair and equal opportunity to present key evidence that was considered by the trial court[,]”2 and we cannot confirm they will be able to do so in time for us to decide this appeal by the end of the term, we REMAND this case to the trial court to give the parties the opportunity to supplement the record for transmission to this Court to the extent that the trial court deems it proper to do so.3 Accordingly, we remove this case from our docket, and upon completion, the Clerk of the Superior Court of Tift County may re-transmit the case to this Court for re-docketing pursuant to the originally filed notice of appeal.

Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia

Clerk’s Office, Atlanta,____________________

08/02/2018 I certify that the above is a true extract from the minutes of the Court of Appeals of Georgia.

Witness my signature and the seal of said court hereto affixed the day and year last above written.

, Clerk.