Green Meadows Housing Partners, LP v. Macon-Bibb Cnty., 372 Ga.App. 724 (Ga.App., 2024)
In an effort to reduce crime in the affordable housing community of Green Meadows Townhomes, Macon-Bibb County filed a public-nuisance action against the property’s owners, Green Meadows Housing Partners, LP, and its related entities.1 And in an ex parte hearing that same day, the County successfully moved the trial court to declare the property a public nuisance and appoint a receiver to take control of the housing complex. GMHP filed an answer and moved to vacate the ex parte order; but following an emergency hearing, the trial court reaffirmed the finding that the property was a public nuisance, as well as the appointment of the receiver. Subsequently, GMHP appealed, and the County then cross appealed.
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Here, it is undisputed the trial court did not provide GMHP with any notice or hearing prior to issuing an ex parte order appointing a receiver and granting that receiver virtually unfettered control over all aspects of the Property’s management. Put in more stark terms, the County took away a business’s private property with absolutely no due process.
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In its order denying GMHP’s motion to vacate, the trial court conceded that the appointment of a receiver to abate a public nuisance is unprecedented. This is hardly surprising given that our Supreme Court has explicitly held that “[i]n the absence of any statutory expansion of equity jurisdiction, a public nuisance may be abated in equity by injunction only.”33 Nevertheless, in support of its decision to appoint a receiver (in that same order), the trial court cited OCGA § 9-8-1, which provides: “When any fund or property is in litigation and the rights of either or both parties cannot otherwise be fully protected or when there is a fund or property having no one to manage it, a receiver of the same may be appointed by the judge of the superior court having jurisdiction thereof.” But as both parties and the trial court that issued the ex parte order agreed, this statute *734 is not applicable. Rather, the codified purpose of a receivership is to “preserve the property which is the subject of the litigation, and to provide full protection to the parties’ rights to the property until a final disposition of the issues.”34 And here, the County—as it acknowledges—is not asserting a right to or in the Property as contemplated by the statute.35 So, although the County argues the trial court had general plenary power to abate a nuisance in any manner it saw fit, it fails to point to statutory authority or binding Georgia caselaw affirming the appointment of a receiver in any factual situation even remotely analogous to this one. As a result, given the absence of any legal basis supporting the appointment of the receiver, the trial court abused its discretion in ordering the appointment.36 Accordingly, we reverse that aspect of its ruling.
