The manner in which the Georgia Court of Appeals handles disagreements over the disposition of cases will be undergoing big changes over the next few months.

The 15 judges of the Georgia Court of Appeals sit in panels of three. Until now, a 2-1 decision (two judges in the majority, one judge dissenting) was not a possible outcome. If one judge in a panel of three judges wished to dissent, the case automatically was turned over to a panel consisting of seven (now nine) judges who could decide the case by majority vote. The parties and attorneys involved in such a case would not know that this process had happened until the Court issued a decision. Also, the Court's procedures provided no mechanism for a party to ask for a rehearing before all of the judges.

Effective September 1, 2016, the judges of the Court of Appeals changed their operating procedures and plan to implement the following beginning with the Court's December 2017 Term (which begins December 5, 2016):

The Court will allow 2-1 decisions in the event of a dissent, without requiring two additional divisions of the Court to participate. A 2-1 decision will constitute physical precedent only and be of no precedential value. See Court of Appeals Rule 33.

The Court will establish operating procedures to poll the entire Court to determine whether the Court desires to hear the case en banc in the event precedent is proposed to be overruled or a judge wishes to have the entire Court consider a case en banc. The Court is also considering procedures by which a party may request a rehearing en banc, consistent with the two-term rule.

Allowing 2-1 decisions with a dissent is a big change. It will reduce the workload of the judges. Additional judges will no longer need to become involved in deciding cases in which the original three judge panel could not agree.  However, this likely will increase the number of decisions without precedential value. It will be interesting to see how often the Court allows such an outcome and does not turn the case over to a larger group of judges.

Creating a procedure for parties to request a rehearing en banc will be difficult. In the past, decisions with dissents have regularly been issued near the end of the term of court. Under the Court's "two-term rule," a case must be decided by the end of the second term after the case is submitted for decision. If a decision with dissents is announced only a few weeks before the end of the second term, the Court would very little time in which to consider or dispose of a motion for rehearing en banc.

The announcement of new operating procedures of the Court is available at http://www.gaappeals.us/news2.php?title=Court%20of%20Appeals%20New%20Operating%20Procedures

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