In 2022, Georgia overhauled the way decisions of local boards, commissions, councils and some lower courts are appealed to the state’s trial courts. The Superior and State Court Appellate Practice Act, commonly abbreviated “SSCAPA,” replaced two archaic review mechanisms with a single, modern “petition for review” procedure. For developers, licensees, businesses, and the lawyers who represent them, the Act has changed both the mechanics and the strategy of appealing decisions made by “lower judicatories” to Georgia’s state courts. This guide explains what the SSCAPA is, what it changed, and how it is reshaping appellate practice in Georgia.

What Is the SSCAPA?

The Superior and State Court Appellate Practice Act was enacted as House Bill 916 during the 2022 legislative session, signed into law on May 13, 2022, and made effective July 1, 2023. It is codified at OCGA §§ 5-3-1 to 5-3-21 and has since been amended by HB 186 (2023) and SB 450 (2024). The Act applies to any appeal to a  superior or state court which seeks review of a lower judicatory decision for actions initiated on or after the SSCAPA’s July 1, 2023 effective date.

At its core, the SSCAPA establishes a uniform procedure, the “petition for review,” for appealing a final judgment of a lower judicatory to a superior or state court. As explained by the General Assembly, the Act’s stated purpose is to provide “a single, modern, and uniform procedure” and to increase access to justice by resolving appeals on their substantive merits rather than on procedural technicalities, which had become all too common. OCGA § 5-3-2(b).

What the Act Changed: From Certiorari and Notice of Appeal to a Single Petition for Review

Before July 1, 2023, a party seeking review of a decision by a local board, commission, council, or other or lower tribunal faced a confusing patchwork of procedural hurdles. Two separate and antiquated mechanisms governed: the common-law writ of certiorari (former OCGA § 5-4-1 et seq.) and various notice-of-appeal procedures (former OCGA § 5-3-1 et seq.). Each carried its own technical requirements, and the path that applied often depended on the type of tribunal which had rendered the decision below. The result was a process riddled with traps for the unwary, in which appeals were frequently dismissed on procedural grounds before any court reached the merits.

The General Assembly said as much in the Superior and State Court Appellate Practice Act’s legislative findings, observing in the text of the Act that many appeals from a lower judicatory “result in dismissal on complex procedural grounds and not a decision on the merits.” OCGA § 5-3-2(a). The SSCAPA responds by repealing and replacing those former statutes and consolidating review into one petition-for-review procedure. Pursuant to this new procedure, the Act directs that its provisions be construed to favor resolution on the merits, rather than dismissal on procedural grounds, unless a dismissal is expressly required. OCGA § 5-3-2(b).

Key Provisions Every Litigant Should Understand

A broadly defined “lower judicatory”

The Act’s reach is deliberately wide. A “lower judicatory” is defined to include essentially any official, board, tribunal, commission, municipal or county authority, council, or similar body exercising judicial or quasi-judicial powers, which, in some circumstances, can also include arbitrators, mediators, administrative law judges, and certain courts. OCGA § 5-3-3. In practice, that scope sweeps in municipal courts, magistrate courts, non-Article 6 probate courts, zoning and planning boards, alcohol- and business-licensing boards, county commissions, and certain administrative agencies, among others. These frontline government entities are the very bodies with whom citizens most frequently interact and those whose land-use, permitting, and licensing decisions most often affect Georgia businesses and developers.

Appellate jurisdiction over a “final judgment”

The SSCAPA vests the superior or state court (the “reviewing court”) with appellate jurisdiction over a final judgment of a lower judicatory. OCGA § 5-3-4. As discussed below, the Act’s emphasis on finality has already proven consequential at the appellate level.

The petition for review: form and deadlines

A single instrument, the petition for review, now replaces both the old notice of appeal and the writ of certiorari. A party seeking review of a decision by a lower judicatory invokes the appellate jurisdiction of a reviewing court by filing a petition for review. OCGA § 5-3-6. The Superior and State Court Appellate Practice Act specifies the petition’s required form and contents, and a model petition is set out in the statute. OCGA § 5-3-7(e). As a general rule, a petition for review must be filed within 30 days after the lower judicatory’s final judgment, unless another statute provides otherwise. OCGA § 5-3-7(b). Subject to limited exceptions, the Act provides that all parties to the proceeding before the lower judicatory should be identified as parties in a petition for review. OCGA § 5-3-7(c).

After filing, the petitioner must serve all parties and the lower judicatory within five days. OCGA § 5-3-7(g)-(h). Responses to a petition for review are typically required within 30 days after service of a petition for review. OCGA § 5-3-8(a). Replies are not necessary, but if filed, are due within 30 days of services of a response. OCGA § 5-3-8(c).

Defects are amendable

In a meaningful break from the old regime, the Act treats most errors and omissions in a petition for review as amendable defects. OCGA § 5-3-8(d). This provision is central to the legislature’s merits-over-technicalities purpose and reduces the risk that a minor pleading error ends an appeal before it begins.

Standards of review

The SSCAPA details new standards for reviewing decisions by lower judicatories, which encompasses both appellate-style review on the record and, where authorized, de novo review. OCGA § 5-3-5. Identifying the correct standard for a given decision is often the pivotal question in these appeals. As our own matters illustrate, it is also an area where lower courts applying the new statute have sometimes erred.

Record, costs, and supersedeas

The Superior and State Court Appellate Practice Act comprehensively addresses transmittal of the record to the reviewing court (OCGA § 5-3-15), payment of costs and indigency affidavits (OCGA § 5-3-16), and supersedeas bonds (OCGA § 5-3-17). It also preempts any conflicting local ordinance, rule, or procedure. OCGA § 5-3-4.

The reviewing court’s final decision and the path onward

After review, the reviewing court issues a final decision affirming, reversing, vacating, or remanding the lower judicatory’s judgment. OCGA § 5-3-18. That final decision may then be appealed to the appropriate next-level appellate court, either the Georgia Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court of Georgia. Notably, the SSCAPA did not change the separate procedures for appealing to those higher courts; it governs the step from the lower judicatory to the reviewing court. Appeals to the Georgia Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Georgia remain governed by the provisions of the Georgia code pertaining to Appellate Practice, codified at OCGA § 5-6-30 et seq.

How the SSCAPA Is Reshaping Appellate Practice

For practitioners, the Superior and State Court Appellate Practice Act is more than a procedural relabeling. Several consequences are already emerging:

• Fewer procedural dismissals, more merits review. By unifying the procedure and making defects amendable, the Act should reduce the number of appeals lost on technicalities, shifting the contest to the substance of the underlying decision.
• Uniformity across very different tribunals. One procedure now governs appeals from bodies as varied as zoning boards and magistrate courts, replacing a tribunal-by-tribunal patchwork.
• New interpretive questions. Because the statute is recent, its provisions are still being construed, and lower courts have at times misapplied them. Early, well-briefed challenges can shape how the Act is interpreted, and can even establish precedent.
• Finality is now a gatekeeper. The Act’s focus on “final” decisions has direct consequences for when, and whether, a matter can move to the next level of appellate review, either before the Georgia Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court of Georgia (see below).
• Reaching the next level of appellate review often requires a discretionary application. Appeals from a superior or state court reviewing a decision of a lower judicatory or administrative agency frequently must proceed by discretionary application under OCGA § 5-6-35, which carries a low grant rate. Persuading the court to take the case is itself a strategic undertaking.

Early Judicial Interpretation: City of Snellville v. Snellville Beverage Store, LLC and Girls Galore Inc. v. City of Atlanta.

The most significant published appellate decisions construing the SSCAPA to date are City of Snellville v. Snellville Beverage Store, LLC, decided by the Georgia Court of Appeals in 2025 (Pipkin, J., with McFadden, P.J., and Hodges, J., concurring) and Girls Galore Inc. v. City of Atlanta, decided by the Georgia Court of Appeals in 2026 (Doyle, P.J., with Markle, J., and Padgett, J., concurring).

Snellville Beverage Store, LLC arose from a denied alcohol-license application: after the City Manager’s denial was affirmed by the Mayor and City Council, the applicants filed a petition for review in Gwinnett County Superior Court under the SSCAPA. Following procedural maneuvering that included a voluntary dismissal and a renewed petition under Georgia’s Renewal Statute (OCGA § 9-2-61), the trial court denied the City’s motion to dismiss, and the City sought interlocutory review.

The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. It held that the SSCAPA authorizes an appeal to the Court of Appeals only from a “final decision” of the reviewing court under OCGA § 5-3-18, and that the Act makes no provision for interlocutory review of a non-final order. Because the trial court’s denial of a motion to dismiss was not a final decision, the appellate court had no jurisdiction to hear it. The court reasoned that the “final decision” language in OCGA § 5-3-18 did not appear in the now-repealed statutes, so the legislature must have intended to change the law and foreclose interlocutory appeals in this context.

Girls Galore, Inc. similarly arose from a decision revoking an alcohol license which had been issued to an adult entertainment establishment. The superior court affirmed the revocation decision and the establishment brought a discretionary appeal to the Court of Appeals, which agreed to hear the establishment’s case.

The Court of Appeals ultimately vacated the superior court’s affirmance and remanded the case for additional proceedings. Along the way to that determination, however, the Court of Appeals shed meaningful light on the evidentiary threshold necessary for a superior court to affirm a decision by a lower judicatory. Specifically, the Court of Appeals observed an important textual change in the SSCAPA: whereas the prior statutes governing appellate review from lower judicatories called for “substantial evidence,” the SSCAPA requires “sufficient evidence.” The upshot of this change in language, the Court of Appeals reasoned, is that more is required to support an affirmance under the SSCAPA’s new regime than was needed under the former statutory schemes.

Practical significance. Snellville confirms that the SSCAPA meaningfully altered prior practice, and it sends a clear signal to litigants: in SSCAPA matters, a party cannot use the ordinary interlocutory-appeal route to reach the Court of Appeals and must instead await a final decision from the reviewing court. A similar meaningful alternation can be gleaned from Girls Galore: the SSCAPA’s various standards of review call for various evidentiary thresholds. The nature of your case will dictate the nature of review and the evidence needed to support a litigant’s position. Counsel should plan the appellate path accordingly from the outset.

Note on the developing record:  As of this writing, published Georgia appellate authority construing the SSCAPA remains limited, as the statute is only recently effective. Snellville is the leading appellate decision interpreting the Act; additional guidance will accrue as more petitions for review reach the appellate courts. This guide will be updated as the case law develops.

Practical Takeaways for Litigants and Counsel

1. Confirm the deadline early. The default is 30 days from the lower judicatory’s final judgment, but shorter or different windows apply in specific contexts (e.g., dispossessory and workers’ compensation). OCGA § 5-3-7.
2. Identify the correct standard of review at the outset. Whether the reviewing court applies record review or de novo review can determine the entire strategy. OCGA § 5-3-5.
3. Mind finality. Because interlocutory orders are not appealable to the Court of Appeals under the Act, structure the case to obtain a reviewable final decision. OCGA § 5-3-18; see Snellville.
4. Plan for a possible discretionary application. Reaching the Court of Appeals may require persuading the court to grant review under OCGA § 5-6-35, a step where focused, precedent-oriented advocacy matters.
5. Use the merits-favoring provisions. The Act’s amendable-defect rule and merits-over-technicalities purpose are tools to keep a meritorious appeal alive. OCGA §§ 5-3-2, 5-3-8.

How Bloom Parham Can Help

Bloom Parham’s combined land use and appellate practice teams have handled petitions for review and discretionary applications under the Superior and State Court Appellate Practice Act,  including recent matters in which the Georgia Court of Appeals granted discretionary review, a step taken in only an estimated 10–20% of cases. The firm is currently litigating several critical SSCAPA cases before the Court of Appeals of Georgia. Read about our solar farm developer win and our Bartow County waste-facility win. Through our Appellate Litigation practice, our lawyers pair deep trial-court experience with appellate skill, allowing us to position a case for review from the first filing through the Court of Appeals.

Those results reflect the depth of Bloom Parham’s appellate bench. Kurt Kastorf, who chairs the State Bar of Georgia’s Appellate Practice Section, has worked on more than one hundred appeals, including matters before the United States Supreme Court, every federal circuit court of appeals, and the Supreme Court of Georgia. He has more experience litigating the Federal Administrative Procedure Act—an analog statute to the SSCAPA—than any other attorney in the Southeast. Firm founder Simon Bloom, among the Southeast’s most experienced trial attorneys, brings decades of real estate, zoning, and land-use litigation that anchors the firm’s strategy in permitting and licensing appeals. Troy Covington, a partner and longtime Georgia Super Lawyer, clerked for the Honorable Julie E. Carnes and served as an Articles Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. And Pierce Ostwalt, who focuses his practice on appellate and commercial litigation, clerked for Justice Shawn Ellen LaGrua of the Supreme Court of Georgia. Together, the team pairs trial-tested judgment with appellate precision at every stage of an SSCAPA matter.

If a local board, commission, or lower court has issued a decision that puts your project or business at risk, we welcome the opportunity to evaluate your options under the SSCAPA. Contact our appellate team.

Authorities Cited

Statute: Superior and State Court Appellate Practice Act, OCGA §§ 5-3-1 to 5-3-21 (enacted as Ga. HB 916 (2022), eff. July 1, 2023; amended by HB 186 (2023) and SB 450 (2024)). See in particular § 5-3-2 (findings and intent), § 5-3-3 (definitions), § 5-3-4 (jurisdiction; preemption), § 5-3-5 (standards of review), § 5-3-7 (petition for review; deadlines; service), § 5-3-8 (amendable defects), § 5-3-15 (record), § 5-3-16 (costs), § 5-3-17 (supersedeas), and § 5-3-18 (final decision; appeals).

Related statutes: OCGA § 5-6-35 (discretionary applications); OCGA § 9-2-21 (renewal); OCGA § 44-7-56 (dispossessory appeals).

Case law: City of Snellville v. Snellville Beverage Store, LLC (Ga. Ct. App. 2025).

Disclaimer:  This guide is provided for general informational purposes only, constitutes attorney advertising, and is not legal advice. It does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statutes and case law change; readers should consult the current Official Code of Georgia Annotated and qualified counsel regarding their specific circumstances.