Court Opinion

ID: 9852653
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:34:19.700081+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:31.715993
License: Public Domain

Hall, Justice,
dissenting.
In the first majority opinion issued in this case, this court followed Regents of the University System of Ga. v. Blanton, 49 Ga. App. 602 (1) (176 SE 673) (1934), a headnote decision of the Court of Appeals which held that there is an implied waiver of sovereignty whenever a state enters into a contract, and it is liable for breach of that contract. On motion for rehearing the brief of the Attorney General shot down the Blanton decision by showing it was in direct conflict with decisions of this court running from 1971 back to 1860. E.g., Crowder v. Dept. of State Parks, 228 Ga. 436, 441 (185 SE2d 908) (1971); Florida State Hospital v. Durham Iron Co., 194 Ga. *770350, 352 (21 SE2d 216) (1942); Roberts v. Barwick, 187 Ga. 691 (1 SE2d 713) (1939); Georgia Military Institute v. Simpson, 31 Ga. 273, 277 (1860). These cases hold that "whoever contracts with the state trusts to the good faith of the state, unless the state sees fit to disrobe itself of its sovereignty.” They reject the contention that the state impliedly waives state sovereignty in entering into a contract. They hold that sovereignty is only waived by "express consent of the state.”
The majority of this court, however, did not give up. They could not, in intellectual honesty, overrule all the above cases and adopt the Blanton decision because in this very year of 1975 this court, in the following words, judicially sealed up the law of Georgia on sovereign immunity as provided by law and interpreted by this court at the time of the passage of the 1973 Court of Claims Constitutional Amendment (Ga. L. 1973, pp. 1489-1490): "Because of the adoption of this constitutional amendment, and it is now effective as a part of our Constitution, we hold that the immunity rule as it has heretofore existed in this state cannot be abrogated or modified by this court. The immunity rule now has constitutional status, and solutions to the inequitable problems that it has posed and continues to pose must now be effected by the General Assembly. The enactment of statutes by the General Assembly pursuant to this constitutional provision can, in a fair and orderly manner, eliminate the inequities and injustices that have become apparent in our modern-day society because of the rigid immunity rule.” Azizi v. Board of Regents of the University System of Ga., 233 Ga. 487, 488 (212 SE2d 627) (1975).
Being thus foreclosed from overruling those decisions, the new majority opinion takes a formalistic1 canter back through the peculiar history of the Board of Regents and embraces what it finds to be talismanic words in the 1785 statute concerning the "Trustees of the *771University System of Georgia” when that body was a private corporation. These magic words referred to in the majority opinion are that the private trustees are "capable to plead and be impleaded, defend and be defended, answer and be answered unto.” At the time of this Act, the trustees were officers of a private corporation without sovereign immunity. However, even if they had had sovereign immunity I fail to see how these words could be construed to amount to an express waiver. The doctrine of sovereign immunity is a defense which must be plead. It does not spring forth every morning like the rising sun. The 1785 provision merely authorized the body of trustees to plead and defend with whatever defenses it had including the defense of sovereign immunity if it was a department of state government.
The flaw in the majority opinion is that, after declaring the lengthy legislative history of the Board of Regents and the Regents, it ignores everything therein except these "magic words.” But legislation must be read as a whole: "Legislation has an aim . . . That aim, that policy is not drawn, like nitrogen, out of the air; it is evinced in the language of the statute, as read in the light of other external manifestations of purpose. That is what the judge must seek and effectuate, and he ought not be led off the trail by tests that have overtones of subjective design.” Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 Col. L. R. 527, 538, 539 (1947). Cardozo’s admonition was that "The meaning of a statute is to be looked for, not in any single section, but in all the parts together. . .” Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U. S. 388, 439 (1935). Learned Hand said that the judge’s task is to "try as best he can to put into concrete form what [the common] will is, not by slavishly following the words, but by trying honestly to say what was the underlying purpose expressed.” Hand, The Spirit of Liberty, 109 (1952 Ed.).
Even if we assume that the 1785 statute amounts to a waiver of sovereign immunity of any successor to the private corporation known at that time as the "Trustees of the University of Georgia,” it does not follow that the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia has been stripped of sovereign immunity, because the Board is *772not the same entity as the old corporation styled "Regents.” This fact was well documented in the second motion for rehearing filed in this case by the Attorney General: "What the court has concluded [in the majority opinion] is that by virtue of a 1785 statute which authorized suits against a specified 'corporation’ namely 'The Trustees of the University of Georgia’ (notably not a department of the State Government), see Ga. Laws 1785, pp. 560, 561 (Digest of the Laws of Georgia, 1755 —1800, Marbury & Crawford), the name of which was changed in 1931 to 'Regents of the University System of Georgia’ (and which in the early 30’s remained a 'corporation’), (see State of Ga. v. Regents of the University System of Ga., 179 Ga. 210, 216 (1934)), suits can now be maintained against an entirely dissimilar entity, the 'Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia’ — which has since its inception been a department of State government and not a corporation. Ga. L. 1931, pp. 7, 20 (Ga. Code Ann. § 32-101).” Naturally, a department of state government has sovereign immunity; a mere corporation does not.
In Perry v. Regents of the University System, 127 Ga. App. 42 (192 SE2d 518) (1972), the Court of Appeals held that regardless of any confusion of entities ("Regents” or "Board of Regents”) prior to 1945, "[the fact] [t]hat only one entity governs the state university system was made clear by the provision of the 1945 Constitution which vested the government, control and management of the system in the Board of Regents. Code Ann. § 2-6701.” This principle was in no way changed by the Executive Reorganization Act of 1972 which continued the functions of both the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia and the Regents of the University System of Georgia to whatever extent each had previously existed. Ga. L. 1972, pp. 1015, 1066. Under the 1945 Constitution the University System is operated by the Board of Regents. All property is held in the name of the Board of Regents. All actions taken on behalf of the University System are taken by the Board of Regents. The contracts in litigation here were executed in the name of the Board of Regents. In fact the suit now being decided by this court was brought against the Board of Regents. The corporation known as the Regents of the *773University System of Georgia now has no substance and is nothing but a hollow shell, and the majority opinion, which relies upon the Board of Regents’ being identical to and interchangeable with the Regents and upon both being corporate successors to Trustees, has thereby fallen into grave error.
In the face of all that is said above, a majority of this court has held that this litigation is controlled by the 1785 statute and its predecessor Acts relating to the old corporation known now as the Regents of the University System of Georgia and that because of those Acts the present department of state government known as the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia has no sovereign immunity. I conclude that the Board of Regents of the University System is a department of state government with the same degree of sovereign immunity as any other department of state government. Code Ann. §§ 2-6701, 32-101.
The error of the majority opinion is that it has "grasp[ed] at a shadow while the substance escapes.” Chase Nat. Bank v. United States, 278 U. S. 327, 338 (1929).

See Llewellyn, The Common Law Tradition, Deciding Appeals, pp. 133-134 (1960); Rumble, American Legal Realism, pp. 208-210 (1968).