NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion.
In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: May 28, 2025
S25A0104. DEAN v. STATE OF GEORGIA et al.
ELLINGTON, Justice.
Thomas G. Dean, representing himself, appeals from the
dismissal of his challenge to the qualifications of candidates in the
2022 partisan election for the office of Georgia Labor Commissioner.
Because he did not bring this challenge until after he had lost the
Democratic primary election, and thus he failed to do everything
within his power to have his claims decided before the election
occurred, we dismiss his appeal without reaching the merits.
Dean was a losing candidate in the Democratic primary for
Georgia Labor Commissioner held on May 24, 2022. Acting pro se,
Dean challenged the qualifications of all other candidates in the
Democratic and Republican primaries by filing a petition for
declaratory judgment against the State of Georgia on June 9, 2022.1
Dean sought to be declared the sole qualified candidate for Labor
Commissioner.2
Before filing his petition, Dean did not challenge the
qualifications of the other candidates through the pre-election
administrative process provided in OCGA § 21-2-5 (b).3 And at the
time of filing his petition, Dean did not file an affidavit verifying the
petition pursuant to the requirement of OCGA § 21-2-524 (d) for
post-election contests. On June 21, 2022, Dean filed a motion to add
the Secretary of State and the Democratic and Republican Parties
1 The primary election results were certified on June 6, 2022. A
Democratic primary runoff for the office of Labor Commissioner was held on
June 21, 2022, and the general election was held on November 8, 2022.
2 The petition alleged that one of the candidates, Mike Coan, was
ineligible to run under OCGA § 45-2-4 because he had been appointed Labor
Commissioner for the remainder of the prior term of office, and that the other
candidates were ineligible to run or hold office under OCGA §§ 45-10-22 and
45-10-25 (13) because they were business operators, owners, or entrepreneurs
who continued to transact business beyond the time they qualified to run.
3 That statute provides that, “[w]ithin two weeks after the deadline for
qualifying, any elector who is eligible to vote for a candidate may challenge the
qualifications of the candidate by filing a written complaint with the Secretary
of State[,]” after which the matter must be referred by the Secretary of State
to an administrative law judge. The applicable qualifying deadline in this case
was March 11, 2022.
2
of Georgia as defendants, and for leave to file and serve an amended
complaint reflecting the additional defendants. 4 On July 5, 2022,
Dean filed an amended petition.5 The Republican Party filed an
answer and motion to dismiss on August 12, 2022, and the State of
Georgia and the Secretary of State (“the State defendants”) filed an
answer and motion to dismiss on August 15, 2022. Dean filed a
motion to file the affidavit required by OCGA § 21-2-524 (d) on
September 5, 2022. Between August 26 and October 10, 2022, Dean
and the State defendants filed briefs on the motion to dismiss, but
there were no further filings relevant to Dean’s claims on appeal
during or after that period of time.
On May 20, 2024, the trial court granted the defendants’
motions to dismiss for two reasons: Dean’s failure to challenge the
4 The trial court never entered an order granting this motion but did
include the additional defendants in the case style on its order of dismissal.
5 The amended petition included allegations that the candidates were
“conspiratorially with” the original and additional defendants and that the
Secretary of State “was negligent in not properly screening applicants for
candidacy for [Georgia] Labor Commissioner, and did not file a challenge under
[OCGA §] 21-2-5 (b).” The amended petition also requested that all of the
defendants be compelled to comply with OCGA §§ 45-2-4, 45-10-3, and 45-10-22.
3
other candidates’ qualifications before the primary within two weeks
of the qualifying deadline as required by OCGA § 21-2-5 (b); and
Dean’s failure to verify his petition by affidavit within five days of
certification of the primary election results as required by OCGA §
21-2-524 (a), (d). Dean appealed to the Court of Appeals, which
transferred the case to this Court pursuant to our exclusive
appellate jurisdiction over “[a]ll cases of election contest.” Ga. Const.
of 1983, Art. VI, Sec. VI, Par. II (2). See also Cook v. Bd. of Registrars
of Randolph County, 291 Ga. 67, 68-71 (2) (a) (1-3) (727 SE2d 478)
(2012).
Due to prudential considerations grounded in Georgia’s
Election Code, “litigants in election contests have a duty to expedite
resolution of the dispute before an election is held, and the failure to
make every effort to dispose of election disputes with dispatch before
a subsequent election may result in the dismissal of the case.”
Peterson v. Vie, 320 Ga. 502, 504 (910 SE2d 191) (2024) (citation and
punctuation omitted). As we have recently explained, “parties
wanting a court to throw out the results of an election after it has
4
occurred must clear significant hurdles,” and our precedent has, for
decades, made it “crystal clear that the first such hurdle is for the
parties seeking to undo an election to have done everything within
their power to have their claims decided before the election
occurred.” Ponder v. Davis, 320 Ga. 532, 535 (910 SE2d 195) (2024)
(citation and punctuation omitted).
More specifically, where the qualifications of a candidate are
not challenged until after an election, the election contest ordinarily
will be dismissed, and any appeal therefrom likewise dismissed, due
to the challenger’s failure to act with dispatch by filing a pre-election
challenge and seeking to expedite the proceeding and stay the
election. See Ponder, 320 Ga. at 536 (dismissing the appeal where
the losing candidate never filed any pre-election challenge to the
winning candidate’s qualifications and never sought a stay of the
election until an elector’s pre-election challenge could be resolved);
Peterson, 320 Ga. at 504-505 (dismissing the appeal in a postprimary proceeding where the delay in consideration and final
disposition of a challenge to a candidate’s qualifications was
5
attributable to the challenger’s failure to seek to expedite a preprimary proceeding or stay the primary). Dean argues that such
principles do not apply here because his challenge was filed several
months prior to the general election. But “the sort of policy
considerations behind our prudential rule apply even more strongly
in the context of an impending primary election.” Peterson, 320 Ga.
at 504 (citation and punctuation omitted).
Dean also makes two other arguments about the trial court’s
specific rulings that are relevant to his failure to act with dispatch.
First, he argues that OCGA § 21-2-5 (b) does not require a challenger
to follow its procedure for filing a complaint before challenging the
qualifications of prospective candidates for public offices. As
discussed above, however, the duty of a litigant in an election contest
to expedite its resolution before the election is held is based on
prudential considerations grounded in the statutory framework
rather than statutory mandates. Accordingly, although this Court
does have “authority to direct a trial court to declare an election
result invalid and to call for a new election,” we are not required to,
6
and generally will not, invoke such a “drastic remedy” where the
challenger has failed to act with dispatch. Peterson, 320 Ga. at 504
(citation and punctuation omitted). That drastic remedy would be
especially inappropriate here in view of Dean’s complete failure to
file a pre-election challenge and seek to expedite the proceeding and
stay the primary election. 6
Second, Dean points out that his petition was not filed as an
election contest but as a petition for declaratory judgment. However,
the principles animating our dismissals of election contests on
prudential grounds apply with equal force to election contests
brought through other legal vehicles such as the declaratory
judgment suit here. See Catoosa County Republican Party v. Henry,
6 We note that, even if Dean had taken all of the steps legally available
to him to resolve his challenges to the other candidates’ qualifications before
the primary election, he still failed to utilize every available means to resolve
those challenges after the primary election and before the general election. See
Peterson, 320 Ga. at 505 n.4. Instead of promptly filing the affidavit required
by OCGA § 21-2-524 (d) to verify his post-primary petition, Dean delayed
resolution of his claims by waiting nearly three months before attempting to
file the affidavit. At no time after the primary election did he request an
expedited ruling, a stay of the general election, or an expedited appeal. Because
of Dean’s consistent failure to make use of those procedures, the total delay in
resolving his claims has reached nearly three years.
7
319 Ga. 794, 798 (906 SE2d 750) (2024) (“[T]he same prudential
reasons counseling dismissal in more traditional challenges to
candidate qualifications or election results apply here, where the . . .
Defendants assert their challenge to the Candidates’ qualifications
in a defensive posture” in a petition for a temporary restraining
order and injunctive relief.). See also Griggers v. Moye, 246 Ga. 578,
579 (1) (272 SE2d 262) (1980) (Prior to the enactment of OCGA §§
21-2-5 and 21-2-6, a complaint for declaratory judgment and
injunctive relief based on the alleged ineligibility of a candidate was
“not immune to the requirements of” the Election Code.). Cf. Cook,
291 Ga. at 70 (2) (a) (3) (citing Griggers in its discussion of what
constitutes an “election contest”).
For these reasons, we “dismiss the appeal without addressing
the merits of [Dean’s] enumerations of error regarding the [trial]
court’s rulings.” Ponder, 320 Ga. at 536.
Appeal dismissed. Peterson, CJ, and Bethel, McMillian,
LaGrua, and Colvin, JJ, concur. Warren, PJ, and Pinson, J, concur
specially.
8
PINSON, Justice, concurring specially.
I agree with the majority that this appeal should be dismissed,
but I disagree about why.
1. In my view, this case is moot in the traditional, jurisdictional
sense. Dean challenges the qualifications of candidates for a primary
election that determined the candidates for a general election, but
both of those elections were carried out and certified years ago, in
2022. And Dean does not even ask to overturn those elections or call
for new ones, see OCGA § 21-2-527, but merely for a judicial
declaration about who was qualified to run in the primary. Dean has
not explained how a declaration today about who was qualified in a
primary election almost three years ago would give him any effective
relief — other than possibly giving Dean the satisfaction of being
right, which is not a kind of redress that supports the exercise of the
judicial power. See Sons of Confederate Veterans v. Henry County
Bd. of Comm’rs, 315 Ga. 39, 39 (880 SE2d 168) (2022) (“Courts are
not vehicles for engaging in merely academic debates or deciding
purely theoretical questions. We ‘say what the law is’ only as
9
needed to resolve an actual controversy.”). And “[w]hen the
resolution of a case would be tantamount to the determination of an
abstract question not arising upon existing facts or rights,” as when
“the remedy sought in litigation no longer benefits the party seeking
it,” then “the case is moot and must be dismissed.” McAlister v.
Clifton, 313 Ga. 737, 738 (1) (873 SE2d 178) (2022) (citation
omitted). Just so here.
2. Even if this case were not moot, for similar reasons, Dean
has not established that he is entitled to a declaratory judgment. As
we recently explained in another election-related decision, we have
“repeatedly rejected claims for declaratory judgment when a
declaration of rights would not direct the plaintiff’s future conduct
or involved only a determination of rights that had already accrued.”
Cobb County v. Floam, 319 Ga. 89, 97 (2) (901 SE2d 512) (2024). In
what way would a declaration that certain candidates were not
qualified to run in a primary election that was carried out and
certified in 2022 “direct” Dean’s future conduct or determine any
rights that have not already accrued? To state the proposition is to
10
refute it, and Dean does not show otherwise, so his case is subject to
dismissal for that reason as well.
3. Concluding that Dean’s claims here fail for either of the
reasons above would require only straightforward application of
well-established law. Yet the majority instead chooses door number
three: dismiss Dean’s appeal based on a questionable expansion of
our judge-made prudential doctrine that election contests must be
brought and litigated “with dispatch,” even though we have never
applied that Election Code-based doctrine in a declaratory judgment
action. In my view, that’s the wrong choice. This dispatch doctrine
is of doubtful validity as an original matter, and we should not
needlessly expand it if the case can be resolved on another, sounder
basis. To help show why the dispatch doctrine is the wrong choice
here, I’ll start with the history of that doctrine.
(a) We have long urged litigants who wish to contest elections
to do so “with dispatch,” but dismissing an election contest as a
“prudential” matter because a litigant failed to act with dispatch is
a more recent innovation.
11
As far as I can tell, we first mentioned the importance of acting
with dispatch in election contests in 1978. In Taggart v. Phillips, 242
Ga. 454, 455 (249 SE2d 245) (1978), this Court admonished the
parties for docketing their appeal over two months after the
disputed primary election, forcing us to decide the appeal on an
accelerated schedule. But we said nothing about any particular
“duty” on election challengers to move as quickly as they could —
only that their claims could become moot after the general election,
see id. And despite the lack of dispatch, we resolved the appeal on
the merits. See id.
After Taggart, we did not address a failure to bring an election
challenge with dispatch for nearly twenty years. When we did, in
Payne v. Chatman, 267 Ga. 873 (485 SE2d 723) (1997), we dismissed
the appeal, but not merely because the appellant failed to seek to
advance his case with dispatch. Instead, we dismissed the appeal
based on “[t]he established rule in Georgia . . . that a primary
election contest becomes moot after the general election has taken
place.” Id. at 875. In doing so, we noted the “many important policy
12
considerations” that “compel[led] us to adhere to the rule that
litigants should make every effort to dispose of election disputes
with dispatch and that the courts should not interfere with the
orderly process of elections after the general election has been held,”
citing Taggart. Id. at 876. But we noted those considerations only as
part of a discussion of why the case had become moot: because, as
we explained there, the appellant failed follow the expedited
procedures of the Election Code or seek expedited review in this
Court, which led to the docketing of his appeal after the general
election. See id.
After Payne, however, we started to expand the concept of
“mootness” in election contests to support dismissing appeals that
were not moot in the traditional sense. In Caplan v. Hattaway, 269
Ga. 582 (501 SE2d 195) (1998), for example, we dismissed as “moot”
a challenge to the general election results after the general election
happened. But that case was not moot for the same reasons as
Taggart and Payne, which dealt with primary challenges that
became moot once the general election happened. And effective relief
13
was still available to a successful challenger in Caplan: after all, the
Election Code expressly allows election contests to be brought after
a general election and expressly contemplates courts declaring such
an election invalid and calling for a new one. OCGA § 21-2-527 (d).
So the appeal in Caplan simply was not moot.
In Caplan and decisions that followed it, this unsupported
expansion of the mootness doctrine in election contests also started
to morph into our current “prudential” dispatch doctrine. We noted
again in Caplan the “policy considerations which underlie ‘the rule
that litigants should make every effort to dispose of election disputes
with dispatch,’” and cited the “delay in consideration of this appeal .
. . attributable to” the appellant’s lack of dispatch as the
“circumstances” that required us to dismiss the appeal as “moot.”
Caplan, 269 Ga. at 583. A few years later, in Jordan v. Cook, 277
Ga. 155 (587 SE2d 52) (2003), we addressed another case that was
not moot in the traditional sense because it involved a pre-election
challenge to a primary candidate’s qualifications, only the primary
election had been held, and again, the Election Code authorized the
14
court to invalidate the primary election and call for a new one. See
id. Nonetheless, we said (for the first time, with no citation) that
litigants have a “duty” to expedite their election contests; trained
our attention on the set of things the challenger failed to do to
expedite the challenge; and affirmed a dismissal for mootness
because “[t]he policy considerations underlying our mootness
doctrine appl[ied] to the election challenge in this case.” Id. at 156.
And a few years after that, in McCreary v. Martin, 281 Ga. 668 (642
SE2d 80) (2007), we cited this new “threshold duty” to act with
dispatch and dismissed the appeal again because the “policy
considerations underlying the mootness doctrine” applied.
Recently, we have recognized (correctly) that the principles
we’d been applying in these cases were different from traditional
mootness, and we did some work to disentangle these distinct
concepts. In Miller v. Hodge, 319 Ga. 543) (905 SE2d 562) (2024), we
explained that a claim is “moot” when “intervening events have
rendered the relief sought impossible or pointless,” and that label
did not properly apply to claims brought under our Election Code’s
15
procedures for election contests if the Code’s new-election remedy
was still available. Id. at 548 (1). Instead, we observed, “the cases
declaring such election contests moot appear to be based on various
prudential reasons for courts to limit their exercise of jurisdiction
and to refrain from invalidating elections after the fact when the
challenging party has not acted with dispatch to litigate their claims
before a subsequent election.” Id. We nevertheless went on to
reaffirm this prudential doctrine, and because the challenger in
Miller had not acted with enough dispatch in our view, those
“prudential concerns . . . counsel[ed] us to dismiss” the appeal. Id. at
549 (1). And since Miller, we have applied the doctrine in the same
way, holding that failure to advance an election contest with
dispatch results in dismissal of the appeal. See Peterson v. Vie, 320
Ga. 502 (910 SE2d 191) (2024); Ponder v. Davis, 320 Ga. 532 (910
SE2d 195) (2024).
In sum, over a span of almost five decades, our decisions shifted
from merely advising litigants that their cases could become moot if
they did not advance them with dispatch, to imposing an extra16
statutory duty to act with dispatch, to recognizing a full-blown
prudential doctrine that requires dismissal of an election contest if
the challenger does not act with dispatch.
(b) This doctrine’s somewhat accidental beginnings and shaky
legal footing should give us serious pause about expanding it any
further. Indeed, little of the doctrine’s evolution recounted above
looks very much like how courts are supposed to do law. Rather than
interpreting and applying any law enacted by the legislature or
ratified by the people of Georgia, we imposed on all election
challengers a new “duty” found nowhere in our Election Code, with
the harsh consequence of dismissal if they failed to act with
“dispatch” — and courts get to decide in each case what amounts to
sufficient dispatch. What’s more, we have justified this duty in part
by pointing to our Election Code’s strict deadlines meant to expedite
election contests, even though we have dismissed challenges under
this doctrine when none of those statutory deadlines have been
missed. See, e.g., OCGA § 21-2-524 (a) (providing that an election
challenge must be brought “within five days after the official
17
consolidation of the [election] returns”). See also Miller, 319 Ga. at
549 (1) (dismissing timely appeal from timely election challenge
because the policy considerations reflected in the Election Code
“counsel the courts in limiting the exercise of jurisdiction”). We
regularly reject arguments from parties that would “read into a
statute language that the General Assembly did not enact.” State v.
Wierson, S24G1299 slip op. at ___ (May 27, 2025). See, e.g., White v.
State, 305 Ga. 111, 118 (2) (823 SE2d 794) (2019) (court “was not
authorized to write a ‘relevance’ exception into” the Rape Shield
Statute); Luangkhot v. State, 292 Ga. 423, 427 (4) (736 SE2d 397)
(2013). That rule applies to us too.
I do not mean to say that I am ready to abandon our dispatch
doctrine. At least in the context of election contests, the doctrine may
still have some basis in the statutory framework. For instance, if the
Election Code’s “drastic remedy” of invalidating an election has roots
in or similarities to equitable remedies, it may be that the doctrine
is analogous to defenses like laches and unclean hands that foreclose
equitable relief. OCGA § 23-1-25 (“Equity gives no relief to one
18
whose long delay renders the ascertainment of the truth difficult,
even when no legal limitation bars the right.”); Claire v. Rue de
Paris, Inc., 239 Ga. 191, 194 (236 SE2d 272) (1977) (“Under the
‘clean hands’ maxim, whenever a party who, as actor, seeks to set
the judicial machinery in motion and obtain some remedy, has
violated conscience, or good faith, or other equitable principle, in his
prior conduct, then the doors of the court will be shut against him.”
(cleaned up)). And I suppose there might be constitutional limits on
a court’s power to unwind an election after too much time has
passed. Cf. Baker v. Carr, 369 US 186, 217 (IV) (82 SCt 691, 7 LE2d
663) (1962) (describing the “political question” doctrine that “the
impossibility of a court’s undertaking independent resolution” of a
case “without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches
of government” puts the case beyond the power of the court to
resolve). But cf. Owens v. City of Greenville, 290 Ga. 557, 558 (1) (722
SE2d 755) (2012) (“The fact that a controversy has political
overtones does not place it beyond judicial review.” (citation
omitted)). And at the least, we have applied and reaffirmed the
19
doctrine for long enough — and have now supplied enough (strained)
reasoning in support — that stare decisis probably preserves it in its
current form. See Jordan, 277 Ga. 155; McCreary, 281 Ga. 668;
Miller, 319 Ga. 543; Peterson, 320 Ga. 502; Ponder, 320 Ga. 532. See
also Wasserman v. Franklin County, 320 Ga. 624, 645 (II) (B) (1) (911
SE2d 583) (2025) (“When we consider whether to follow one of our
past decisions, stare decisis is the ‘strong default rule.’” (citation
omitted)).
But given the doctrine’s doubtful footing, we should not expand
it as the majority does here. Our past decisions have all applied the
dispatch doctrine in cases brought under our Elections Code, and we
have expressly said that the doctrine is “grounded in the statutory
framework of OCGA § 21-2-520 et seq.,” which provides that strict
set of expedited deadlines and requirements for election contests.
Miller, 319 Ga. at 549 (1). This action, of course, is not a petition
brought under our Elections Code, but rather a declaratory
judgment action brought under OCGA § 9-4-2. Applying our
Elections Code-based doctrine to a case brought outside of the Code
20
unmoors it from even its weak tether to anything the legislature
enacted. And it turns it into a freewheeling doctrine that allows
courts to simply decline to resolve a case over which they have
undoubted jurisdiction based on “policy considerations” that the
legislature has yet to vote on. Seems like a bad idea to me.
*
The majority’s expansion of our prudential dispatch doctrine is
both unwise and needless. As I explained above, this appeal presents
a classic case of mootness: a challenge to a primary after both the
primary and general election have been held and certified that does
not even ask us to invalidate either of those elections is well and
truly moot. And if that were not enough, it also fails to present an
actual controversy that warrants reaching the merits of Dean’s
claim for declaratory judgment. I would simply dismiss the appeal
on either of those sound bases and have done with it.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Justice Warren joins in
this special concurrence.
21