All Star, Inc., Elite Amusement, Inc., Ideal Amusements, Inc., Midtown Vending, LLC, and Ultra Group of Companies, Inc. collectively “appellants”, appeal from an order of the Gwinnett County Superior Court granting summary judgment against them and in favor of Georgia Atlanta Amusements, LLC “GAA”, on the appellants’ claims for tortious interference with contractual relations. At issue in this case is OCGA § 50-27-70 et seq., which is the most recent statutory scheme regulating the bona fide coin-operated amusement machine business in this State.1 The trial court found that this law, which became effective on April 10, 2013, voided certain written contracts and/or oral agreements that four of the appellants had with their customers for the placement of coin-operated amusement machines. The trial court reached this conclusion even though the contracts at issue predate the law’s enactment. Based on this holding, the trial court granted summary judgment against the appellants on their claims for tortious interference with contractual relations. On appeal from the summary judgment order, the appellants contend that OCGA § 50-27-70 et seq. should not be interpreted so as to void preexisting contracts. For reasons explained more fully below, we agree. We therefore reverse the trial court’s order granting partial summary judgment against the appellants.
The relevant facts are largely undisputed but where any doubt existed, we have construed the record in favor of the appellants, as the non-movants. See Thompson v. Lovett, 328 Ga. App. 573 760 SE2d 246 2014 on a motion for summary judgment, we “construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmovant” citation omitted. The record shows that each of the appellants is a company that owns coin-operated amusement machines and is in the business of leasing those machines to third parties. At issue in this case are “Class B” coin-operated amusement machines “Class B machines”.2 Prior to April 2013, all of the appellants other than Ideal Amusements had written rental contracts and/or oral rental agreements with specific business owners “location owners” for the placement of one or more Class B machines within that business.3 Each of the written contracts contained a clause that set forth how the revenue generated by the leased machines would be divided between the company that owned the machines the “machine owner” and the location owner. Similarly, under each of the oral agreements in place, the location owner had agreed to pay the machine owner a certain percentage of the revenue generated by the machine as rent for the machine. The specific agreements at issue are as follows:
