Dillard, Presiding Judge. In this discretionary appeal, Georgia Pain & Wellness, LLC challenges the trial court’s denial of its motion to set aside orders granting Melissa Hatchett’s motion to compel it to respond fully to her discovery requests and awarding her attorney fees, as well as the court finding it in contempt for failing to comply with the order granting Hatchett’s motion to compel. Specifically, Georgia Pain argues that (1) as a nonparty to the underlying lawsuit, service of the motions to compel and for contempt via regular U.S. mail was insufficient to obtain personal jurisdiction over it, (2) notices sent via U.S. mail failed to comply with the requirements of due process, and (3) the contempt order was issued in error because Georgia Pain did not display a conscious or intentional failure to act. For the following reasons, we agree with Georgia Pain and reverse.[1] A trial court’s decision regarding a motion to set aside a judgment will not be reversed “absent a showing of manifest abuse of discretion,”[2] and will be affirmed if “there is any evidence to support it.”[3] With this guiding standard of review in mind, we turn now to the underlying facts of this case. Georgia Pain operates with two related medical practices—Georgia Interventional Pain, LLC and Summit Spine Health—out of offices in Lawrenceville. Mario Smith was a patient of one or more of these practices at some point in time, and in 2020, Smith sued Hatchett for injuries that he allegedly sustained in an automobile accident. Hatchett then sought to obtain Smith’s medical records from Georgia Pain or Georgia Interventional under OCGA 91134 (c) (2), which provides that requests for medical records may be served upon a nonparty “who is a practitioner of the healing arts or hospital or healthcare facility[.]” Importantly, the statute does not specify how service on such a nonparty must be made.[4] On July 31, 2020, Hatchett’s attorney mailed a records request to Georgia Pain via regular U.S. mail. And when no response was received, counsel used regular U.S. mail to send a followup letter on January 22, 2021, again requesting Smith’s medical records and threatening to file a motion to compel. Both letters were sent to the practice’s Lawrenceville office, addressed simply to “Georgia Pain & Wellness, Attn: Records Custodian.” Georgia Pain has no record of receiving the July 2020 request, but the January 2021 request was routed to Francine Taylor, a Georgia Pain employee who maintains some of the practice’s medical records. Apparently, without consulting her supervisor or anyone with managerial authority, Taylor responded to the document request by sending Hachett “the usual set of records typically produced” upon receipt of such a request. And while those documents included all of the records Taylor could access, they did not fully satisfy Hatchett’s document request. On May 11, 2021, Hatchett’s attorney again used regular U.S. mail to inform Georgia Pain that its response to the document request was incomplete. This letter was also addressed to “Georgia Pain & Wellness: Attn: Records Custodian.” And according to Georgia Pain, it has no record of receiving the May 2021 letter. On September 30, 2021, Hatchett filed a motion to compel and request for sanctions against Georgia Interventional. The certificate of service reflects that the motion was served via regular U.S. mail by sending a copy to “Georgia Interventional” at the Lawrenceville address. On November 18, 2021, the trial court issued a rule nisi, scheduling a December 1, 2021 hearing on Hatchett’s motion to compel. The attached certificate of service shows this filing was also sent via regular U.S. mail and addressed to “Georgia Pain and Wellness.” The trial court entered an order on December 6, 2021, granting the motion to compel and noting that Georgia Pain failed to appear at the hearing. The order gave both Georgia Pain and Georgia Interventional 30 days to produce the requested documents and awarded Hatchett $547.50 in attorney fees, to be paid within 30 days. The certificate of service attached to the order shows it was served via regular U.S. mail on Georgia Pain, Georgia Interventional, and Summit Spine at the Lawrenceville address. When received, the order on the motion to compel was routed to a second medical-records clerk, Sally Her. On or about December 17, 2021, Her sent a response to Hatchett’s attorney via certified mail, return receipt requested. She hand-wrote on the response that “records and bills were sent already. Payments [for copying the documents were] received as well. See attached certifications, per your request.” Enclosed were two notarized certificates—one from Georgia Pain and one from Georgia Interventional—authenticating the previously sent medical records. According to Georgia Pain, Her—like Taylor—did not consult with a supervisor or any other person with managerial authority before sending this response. Additionally, Her also failed to realize Hatchett’s document request encompassed medical records her department did not maintain. On January 25, 2022, Hatchett filed a motion for contempt against both Georgia Pain and Georgia Interventional. The attached certificate of service noted that the motion was served on “Georgia Interventional” by sending a copy via regular U.S. mail, addressed to “Georgia Pain & Wellness.” Three days later, the trial court issued a rule nisi scheduling a contempt hearing for February 9, 2022. The certificate of service for this document indicates a notice of the hearing was sent via regular U.S. mail addressed to “Georgia Pain and Wellness and Georgia Interventional.” The trial court entered an order on February 21, 2022, finding both Georgia Pain and Georgia Interventional in contempt for failure to comply with its December 6, 2021 order granting Hatchett’s motion to compel. The order required the medical practices to comply fully with the December order, awarded an additional $550 in attorney fees to Hatchett, and imposed a fine of $1,000 per day for “each day that passed” until Georgia Pain and Georgia Interventional fully complied with the trial court’s orders. Georgia Pain and Georgia Interventional learned of the contempt proceedings on February 21, 2022, when the attorney for Smith—the plaintiff in the underlying lawsuit—called the medical practices’ CEO to advise him of the proposed contempt order. The following day, after the order was entered, Hatchett’s attorney sent a copy of it to the practices’ CEO via certified mail, return receipt requested. Georgia Pain and Georgia Interventional subsequently filed a motion to set aside the orders granting Hatchett’s motion to compel and finding them in contempt of court. Following a hearing, the trial court entered an order summarily granting the motion to set aside as to Georgia Interventional but denying it as to Georgia Pain. We granted Georgia Pain’s application for a discretionary appeal, which we will now consider. 1. Georgia Pain first argues the trial court erred in failing to set aside the order of contempt because service of the motion for contempt and the related rule nisi did not comport with the standards for due process or Georgia law. In a second but related enumeration of error, Georgia Pain asserts the trial court erred in granting the motion to compel, underlying rule nisi, and underlying requests for production of documents when service of those items did not comport with the standards for due process or Georgia law. On each of these points, we agree. The Supreme Court of the United States has held that the Due Process Clause requires every method of service to provide “‘notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections.’”[5] Similarly, the Supreme Court of Georgia has explained that “whether a proceeding is in rem or in personam, due process requires that a chosen method of service be reasonably certain to give actual notice of the pendency of a proceeding to those parties whose liberty or property interests may be adversely affected by the proceeding.”[6] Importantly, when contempt is sought against a nonparty under Georgia law, the contempt action is initiated by the filing of a motion and the issuance of a rule nisi.[7] And the rule nisi must be served upon the alleged contemnor, so as to provide him with notice of both the allegations and his scheduled opportunity to be heard.[8] In a contempt case against a nonparty, then, the “rule nisi is the summons which is to be served on the [respondent] giving him notice of the charges and the opportunity to be heard at a specified time and place.”[9] Put another way, for the trial court to obtain personal jurisdiction over the nonparty, the nonparty must be served with some form of summons or the equivalent of it.[10] Given the foregoing, with respect to a motion filed against a nonparty, the rule nisi is the equivalent of a summons,[11] so logic dictates that—given the foregoing constitutional and precedential backdrop—it must be served using the same method required for service of process.[12] And with respect to an LLC, such as Georgia Pain, Georgia law provides as follows: A limited liability company’s registered agent is the limited liability company’s agent for service of process, notice, or demand required or permitted by law to be served on the limited liability company. If a limited liability company has no registered agent or the agent cannot with reasonable diligence be served, the limited liability company may be served by registered or certified mail or statutory overnight delivery, return receipt requested, addressed to the limited liability company at its principal office.[13] Accordingly, Georgia law did not permit service on Georgia Pain of the motion to compel, the motion for contempt, or the rule nisi that accompanied each by regular U.S. mail. And in the absence of proper service, the trial court was without jurisdiction either to compel Georgia Pain to produce the requested documents or to hold the practice in contempt.[14] Finally, in circumstances involving a nonparty, treating the rule nisi as the equivalent of a summons for purposes of service also comports with the dictates of due process. Indeed, whenever notice is required to be given in a judicial proceeding, due process requires that it be “such notice as is reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to enable the interested parties to protect their rights.”[15] Specifically, to comport with due process, notice must be “reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections,” and the notice “must be of such a nature as reasonably to convey the required information.”[16] Here, sending the motions and accompanying rule nisi via regular U.S. mail did not satisfy the requirements of due process.[17] In light of the foregoing, the trial court lacked jurisdiction to enter orders compelling Georgia Pain to respond to Hatchett’s discovery requests and holding it in contempt. Moreover, even assuming the trial court had jurisdiction over Georgia Pain, the notices provided to it of Hatchett’s motions and the accompanying hearings were insufficient to satisfy the requirements of due process. For all these reasons, the trial court’s denial of Georgia Pain’s motion to set aside was an abuse of discretion that must be reversed. 3. Because we conclude the trial court erred in failing to set aside the order of contempt for the failure to properly serve Georgia Pain, we need not consider its alternative argument, which is that the contempt order was issued in error because Georgia Pain did not display a conscious or intentional failure to act. For all these reasons, we reverse the trial court’s judgment. Judgment reversed. Doyle, P. J., and Pipkin J., concur.
