Opinion
A24A0624
02-12-2024
JACKSON v. PARAMOUNT PROPERTIES MANAGEMENT GROUP, LLC.
The Court of Appeals hereby passes the following order:
Paramount Properties Management Group initiated a dispossessory action against Derrick Jackson, alleging failure to pay rent, in January 2022. On October 2, 2023, the Superior Court of Fulton County entered an order holding Jackson in contempt for failing to obey a prior court order requiring him, inter alia, to pay $30,000.00 into the Registry of the Court by December 31, 2022. Jackson appealed.
Jackson has since filed a notice showing that he filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition in federal court and is therefore entitled to the automatic stay of proceedings under 11 USC § 362.
The filing of a bankruptcy petition automatically operates as a stay of "the commencement or continuation . . . of a judicial . . . action or proceeding against the debtor that was or could have been commenced before the" filing of such petition. 11 USC § 362 (a) (1). "The appellate courts of this State are constitutionally required to dispose of every case at the term of court for which it is entered on the courts' dockets for hearing or at the next term of court, and so this Court does not have the power to stay a case." Ironwood Capital Partners v. Jones, 355 Ga.App. 371, 374-375 (1), 844 S.E.2d 245 (2020); see Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. VI, Sec. IX, Par. II. Instead, to the extent a bankruptcy stay applies, this Court will remand the appeal to the trial court until the stay of proceedings is lifted, at which time the appellant may re-institute the
appeal by filing a new notice of appeal in the trial court within 30 days of the date of the entry of the order in the bankruptcy court lifting the stay. See Boardman v. Brenninkmeijer, 328 Ga.App. 882, 883-884, 763 S.E.2d 267 (2014).Modi v. India-American Cultural Assoc., 367 Ga.App. 572, 573 (886 S.E.2d 378) (2023).
Accordingly, we REMAND this case to the trial court until the stay of proceedings is lifted.