Land Swap Upheld: South River Watershed Alliance v. DeKalb County

South River Watershed Alliance v. DeKalb Cnty., 2024 WL 4552579, at *1 (Ga.App., 2024)

In 2021, DeKalb County closed on a deal to swap land used as a public park with land owned by Blackhall Real Estate Phase II (“Blackhall”) (collectively, “Appellees”) so that Blackhall could develop the park land for its own purposes and DeKalb County could create a new public park. South River Watershed Alliance, South River Forest Coalition and their members, a group of several citizens, residents and tax payers of DeKalb Counties (collectively, “Appellants”) filed suit, alleging that the land swap deal was an ultra vires act and seeking declaratory, injunctive, and mandamus relief. In pursuing their lawsuit, Appellants relied, in part, on Article I, Section II, Paragraph V of Georgia’s Constitution (“Paragraph V”), which was adopted in 2020 and waived sovereign immunity for certain lawsuits, including those lawsuits against a county for declaratory judgment and related injunctive relief.

[. . .]

Here, the Appellants’ complaint violates Paragraph V’s exclusivity provision by naming DeKalb County and “Blackhall Real Estate Phase II, LLC” as defendants. Appellants argue that there are no published cases applying the exclusivity provision to a lawsuit filed against a county and a private entity that is also a necessary and indispensable party to the action. That may be true, but we are bound by our Supreme Court’s clear ruling that the exclusivity provision “means what it says: actions filed pursuant to Paragraph V must name as a defendant only the State of Georgia (or the relevant local government) or the action shall be dismissed.” (Citation omitted; emphasis in original.)