• Women's Surgical Center, LLC et al. v. Berry et al.

    Publication Date: 2017-11-03
    Practice Area: Constitutional Law | Health Care Law
    Industry:
    Court: Court of Appeals
    Judge: Presiding Justice Melton
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Glenn A. Delk (Lightmas & Delk), Atlanta; James M Manley, Veronica Thorson (Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation at the Goldwater Institute), Phoenix, for appellant.
    for defendant: Isaac Byrd, Daniel Stephen Walsh, Forrest Geoffrey Pearce, Monica Anne Sullivan, Christopher M. Carr (Department of Law), Atlanta, for appellee. Anne Ware Lewis (Strickland Brockington Lewis LLP), Atlanta; Jeffrey W. McCoy (Pacific Legal Foundation), Sacramento, for amicus appellant. John Hinton Parker Jr., J. Marbury Rainer (Parker, Hudson, Rainer & Dobbs, LLP), Atlanta; Yasha Heidari (Heidari Power Law Group, LLC), Atlanta, for amicus appellee.

    Case Number: S17A1317

    The trial court properly denied Department of Community Health's motion to dismiss hospital's action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in an effort to have Georgia's applicable certificate of need law and the regulations authorizing it declared unconstitutional because hospital was not required to exhaust its administrative remedies before filing the action and the trial court also properly granted summary judgment to the Department on hospital's constitutional challenges to O.C.G.A. 31-6-40 subsection (a) (7) (C).

  • Freeman v. The State

    Publication Date: 2017-10-31
    Practice Area: Constitutional Law | Criminal Law
    Industry:
    Court: Court of Appeals
    Judge: Presiding Justice Melton
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Justin Freeman, Rockmart, for appellant.
    for defendant: Stephanie D. Woodard, Daniel Sanmiguel (Hall County Solicitor General's Office), Gainesville; Paula Khristian Smith, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Christopher M. Carr (Department of Law), Atlanta, for appellee.

    Case Number: S17A1040

    The Supreme Court reversed defendant's conviction for one count of disorderly conduct pursuant to O.C.G.A. 16-11-39 subsection (a) (1) because defendant's act of raising his middle finger to a pastor during a church service was a constitutionally protected act that did not place the pastor in reasonable fear for his safety.