Teresa Watson appeals the trial court’s order granting a motion to dismiss her petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to require a superior court judge to produce a “log book” used for scheduling purposes. For the reasons that follow, we affirm. According to her sworn petition, Watson owns and operates a website devoted to local news in Floyd County, Georgia. In connection with that activity, she was sued for defamation in the Superior Court of Floyd County; Judge Walter Matthews presided over the case. Watson moved to dismiss the complaint filed against her and, according to Watson, Judge Matthews’s administrative assistant told her that a hearing on her motion to dismiss would be held on September 23, 2008. However, on September 8, 2008, without a hearing, Judge Matthews signed an order denying Watson’s motion. Watson alleges that she visited the Judge’s assistant in the Judge’s chambers and that the assistant produced a log book indicating that Judge Matthews had signed a rule nisi which scheduled a hearing date of September 23, 2008 for the motion to dismiss to be heard.
Watson has not caused a certified copy of the record in the defamation suit to be made a part of the record in this action, but she states in her mandamus petition that, in the defamation case, she subpoenaed the log book.1 Apparently, she has also filed requests under the Open Records Act, OCGA § 50-18-70 et seq., with the County Attorney and the Council of Superior Court Judges, attempting to gain access to the log book. These efforts did not result in the production of the log book, and Watson, acting pro se, filed this petition seeking a writ of mandamus to compel Judge Matthews to produce the log book, and a writ of prohibition to prevent him from “interfering with the Georgia Code right of Direct Appeal for Criminal Contempt actions . . . .”2 All judges in the Rome Judicial Circuit recused themselves from presiding over the case, and a superior court judge from another circuit was appointed to preside over it. Judge Matthews moved to dismiss the action; the motion to dismiss was granted without a hearing, and Watson appeals.
