Pursuant to a granted interlocutory appeal, Mona Brewer, Bobby Brewer, and their attorney, Louis Levenson collectively “the Brewers”, challenge an order of the Superior Court of DeKalb County requiring them to pay over $1 million dollars in attorney fees directly to the attorneys for Bishop Earl Paulk, Don Paulk, Chapel Hill Harvester Church, Inc., and Harvester Community Development Corporation, Inc. collectively “the Paulks”. The Brewers contend the superior court erred in awarding attorney fees to the Paulks under OCGA § 9-15-14 a based upon its finding that the Brewers’ suit completely lacked any justiciable issue of law or fact. The Brewers also contend the superior court erred in awarding the attorney fees directly to the Paulks’ attorneys in an unapportioned lump sum and in refusing to allow the Brewers to cross examine Paulk with evidence of his perjury conviction during the hearing on the issue of attorneys fees. As more fully explained below, because the record reveals facts supporting justiciable issues of law in the Brewers’ suit, we must reverse the award of attorney fees on those claims. Further, as the court failed to apportion the award with respect to specific claims, we must also vacate the remainder of the order and remand for a hearing to apportion the fee award. The record shows that Mona Brewer and her husband Bobby Brewer sued the Paulks in the Superior Court of DeKalb County alleging that Bishop Earl Paulk manipulated his congregant and employee, Mona Brewer, into an affair with him from 1989 to 2003 by telling her it was her only path to salvation. Specifically, the Brewers alleged that Bishop Paulk abused his confidential clerical or pastoral relationship, as defined in OCGA § 23-2-58; abused his position as a “spiritual counselor” and self-proclaimed spiritual authority over Mona Brewer; and abused his unequal position of power as her employer to seduce or induce her into a prolonged sexual relationship with him and with others in the church. In twelve counts, the complaint asserted the following claims against the Paulks: breach of fiduciary duty; loss of consortium and interference with family relations; negligence; failure to protect; negligent hiring and retention; failure to supervise; failure to warn; fraud; conspiracy; intentional infliction of emotional distress; and collection on a debt arising out of a loan Bobby Brewer made to the Paulks. The Paulks counterclaimed for libel; slander; damages to peace, happiness, and feelings; and emotional distress. The Paulks also filed motions for summary judgment and partial summary judgment. The trial court did not rule on these motions, however, because the Brewers dismissed the lawsuit without prejudice and refiled the case in the State Court of DeKalb County where it is currently pending. The Paulks then filed a motion for attorney fees pursuant to OCGA § 9-15-14 a.
Following a hearing, the trial court, citing OCGA § 9-15-14 a, held that the Brewers asserted claims to which there existed such a complete absence of any justiciable issue of law or fact that it could not be reasonably believed that a court would accept the asserted claim, defense, or other position. In support of its holding, the court found that Mona Brewer and Bishop Earl Paulk began a sexual relationship in late summer of 1989, which she terminated in 2003. The court held that Mona Brewer did not have a confidential relationship with Paulk, as defined in OCGA § 23-2-58. The court noted that Mona Brewer became a member of Chapel Hill Harvester Church in 1979; that Kirby Clements was assigned to be her pastor; and that Bobby Brewer became her pastor when the two were married. Finding that Mona Brewer had these two pastors, the court concluded that she did not establish a clergyman/congregant relationship with Paulk in the twenty-five years that she was a member of Chapel Hill Harvester Church, and that Paulk did not exercise a controlling influence over her will. The court concluded that Paulk was not Mona Brewer’s “spiritual advisor such that he exercised undue influence over her free will not to engage in sexual activity with him and others over a 12- to 14-year period of time.”
