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Official Code of Georgia Annotated

Title 15. COURTS · Chapter 10. MAGISTRATE COURTS · Article 3. CIVIL PROCEEDINGS

15-10-41. No jury trials; appeal.

Active

Current through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly.

  1. (a)

    There shall be no jury trials in the magistrate court.#

  2. (b)
    1. (1)

      Except as otherwise provided in this subsection, appeals may be had from judgments returned in the magistrate court to the state court of the county or to the superior court of the county and the same provisions now provided for by general law for appeals contained in Chapter 3 of Title 5 shall be applicable to appeals from the magistrate court, the same to be a de novo appeal. The provisions of Chapter 3 of Title 5 shall also apply to appeals to state court.#

    2. (2)

      No appeal shall lie from a default judgment or from a dismissal for want of prosecution after a nonappearance of a plaintiff for trial. Any voluntary dismissal by the plaintiff or by order of the court for want of prosecution shall be without prejudice except that the filing of a second such dismissal shall operate as an adjudication upon the merits. Review, including review of a denial of a postjudgment motion to vacate a judgment, shall be by petition for review to the state court of that county or to the superior court of that county. Upon a reversal of a default judgment or reversal of a refusal to open a default judgment, the magistrate court shall retain jurisdiction to hear the merits of the case de novo.#

The notes below are printed with the section but are not enacted law (O.C.G.A. § 1-1-1(c)). They are shown apart from the text.

History

Code 1981, § 15-10-41, enacted by Ga. L. 1983, p. 884, § 2-1; Ga. L. 1984, p. 1096, § 5; Ga. L. 1986, p. 701, § 2; Ga. L. 1987, p. 1009, § 1; Ga. L. 1993, p. 974, § 1; Ga. L. 2008, p. 824, § 1/HB 958; Ga. L. 2022, p. 767, § 2-9/HB 916; Ga. L. 2024, p. 201, § 4/SB 450, effective April 22, 2024.

Amendments

The 2024 amendment, effective April 22, 2024, added the last sentence in paragraph (b)(2).

Read the official page (the state's PDF, opened at the page this text was read from).

Current through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly.

Text read from t15-ch1-11a-(v13)-pdf.pdf, Volume V13, 2020 edition, 2025 supplement, page 116; merge action: replaced; file SHA-256 d86fd6e4449f.