---
feature_id: FTR-41
title: Georgia Appellate Rules & Statutes Reference
category: Legal
optional: true
depends_on: none
source: Not from Project_Kickoff_Seed_Prompt_v2.3.md — supplied directly by the user, built 2026-09-08 for the TCA (Tripodis v. City of Atlanta) matter from primary sources (Georgia Court of Appeals, Supreme Court of Georgia, and the free official O.C.G.A. portal via Justia). No corresponding item in Bootstrap_Function_Registry.md. See coverage_report.md Section 10.
registry_refs: []
---

# Georgia Appellate Rules & Statutes Reference

Depends on: none

## What this is
Complete, primary-source-verified current text of the Georgia Court of Appeals Rules, the Rules of the Supreme Court of Georgia, and all currently-operative chapters of O.C.G.A. Title 5 ("Appeal and Error"); ships with a downloadable reference package, plus a reverse-chronological changelog of recent amendments to all three sources.

A pure reference corpus — text and PDFs only, no workbook, no schema, no tracked fields. Unlike FTR-37 (which nests under FTR-36 because it ships its own discovery-tracking schema), this feature can be installed standalone in any project type, legal or otherwise, that touches Georgia appellate practice.

**Relationship to FTR-37:** natural companions, not overlapping. FTR-37 covers Georgia *trial-court* discovery (interrogatories/RFPs/RFAs, discovery caps, a tracking schema) with its own statutes-and-guide zip. This feature covers Georgia *appellate* practice (both appellate courts' own procedural rules, plus the appeal-and-error statutes) with no tracking schema of its own. A project running a Georgia case from trial through appeal would reasonably install both; a project starting at the appellate stage only needs this one.

It answers three questions a Georgia appellate matter always needs answered early: what the Court of Appeals' own rules require for a specific filing; whether the Supreme Court's rule set applies instead (or as well), and how it differs; and what the underlying Appeal and Error statute (O.C.G.A. Title 5) says about jurisdiction, timing, and procedure, independent of either court's own internal rules.

## Assess first
- Is this a Georgia matter, and is it at the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court, or genuinely undetermined between the two? (Both are included regardless — most projects will use one court's subfolder far more than the other, that's fine.)
- Is the matter civil, criminal, or both? The O.C.G.A. Chapter 7 file (State's criminal appeals) only applies if there's a criminal component; a purely civil matter can treat that file as background-only.
- Does the project already have FTR-37 installed (trial-level discovery)? If so, this feature is a natural add rather than a replacement — no conflict, no shared schema.
- Does the project need its own copy under its own document-ID scheme, or is a shared/root-level install preferred? Either is fine; note which was chosen.

## Ask, only if needed
- If it's unclear which court's rules will matter more, or whether a criminal component exists, ask directly rather than assume.
- If the project has its own document-tracking system (an Excel Document Register, a markdown index), confirm whether to register the package's files there using that project's own conventions.

## Write

### Corpus contents — what's in the zip
**15 content files total**, across 4 subfolders plus a top-level README:
```
GA_Appellate_Rules_Reference_Package/
  README.md                              top-level index: what's here, currency dates, known gaps
  Court_of_Appeals/
    README_Court_of_Appeals.md           exact source URL; how the Court publishes updates
    ..._Complete_Eff_2026-03-26_v1.pdf   the Court's own consolidated rules, all 46 rules
    ..._plaintext.txt                    plain-text extraction for fast keyword search
  Supreme_Court/
    README_Supreme_Court.md              exact source URLs; how the Court publishes amendments
    ..._Eff_2026-07-02_v1.pdf            the Court's own current rules, 85 pages
    ..._plaintext.txt                    plain-text extraction of the same
    ..._Rule_Changes_Chart_2026_v1.pdf   the Clerk's own old-vs-new comparison chart
    ..._Quick_Reference_v1.pdf           the Clerk's own quick-reference (word/page limits)
  OCGA_Statutes/
    README_OCGA_Statutes.md              exact source, free-vs-paid Lexis/Justia clarification
    ..._Ch6_Appellate_Practice_v1.md     full text, "Appellate Practice" (right-of-appeal/notice/jurisdiction/supersedeas)
    ..._Ch5_New_Trial_v1.md              full text, all 19 sections (grounds/procedure at trial-court level)
    ..._Ch6_Art1_General_Provisions_v1.md full text, all 16 sections (costs, frivolous-appeal damages, remittitur)
    ..._Ch7_State_Criminal_Appeals_v1.md  full text, all 6 active sections (criminal component only)
  Changelog/
    GA_Appeals_Rules_Changelog.md        reverse-chronological timeline, every change, exact source URLs
```

Every `.md` file follows the same internal structure: full verbatim statutory or rule text, the official history/amendment citation line, and (for the O.C.G.A. files specifically) a section-by-section relevance note written for whatever matter installed the package — a future installing project should re-run that relevance layer for its own facts, since the verbatim text and history lines are the durable, reusable part.

**What this completes, statute-wise:** every chapter of O.C.G.A. Title 5 that carries current operative text — Chapter 5, Chapter 6 (both articles), and Chapter 7. Chapters 1–2 are reserved (no text exists); Chapters 3–4 were confirmed via the Title 5 index but not pulled in full, since Chapter 6 covers the same procedural ground in force today.

### Currency and how to check for updates
- **Georgia Court of Appeals Rules** — amended by the Court's own internal order; master list at `gaappeals.gov/court-rules-updates/`. Current through March 26, 2026 as of this build.
- **Rules of the Supreme Court of Georgia** — running log at `gasupreme.us/rules/amendments-to-rules/`, plus the Court's own comparison chart. Current through July 2, 2026 as of this build.
- **O.C.G.A. Title 5** — changes only when the General Assembly passes a bill the Governor signs, usually effective July 1. Free official portal: `lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/` (no paid subscription needed); Justia mirrors the same text and was the actual pull source.

Recommended re-verification cadence: before relying on this package in an active filing, re-check each of the three source pages above — the changelog documents the method used to build this snapshot, so re-running it is mechanical, not a rebuild from scratch.

### Coverage and known gaps (flagged, not fabricated, not silently omitted)
- The Court of Appeals' pre-2024 update history (2017–2023, 16 dated entries) is listed by date in the changelog but not individually pulled in full text.
- O.C.G.A. Title 5, Chapters 3 and 4 were confirmed to exist via the chapter index but not pulled in full text (superseded in current practice by Chapter 6).
- O.C.G.A. Chapter 7 is included in full but confirmed to have no operative application to a purely civil matter — here for completeness, not because every installing project will need it.
- Nothing in this package required paywalled or login-gated access. A future addition that does turn out to be paywalled should be flagged and handed to a human to retrieve and paste in, not scraped.

### Installation guidance (mirrors FTR-37's stated principle)
Unzip as a standalone folder inside the installing project's reference/research location. Reference it from the project's own Agent Instructions by path and purpose only — never duplicate the rule or statute text into the instructions file itself. If the project has its own document-tracking system, register the package's files there using that project's own conventions; filenames inside the zip carry the source project's own document IDs, so re-numbering on install is expected and fine.

### Accompanying reference package — GA_Appellate_Rules_Reference_Package.zip
This feature ships with a downloadable reference package, separate from this spec document. On installation, this package should be:

1. Downloaded from the feature site alongside this spec.
2. Unzipped into the host project's research/reference location as its own top-level folder, `GA_Appellate_Rules_Reference_Package\` — not merged file-by-file into an existing structure.
3. Referenced from the project's Agent Instructions or CLAUDE.md as a pointer only (path plus one-line purpose) — never re-summarized or duplicated into the instructions themselves.

Contents: verbatim current text of the Georgia Court of Appeals Rules and Rules of the Supreme Court of Georgia (both as PDF and plaintext), the Supreme Court Clerk's own rule-changes comparison chart and quick-reference sheet, four O.C.G.A. Title 5 chapters with full text plus relevance analysis, and a reverse-chronological changelog across all three sources. Download: [data/items/ga-appellate-rules-statutes-reference.zip](data/items/ga-appellate-rules-statutes-reference.zip)

## What this doesn't cover
- Trial-court discovery practice — that's FTR-37, a natural companion, not a dependency.
- Re-running the per-section "Relevance to [matter]" notes for a new installing project's own facts — the verbatim text and history lines are reusable as-is; the relevance layer is matter-specific and should be redone per project.
- Automated re-verification of currency — re-checking the three source pages is a manual, on-request task, not something this feature runs on its own initiative.

## Confirm
Confirm: Georgia Appellate Rules & Statutes Reference is installed — the reference package is unzipped into the project's research location and pointed to from Agent Instructions. Want to install another, or is that everything for now?