Cite as 244 F.Supp.3d 1350 (N.D.Ga. 2017)
complish a complete remodification [of the state’s laws] as quickly as possible.” O.C.G.A., Foreword at ix–x. From five law publishers, the Commission selected The Michie Company to prepare and publish what would become the O.C.G.A. and entered into a contract. Id. at x.
The Commission itself developed the uniform numbering system and rules of style used in the new (1981) Code and adopted an arrangement into 53 Code titles. Id. at xi. Upon completion of the editorial process, a manuscript entitled the Code of Georgia 1981 Legislative Edition was prepared, presented to the General Assembly, and enacted at the 1981 extraordinary session of the General Assembly [Doc. No. 29-1, ¶19, admitted]. Annotations, indexes, editorial notes, and other materials have been added to that manuscript to produce the O.C.G.A., the first official Code to be published under authority of the State of Georgia since the Code of 1933 [Id.].
On October 3, 2006, the Commission issued a Request for Proposals, and on December 27, 2006, the Commission entered a new Agreement for Publication (“Agreement”) with Matthew Bender & Co. Inc. (“Lexis/Nexis”) [Doc. No. 29-1, ¶20, admitted; Doc. No. 29-8]. The Agreement requires the official Code to include not only the statutory provisions, but also “annotations, captions, catchlines, headings, history lines, editorial notes, cross-references, indices, title and chapter analyses, research references, amendment notes, Code Commission notes, and other material related to or included in such Code at the direction of the Commission” [Doc. No. 29-8, p. 2]. Each O.C.G.A. volume and supplement therefore contains statutory text and non-statutory annotation text, including judicial decision summaries, editor’s notes, research references, notes on law review articles, summaries of the opinions of the Attorney General of Georgia, indexes, and title, chapter, article, part, and subpart captions, which are all prepared by Lexis/Nexis under the requirements of the Agreement [Doc. No. 17, ¶¶1–3, 9, 18, and 26].
The Agreement provides that the Commission, not its hired publisher, has “the ultimate right of editorial control” both over all material contained in the O.C.G.A. and over what material is selected to become part of the O.C.G.A. [Doe. No. 29-8, p. 2]. The Agreement requires Lexis/Nexis to follow the Commission’s detailed publication manual, which “reflect[s] those specific content, style and publishing standards of the Code as adopted, approved or amended from time to time by the Commission or its staff pursuant to Code Section 28-9-3 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated” [Id.]. Additionally, the Agreement requires that Lexis/Nexis summarize “all published opinions of the Georgia Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals of Georgia, and all published opinions of the United States Supreme Court and other federal courts that arose in Georgia and construed Georgia general statutes, whether such decisions favor plaintiffs, defendants, or the prosecution” [Id., p. 4]. The Agreement similarly provides that research references and legislative history are included in the O.C.G.A. [Id., pp. 5–6].
The Agreement requires that Lexis/Nexis provide Georgia’s statutes in an un-annotated form on a website that the public can access for free using the Internet [Doc. No. 29-8, pp. 12–13; Doc. No. 17, ¶¶73–75]. The free public website contains only the statutory text and numbering of the O.C.G.A. [Doc. No. 17, ¶¶73, 75]. The Agreement requires Lexis/Nexis to track
