Georgia Garnishment Proceedings Do Not Permit Attorney-Fee Awards Under OCGA § 9-15-14

A. The Statutory Framework

OCGA § 9-15-14 provides two related, but distinct, routes to litigation sanctions:

• Subsection (a): Reasonable and necessary fees and litigation expenses must be awarded when a party asserts a position so completely lacking a justiciable issue of law or fact that the party could not reasonably believe a court would accept it.
• Subsection (b): A court may award reasonable and necessary fees and expenses when litigation lacks substantial justification, is pursued for delay or harassment, or is unnecessarily expanded through improper conduct, including discovery abuse. “Lacked substantial justification” means substantially frivolous, substantially groundless, or substantially vexatious.

Both provisions begin with a decisive limitation: they operate in a civil action in a court of record. The court treated that language as an eligibility requirement that must be satisfied before the quality of a party’s litigation conduct becomes relevant.

Consequently, the trial court’s detailed findings on remand could not cure the problem. Findings establishing unreasonable conduct and reasonable fees do not supply statutory authority where the governing statute does not cover the proceeding.

B. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

Procedural History and Standards of Review

SMS Financial Recovery Services, LLC v. Silverstone (Silverstone I), 374 Ga. App. 502 (913 SE2d 376) (2025)

The earlier appeal supplied the factual background and established why the case returned to the appellate court. It required adequate findings supporting any fee award but expressly declined to decide whether § 9-15-14 applied to garnishment proceedings. The remand therefore did not establish that the statute authorized fees; that threshold issue remained open.

Barnwell v. TPCII, LLC, 295 Ga. 153, 154 (758 SE2d 281) (2014)

This decision supplied the presumption applicable when a hearing transcript is absent. Because the attorney-fee hearing was not transcribed, the appellate court assumed that sufficient competent evidence supported the trial court’s factual findings. That presumption did not resolve the separate legal question whether the statute authorized an award.

Landry v. Walsh, 342 Ga. App. 283, 286(2) (801 SE2d 553) (2017)

The court cited this case for the ordinary standards governing § 9-15-14 awards: an “any-evidence” standard for subsection (a), and abuse-of-discretion review for subsection (b). Those deferential standards concern review of otherwise authorized awards.

Portman v. Zipperer, 368 Ga. App. 208, 209 (889 SE2d 391) (2023)

Cited in accord with Landry v. Walsh, this decision reinforced the distinction between the review standards for the two subsections. It helped frame why the dispositive statutory question required a different approach from reviewing the trial court’s assessment of misconduct.

NRD Partners II, L. P. v. Quadre Invs., L. P., 364 Ga. App. 739, 741-42(2) (875 SE2d 895) (2022)

This case established that a purely legal question of statutory construction receives de novo review. Accordingly, the appellate court independently decided the meaning and reach of “civil action,” without deferring to the trial court’s interpretation.

Strict Construction and Ordinary Meaning

Bishop v. Goins, 305 Ga. 310, 311 (824 SE2d 369) (2019)

The court relied on this Supreme Court precedent for the rule that statutory attorney-fee authorizations depart from the common law and must be strictly construed. This principle counseled against extending § 9-15-14 beyond the proceedings its text expressly covers.

Kemp v. Kemp, 337 Ga. App. 627, 633 (788 SE2d 517) (2016)

This decision reinforced that fee-shifting statutes must be strictly construed against an award. Together with Bishop v. Goins, it supported rejecting a broader construction based merely on the desirability of sanctioning improper litigation behavior.

Monumedia II, LLC v. Dep't of Transp., 343 Ga. App. 49, 52(1) (806 SE2d 215) (2017)

The court cited this case for the principle that statutory language admitting only one natural and reasonable construction must be applied accordingly. It supported treating “civil action” as an operative limit rather than as an interchangeable label for every court proceeding.

Holcomb v. Long, 329 Ga. App. 515, 517(1) (765 SE2d 687) (2014)

This case supplied the related instruction to give statutory language its plain and ordinary meaning. It reinforced the text-centered approach that governed the analysis.

The Established Character of Garnishment

ARC Sec., Inc. v. Massey Bus. Coll., 221 Ga. App. 489, 489-90(1) (471 SE2d 569) (1996)

This decision described garnishment as a special statutory proceeding in derogation of the common law. It provided direct support for the classification on which the present holding depends.

S. Env't Grp., Inc. v. Rosebud Landscape Gardeners, Inc., 196 Ga. App. 392, 394(1) (395 SE2d 913) (1990)

The court drew on this decision’s description of garnishment as a special statutory mechanism allowing a creditor to seize a debtor’s funds held by someone else. Its emphasis on strict compliance reinforced that garnishment derives its operation from a particular statutory framework.

Baptist Convention of Ga. v. Henry, 187 Ga. App. 551, 551 (370 SE2d 813) (1988)

This case likewise emphasized garnishment’s special statutory nature and the need to construe the garnishment statute strictly. It demonstrated that the classification was settled, even though its consequence for § 9-15-14 presented an issue of first impression.

Great W. Bank v. Se. Bank, 234 Ga. App. 420, 421 (507 SE2d 191) (1998)

The opinion cited this case for the proposition that § 9-15-14 applies, by its terms, only to civil actions brought in Georgia courts of record. Its role was to establish the statute’s scope, complementing the authorities classifying garnishment.

Analogies to Other Special Statutory Proceedings

Hardin Const. Grp., Inc. v. Fuller Enters., Inc., 265 Ga. 770, 771 (462 SE2d 130) (1995)

This Supreme Court decision supplied the principal analogy. It held that an arbitration-award confirmation proceeding is a special statutory proceeding, not a civil action. The Court of Appeals applied the same distinction to garnishment: its status as a special statutory proceeding excluded it from § 9-15-14’s civil-action requirement.

Sanvi Bus., LLC v. United Gaming, LLC, 377 Ga. App. 344, 346(1) (922 SE2d 598) (2025)

Cited in accord with Hardin Const. Grp., Inc. v. Fuller Enters., Inc., this decision reinforced the continuing recognition of the distinction between arbitration-confirmation proceedings and civil actions.

Vlass v. Sec. Pac. Nat. Bank, 263 Ga. 296, 297 (430 SE2d 732) (1993)

This Supreme Court case explained that an application to confirm a foreclosure sale does not initiate a civil action and is not a civil suit in the ordinary sense. It supported the broader point that filing a matter in superior court does not necessarily make it a civil action.

DeKalb Cnty. v. Gerard, 207 Ga. App. 43, 43(1) (427 SE2d 36) (1993)

This decision concerned a special statutory certiorari proceeding that was criminal or quasi-criminal and therefore outside § 9-15-14. Its contextual limits matter: it did not decide the garnishment question, but illustrated that the statute’s civil-action limitation has substantive consequences.

C. The Court’s Legal Reasoning

The reasoning proceeds through a straightforward sequence:

1. Both relevant subsections authorize fees only in civil actions.
2. Attorney-fee statutes must be strictly construed.
3. Established precedent classifies garnishment as a special statutory proceeding.
4. Supreme Court precedent distinguishes such proceedings from civil actions.
5. Therefore, § 9-15-14 does not authorize fees in garnishment proceedings.

The opinion thus combines statutory text with precedent-based classification. It does not rest on a conclusion that SMS behaved reasonably. Even accepting the trial court’s adverse factual findings, the statutory prerequisite remained unsatisfied.

Why the Statutory Form Did Not Change the Result

OCGA § 18-4-71 provides a garnishment affidavit form containing a space for a “Civil Action File Number.” The court acknowledged that wording but declined to treat it as a substantive reclassification of garnishment. Every superior-court case requires a number; the form’s label did not displace precedent defining the proceeding’s legal character.

Notably, the opinion attributes this suggestion to SMS, despite SMS’s principal argument against the statute’s application. That attribution does not affect the court’s reasoning: the form-label argument was considered and rejected.

Why the Separate Garnishment Fee Provision Matters

OCGA § 18-4-19(d)(2) requires an award to a garnishee when the plaintiff’s traverse lacks reasonable justification. The award covers attorney fees incurred in connection with that traverse.

This provision demonstrates that the legislature has specifically addressed fee recovery within garnishment proceedings. Its limits are important: it does not generally authorize fees for every participant or every instance of improper conduct. Yaarit was a third-party claimant, not the garnishee, and the appellate court did not award her fees under this alternative provision.

The opinion also contrasts the “reasonable justification” requirement with the more demanding standards stated in § 9-15-14. But that comparison does not make the statutes interchangeable; each has its own eligible recipients, triggering conduct, and scope.

D. Potential Impact and Limits

• A threshold restriction on fee motions: Parties seeking fees under § 9-15-14 in garnishment proceedings now confront a categorical statutory obstacle, regardless of the strength of their misconduct allegations.
• Greater importance of identifying the correct authority: Fee applicants must identify an applicable source of authorization and satisfy its particular requirements. General allegations of harassment or discovery abuse do not overcome this holding.
• A warning against relying on factual findings alone: Detailed findings and evidence of reasonable fees cannot save an award made under an inapplicable statute.
• Guidance for other statutory proceedings: The decision may inform disputes about fee recovery in other specially created proceedings. Its direct holding, however, concerns garnishment and § 9-15-14; other statutory schemes require their own analysis.
• No blanket immunity from sanctions: The court expressly preserved the possibility of fees under garnishment-specific legislation. It did not decide the availability of every other potential remedy or sanction.

The decision leaves unresolved whether SMS’s motion was substantially justified and whether the trial court should have ruled on the affidavit and “motion to quash” issues. Those questions were unnecessary once the court found the fee statute inapplicable.