There is no right to appeal a non-final Guardianship Order

In In re Bruni, 369 Ga. App. 488 (2023), the adult children of a proposed ward filed a petition for guardianship and conservatorship, and later filed an emergency petition. The proposed ward’s wife had been liquidating the proposed ward’s assets and lost $220,000 in one transaction. As a result the Probate Court “appointed an emergency conservator for 60 days or until the appointment of a permanent conservator.” Essentially, the proposed ward’s assets were frozen until the full case was decided.

The proposed ward and his wife sought to unfreeze the proposed ward’s assets, arguing the original emergency conservatorship expired after 60 days. The Probate Court denied their application for a certificate of immediate review, but they appealed anyway. On appeal, the Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal, holding it had no jurisdiction.

O.C.G.A. § 5-6-34(a)(1) provides that appeals to the Court of Appeals require a final order unless some other statute authorizes appeal. One way would be to obtain a certificate of immediate review from the probate court, but that was denied. Further, the Order below denying the request to unfreeze the ward’s assets was not a final order; it simply deferred the decision while the case remained pending.

The appellants then argued the decision below could be appealed because the Probate Court’s decision was void. “The Court rejected that argument. “They do not explain why the termination of the emergency conservatorship — which we assume for purposes of this appeal, in fact, occurred — rendered the orders void where the probate court entered the orders in the context of the pending petition for permanent conservatorship.” Citing  In the Interest of A. H., 317 Ga. 31, 32 (2023) and O.C.G.A. § 15-9-30(a)(6).

Finally, the Court rejected the argument that a constitutional ground existed for appeal. “Georgia law is well settled that the right to appeal is not constitutional, but instead depends on statutory authority.”