Chestnut Ridge, LLC v. Hall County Board of Tax Assessors

Chestnut Ridge, a limited partnership, owned land near Lake Lanier under a conservation use covenant that gave it a lower property tax assessment in exchange for keeping the land undeveloped for ten years. When Chestnut Ridge sold part of the land to a buyer that never applied to continue the covenant, the Hall County Board of Tax Assessors declared a breach and imposed tax penalties. Chestnut Ridge challenged the penalty in Hall County Superior Court, arguing among other things that the law setting the penalty, O.C.G.A. § 48-5-7.4(l), was unconstitutionally vague. On appeal, the Board pointed out that Chestnut Ridge never served Georgia's Attorney General with notice of its constitutional challenge, as a 2022 change to state law requires whenever someone claims a statute is unconstitutional in any kind of lawsuit, not just a formal declaratory judgment case. Because that notice never happened, the Supreme Court of Georgia held the trial court had no power to decide the constitutional question at all, and sent the case back so Chestnut Ridge can properly notify the Attorney General.

A 2022 amendment to O.C.G.A. § 9-4-7(c) requires that the Attorney General be served with notice whenever a party alleges a state statute is unconstitutional in any lawsuit, not just declaratory judgment actions, and failing to do so strips the trial court of subject-matter jurisdiction over that constitutional claim.

The ruling reminds Georgia litigants and their lawyers that since 2022, anyone challenging a state law's constitutionality in any lawsuit, not just declaratory judgment cases, must notify the Attorney General or risk having their entire challenge thrown out for lack of jurisdiction.

Judgment vacated in part and case remanded

1. The court explained that Georgia's Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act historically required serving the Attorney General only in formal declaratory judgment lawsuits challenging a statute's constitutionality, not in other kinds of cases.
2. In 2022, the General Assembly amended O.C.G.A. § 9-4-7(c) to add that the service requirement also applies when a statute is alleged unconstitutional 'as a part of any other action,' a change the court read as intentionally broadening the rule beyond declaratory judgment suits.
3. Applying the broad statutory definition of 'action' as any judicial means of enforcing a right, the court concluded that Chestnut Ridge's tax appeal counted as an 'action' covered by the amended notice requirement.
4. Because Chestnut Ridge admitted at oral argument that it never served the Attorney General before the trial court ruled on its vagueness challenge to O.C.G.A. § 48-5-7.4(l), the trial court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, meaning it had no legal authority, to decide that constitutional question.
5. Relying on prior precedent that a court without jurisdiction over a constitutional claim can only dismiss it, the court vacated the trial court's ruling on the constitutional issue and sent the case back so the Attorney General could be properly notified and given a chance to weigh in.

• conservation use covenant
• property tax penalty
• Attorney General notice requirement
• subject-matter jurisdiction
• Hall County tax dispute