The District Attorney of Cobb County filed 12 complaints for condemnation in the Superior Court of Cobb County, seeking to condemn several game machines owned and operated by appellants. The cases were consolidated and the superior court conducted a bench trial where the parties presented lay and expert witness testimony about how the game machines were manufactured and programmed, how they were played, and how they dispensed rewards. The trial court issued a 76-page final order detailing the evidence adduced with respect to each machine, the position of the parties and their experts with respect to each game machine, the court’s analysis of the applicable law, and the court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law with respect to each game machine. The trial court concluded that four of the eleven game machines were gambling devices subject to condemnation pursuant to OCGA § § 16-12-20 and 16-12-35, but that seven of the game machines were not. In the State’s appeal, the only issue determined by the Court of Appeals was whether the game machines complied with the reward redemption scheme under OCGA § 16-12-35 d, thereby excepting them from condemnation. The Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s condemnation of the four game machines and then reversed the trial court regarding the remaining seven game machines and held that they too should be condemned for violating OCGA § 16-12-35 d. State of Georgia v. Damani , 288 Ga. App. 588 654 SE2d 396 2007. When the State filed its notice of appeal, it asked the clerk of the trial court to transmit the entire trial record to the Court of Appeals. While the appeal was pending, the Court of Appeals issued an order directing the trial court to send to the appellate court a copy of the State’s expert report which was admitted at the bench trial. Upon the issuance of this order, appellants discovered that the entire trial record had not been sent to the Court of Appeals as the State initially requested. In an attempt to complete the record for appeal, appellants immediately filed a motion in the Court of Appeals requesting that the trial court be ordered to transmit all exhibits admitted at trial. In that motion, appellants specifically requested the transmission of their expert’s report. After two months passed with no response from the Court of Appeals, appellants filed a second motion to supplement the record. Thereafter, the Court of Appeals issued its opinion resolving the case on the merits and denying the motions to supplement as moot. Appellants then filed a post-judgment motion to supplement the record which the Court of Appeals also denied.
We granted appellants’ petition for certiorari posing the following questions: 1 whether the game machines met the definition in OCGA §16-12-35 for machines designed for bona fide amusement purposes; and 2 whether the Court of Appeals erred in denying the motions to supplement the record. Because exhibits necessary to assessing the true and complete facts as they occurred in the trial court were omitted from the record on appeal and the requests to supplement filed before the Court of Appeals reached its decision were denied as moot, we vacate the judgment.
