Court Opinion

ID: 9567950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:59:16.286335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:03.690984
License: Public Domain

Carley, Justice,
concurring specially.
As amended in 1991, Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX (e) of the Georgia Constitution of 1983 provides as follows:
Except as specifically provided in this Paragraph, sovereign immunity extends to the state and all of its departments and agencies. The sovereign immunity of the state and its departments and agencies can only be waived by an Act of the General Assembly which specifically provides that sovereign immunity is thereby waived and the extent of such waiver.
(Emphasis supplied.) The issue presented for resolution is whether a municipality is a “department or agency” of the state within the meaning of this constitutional provision. The majority concludes that it is not. I concur, but I reach that conclusion by employing a different rationale from that of the majority.
In Hiers v. City of Barwick, 262 Ga. 129 (414 SE2d 647) (1992), a majority of this Court held that a municipality was a “department or agency” of the state within the meaning of former Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX of the Georgia Constitution of 1983. The majority in the instant case holds that Hiers is not controlling as to the meaning of a “department or agency” of the state in the 1991 amendment because it is “uncontrovertible that the General Assembly did not draft the 1991 amendment with the understanding that the phrase in issue was subject to being construed as including municipalities. ...” I would go *8further. In my opinion, former Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX was itself never drafted with the understanding that the phrase “department or agency” of the state would include a municipality. Accordingly, rather than merely distinguish Hiers as controlling authority in the instant case, I would overrule it.
Former Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX made no specific reference to a municipality’s immunity from liability. It related solely to the sovereign immunity of the state itself and of the state’s “departments and agencies.” The issue of the immunity of municipalities was and is addressed separately in Art. IX, Sec. II, Par. IX. In my opinion, these separate constitutional provisions clearly evince that the drafters of the Constitution intended that a distinction was to be drawn between the concept of sovereign immunity and that of municipal immunity.
By its terms, the immunity which was constitutionally recognized under former Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX is limited to that which cloaks the sovereign state itself and which, consequently, cloaks the departments and agencies through which the sovereign state actually operates. A municipality is not a department or agency through which the sovereign state itself actually operates. As Justice Hunt noted in his dissent in Hiers, supra at 133 (1), a municipality is not a political subdivision of this state, but “is a public corporation and a creature of the legislature. [Cits.]” Thus, a municipality can only be said to act as an agent for the state in the sense that, in lieu of the state, it is authorized to perform delegated duties for and provide delegated services to a certain segment of this state’s citizens who reside within its corporate limits. A municipality is entitled to assert immunity when it “undertakes to perform for the State duties which the State itself might perform, but which have been delegated to the municipality. . . .” Mayor &c. of Savannah v. Jordan, 142 Ga. 409, 410 (83 SE 109) (1914). Since a municipality is no more than a public corporation exercising delegated authority in lieu of the state rather than an entity exercising express authority on behalf of the state itself, the drafters of the constitution did not consider a municipality to be a “department or agency” of the state subject to the sovereign immunity provisions of former Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX and a separate constitutional provision regarding the immunity of a municipality was deemed to be necessary. That separate constitutional provision is to be found at Art. IX, Sec. II, Par. IX. Thus, a municipality is no more subject to the sovereign immunity provisions of former Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX than a “department or agency” of the state is subject to the municipal immunity provisions of Art. IX, Sec. II, Par. IX.
I conclude, therefore, that
“[t]he majority [in Hiers] err[ed] in including cities under [former] Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX. The error is important be*9cause of the difference in liability for negligence by cities and the state and its subdivisions . . . .”
Decided February 21, 1994
Reconsideration denied March 11, 1994.
Adams, Barfield, Dunaway & Hankinson, Ronald Barfield, Walter E. Sumner, for appellant.
Evans & Evans, Larry K. Evans, for appellees.
Bauer, Deitch & Kline, Craig T. Jones, Franklin, Taulbee, Rushing & Brogdon, Keith A. McIntyre, amicus curiae.
Hiers v. City of Barwick, supra at 132 (1) (Hunt, J., dissent). Indeed, it is that error which has precipitated the instant appeal, which raises the question “whether cities should properly be included under any state tort claims act that may be enacted [pursuant to the 1991 amendment].” Hiers v. City of Barwick, supra at 133 (1) (Hunt, J., dissent). Although the majority in the instant case avoids perpetuating this error by distinguishing Hiers as authority for construing the 1991 amendment, I would overrule that decision so as to preclude any future reliance upon it as authority for the proposition that a municipality is to be considered a “department or agency” of the state as that phrase may be employed in any other constitutional or statutory provision.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Justice Hunt and Justice Fletcher join in this special concurrence.