Opinion ID: 67296
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Dismissal of CCBOE

Text: This Court “review[s] de novo the district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, accepting the allegations in the complaint as true and construing them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Mills v. Foremost, Inc., 511 F.3d 1300, 1303 (11th Cir. 2008). The capacity to sue or be sued is determined “for all other parties [i.e., those that are not individuals or corporations], by the law of the state where the court is located, except that: (A) a partnership or other unincorporated association with no such capacity under that state’s law may sue or be sued in its common name to enforce a 6 substantive right existing under the United States Constitution or laws.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 17(b). Under Georgia law, “a county board of education, unlike the school district which it manages, is not a body corporate and does not have the capacity to sue or be sued.” Cook v. Colquitt County Bd. of Educ., 412 S.E.2d 828, 828 (Ga. 1992). The only exception to this rule occurs when the legislature creates a school board by an act which gives that board the capacity to sue or be sued. Id. In Dean v. Barber, 951 F.2d 1210, 1215 n.4 (11th Cir. 1992), we indicated that the “unincorporated association” exception under Rule 17(b) should not apply to governmental units, subdivisions, or agencies. Accordingly, the district court did not err in dismissing the CCBOE as a party. Under Georgia law, the CCBOE is not an entity capable of being sued. Moreover, there is no evidence that the legislature acted to make the CCBOE subject to suit. Finally, Rule 17(b)’s unincorporated association exception does not apply to government units. AFFIRMED. 7