O.C.G.A.
O.C.G.A.

O.C.G.A. § 15-9-34 (2019)

Contempt powers

✓ O.C.G.A. — 2019 edition (Public.Resource.Org Release 73)
Code text and O.C.G.A. statutory annotations on this page reflect the 2019 Official Code of Georgia Annotated (Public.Resource.Org Release 73, 2019-08-21; public domain per Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). The Syfert case-law annotations in Notes of Decisions, below, are current.
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(a) The judge of the probate court shall have power to enforce obedience to all lawful orders of his or her court, including a guardianship order or conservatorship order from another state that has been registered with and recorded by the probate court under Article 4 of Chapter 11 of Title 29, by attachment for contempt under the same rules as are provided for other courts.

(b) Probate courts may issue rules and attachments for contempts offered the court or its process by any executor, administrator, guardian, or other person and may punish the same by a fine as high as $500.00 or imprisonment not exceeding 20 days, or both.

History

Orig. Code 1863, §§ 307, 4021, 4033; Code 1868, §§ 367, 4050, 4063; Code 1873, §§ 332, 4121, 4128; Code 1882, §§ 332, 4121, 4128; Civil Code 1895, §§ 4233, 4261, 4267; Civil Code 1910, §§ 4791, 4819, 4825; Code 1933, §§ 24-2113, 24-2114; Ga. L. 1990, p. 1421, § 1; Ga. L. 2019, p. 693, § 38/HB 70. The 2019 amendment, effective January 1, 2020, in subsection (a), inserted ‘‘or her’’, and inserted ‘‘, including a guardian-

ship order or conservatorship order from another state that has been registered with and recorded by the probate court under Article 4 of Chapter 11 of Title 29,’’.

Annotations

Cross references. - Exercise of contempt power generally, § 15-1-4.

Law reviews. - For article, ‘‘Contempt of Court in Georgia,’’ see 23 Ga. St. B. J. 66 (1987). For article, ‘‘How Not to Get Thrown in Jail,’’ see 22 Ga. Bar. J. 17 ( June 2017).

JUDICIAL DECISIONS Jurisdiction of probate court to attach and punish for contempt. - Court of ordinary (now probate court) has jurisdiction of matters pertaining to the estates of deceased persons, jurisdiction over administrators, jurisdiction to compel administrators to account for the assets of an estate in their possession or custody, and jurisdiction in such cases to

attach and punish for contempt. Melton v. Jenkins, 50 Ga. App. 615, 178 S.E. 754 (1935). Cited in Lewis v. Grovas, 62 Ga. App. 625, 9 S.E.2d 282 (1940); Bragg v. Bragg, 225 Ga. 494, 170 S.E.2d 29 (1969); Oakley v. Anderson, 235 Ga. 607, 221 S.E.2d 31 (1975); In re McCool, 267 Ga. App. 445, 600 S.E.2d 403 (2004).

RESEARCH REFERENCES Am. Jur. 2d. - 17 Am. Jur. 2d, Contempt, § 1 et seq.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 2 cases (1 in the last 5 years), 1999–2024 · leading case: Gnann v. Woodall, 511 S.E.2d 188 (Ga. 1999).
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Gnann v. Woodall, 511 S.E.2d 188 (Ga. 1999). · cites it 2× “” OCGA § 15-9-34 (a). Accordingly, the probate court’s order to pay settlement funds into the state court registry was valid and, thus, the Court of Appeals erred in reversing the contempt order based upon the invalidity of the underlying order.”
Inquiry Concerning Judge Christina Peterson, 903 S.E.2d 645 (Ga. 2024). · cites it 2× “See also OCGA §§ 15-9-34 10 Criminal contempt differs from civil contempt, which “seeks only to ‘coerc[e] the defendant to do’ what a court had previously ordered him to do.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.