ATLANTA (LN) — The Georgia Court of Appeals on Monday issued an order in NBCUniversal Media, LLC v. Hevekiah Walker, remanding the case to the trial court for consideration of constitutional challenges to OCGA § 18-4-43(a).
The court rejected NBCUniversal’s request to invalidate a default judgment entered against the media company in an amount exceeding $0.50 million on its own, noting that the constitutional issues had not yet been ruled upon court.
NBCUniversal had appealed the trial court’s denial of its motion to set aside the default judgment. The motion, filed under OCGA § 9-11-60(d)(3), raised both facial and as-applied constitutional challenges to the continuing garnishment statute based on the due process clauses of the federal and Georgia constitutions, as well as the Georgia Constitution’s Excessive Fines Clause.
The Supreme Court of Georgia had previously transferred the appeal to the Court of Appeals, finding that its own jurisdiction had not been properly invoked because the trial court had not yet entered a ruling on the constitutional challenge.
In its Monday order, the appellate court cited the general rule that an unconstitutional statute is “wholly void and of no force and effect it was enacted.”
However, the court noted that because the constitutional challenge was raised but not ruled upon below, the trial court must address the constitutionality of the garnishment statute instance.
The order cited Barnes v. Bearden, 357 Ga. App. 99 (2020), for the proposition that such questions must first be addressed court, not on appeal.
The case is now remanded to the trial court for consideration of the constitutional questions.