Allyson Bush and Glenn Bush, individually and as parents of their deceased son, brought this wrongful death action against Sandra B. Reed, M. D., and the Shaw Center for Women’s Health, P. A. The case was tried before a jury, which returned a verdict in favor of the defendants. The plaintiffs filed a timely notice of appeal, but the trial court later dismissed the appeal because of the delay in filing the transcript of the proceedings. It is from the dismissal order that the plaintiffs now appeal. Because the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the delay in the filing of the transcript was unreasonable, inexcusable, and caused by the plaintiffs, we affirm. The record reflects that on October 6, 2009, the trial court entered judgment in favor of the defendants and against the plaintiffs in this wrongful death action. On October 27, 2009, the plaintiffs filed their notice of appeal designating only certain portions of the record and trial transcript to be prepared for inclusion in the appellate record. The following month, the defendants filed a designation and an amended designation requesting that the clerk of court include a complete transcript of the trial proceedings and omit nothing from the appellate record.
Subsequently, on January 4, 2010, the plaintiffs filed a motion for an extension of time to file the trial transcript, acknowledging the they had not filed their motion within the time required by OCGA § 5-6-39 d.1 The defendants consented to the plaintiffs’ motion for an extension of time, and the trial court granted the motion on January 25, 2010. The trial court’s January 25 order provided in relevant part: The plaintiffs’ Motion for Extension of Time until such time as the transcript is completed and the record on appeal has been prepared for transmittal to the Appellate Court is hereby GRANTED. . . . The plaintiffs shall have 20 days from the date the trial transcript is completed and the record on appeal has been prepared for transmittal to Appellate Court to file the transcript. On February 3, 2010, the court reporter mailed a letter to counsel for the plaintiffs stating that she would require a deposit of $3,500 before she would begin preparing the trial transcript. The court reporter further noted that she was “at a bit of a quandary as to how to proceed,” given that the plaintiffs had requested a partial transcript, and she had “never been requested to do a partial transcript for a case on appeal, and, quite frankly, was simply not able to prepare a transcript in the manner that was requested.” She also pointed out that the defendants were taking the position that the entire transcript needed to be prepared to “go up with the record on appeal.”
