David MacDonald sued Willie Carl Harris for specific performance of a real estate sales contract. The trial court granted summary judgment to Harris on MacDonald’s complaint. MacDonald appealed the grant of summary judgment in MacDonald v. Harris .1 Shortly after filing the notice of appeal, Harris filed a motion for attorney fees under OCGA § 9-15-14. We later affirmed the judgment in MacDonald v. Harris .2 MacDonald now appeals the trial court’s order awarding attorney fees to Harris. Because the trial court neither held a hearing on the attorney fee request nor entered findings in support of the award, we vacate and remand for further proceedings. The contract sued on identified MacDonald as the purchaser of the real estate and Harris and his sister Jo Ann Whipple as the sellers. Whipple was the sole, beneficial owner of the property; and she placed title in Harris’s name, as well as her own, only to avoid probate when she died. Whipple agreed to sell the property to MacDonald. Although she forged Harris’s signature on the sales contract, she led McDonald to believe either that Harris’s signature was genuine or that she was authorized to sign for him. Before MacDonald brought this suit, Whipple tried to refund his earnest money on grounds that she had listed the subject property as an asset in bankruptcy proceedings. After refusing the tender, MacDonald brought this action against Harris. The bankruptcy court later held the sales contract between Whipple and MacDonald to have been void. But, on appeal, the federal district court concluded that the sales contract was only voidable and remanded the case to the bankruptcy court for further proceedings.
In reliance on affidavits in which Harris and Whipple swore that Whipple had signed Harris’s signature on the sales contract without his knowledge or consent, Harris asked MacDonald to dismiss the action. But when Harris filed an untimely answer to MacDonald’s complaint, MacDonald sought a default judgment. After the trial court allowed Harris to open the default, discovery was undertaken. In his deposition, Harris admitted that he would have given his consent to Whipple’s sale of the property to MacDonald if she had asked because he did not feel as though he had standing to object. Based on this testimony, MacDonald argued that Harris had ratified the contract through his admissions in judicio . Although there was no legal authority directly on point, we rejected that argument and affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to Harris on MacDonald’s complaint.
