Court Opinion

ID: 9846934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:50:43.871659+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:57.404365
License: Public Domain

MlKELL, Judge,
dissenting.
I agree with the majority that the public duty doctrine does not apply. However, I respectfully dissent because the loss in this tragic case did not result from an “assault” or a “battery” as those terms are used in OCGA § 50-21-24 (7). I would disapprove Dept. of Human Resources v. Hutchinson,26 Christensen v. State of Ga.,27 Sherin v. Dept. of Human Resources,28 and Ga. Military College v. Santamorena29 to the extent that those decisions interpret assault and battery expansively. Instead, the statute should be read narrowly to limit sovereign immunity to losses arising from acts of simple assault and simple battery.
In OCGA § 50-21-24 (7), the legislature listed nine specific torts which it wished to exclude from the waiver of immunity: assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, libel, slander, and interference with contractual rights. Had the General Assembly intended to immunize broadly the state from liability, it would have specified “all intentional torts.” Instead, it seems to have chosen certain civil wrongs which, monumental though they may seem to the victims, do not involve grievous bodily injury or bloodshed. Significantly, the legislature did not refer specifically to our tort statutes, OCGA §§ 51-1-13 and 51-1-14, which codified the common law at the time of the 1863 Code and which are broader than simple assault and simple battery.30
*405Our duty is, of course, to discern the intent of the legislature when it enacted OCGA § 50-21-24 (7) and to give the terms it used their “common and ordinary meaning.”31 The members of the General Assembly, who crafted the statute pursuant to constitutional authorization, would likely be surprised to learn that their list of nine torts has been expanded to include exemptions from liability for aggravated assault,32 child molestation,33 rape,34 and, by the majority here, murder.
Past decisions of this court have imbued the words “assault and battery” in OCGA § 50-21-24 (7) with the meanings they have in the criminal law and have expanded them to include every crime of which assault and battery are lesser included offenses. Thus, in Christensen, the court without discussion assumed that the exemption from liability for assault included an exemption from liability for rape, and here the majority expands the definition of assault and battery to include murder. As interpreted by this court, OCGA § 50-21-24 (7) now immunizes the state from liability for losses resulting from “[all violent crimes], false imprisonment, false arrest. . .
This court’s previous interpretations of the statute may be technically correct, but the statutory language does not demand so harsh a result. We could just as legitimately apply the principle of noscitur a sociis to interpret “assault and batter/’ narrowly.35 As explained by the late Supreme Court of Georgia Justice Charles Weltner, “Words, like people, are judged by the company they keep.”36 The doctrine of noscitur a sociis often restricts general words to less general meanings by analogy to neighboring words.37 Applied to the statute at issue, the doctrine requires us to note that the words “assault and batter/’ immediately precede words which name specific, discrete torts, such as abuse of process, libel, and slander. Thus, the General Assembly likely meant “assault and battery” to connote specific torts — simple assault and simple battery — rather than to include every conceivable violent crime.38
If we continue to broaden our interpretation of OCGA § 50-21-24 (7), we will ultimately ravage the waiver of sovereign immunity. Will *406we one day uphold the dismissal of a lawsuit arising from a kidnapping with bodily injury on the ground that kidnapping is just a form of false imprisonment and hence expressly exempted from the waiver? I do not believe that the General Assembly intended the state’s immunity to stretch so far.
We may have narrowed the waiver of sovereign immunity by inadvertence. For example, in Hutchinson, a lawsuit arising from an aggravated assault, the parties inexplicably did not dispute that the shooting was a “tortious battery, or assault and battery.”39 The decision neither discussed the scope of the exemption nor expressly ruled upon it.40 Instead, the decision turned on whether the state was liable if the tort was committed by a third person.
The next case, Christensen, cites Hutchinson as it concludes, without discussion or an express holding, that assault and battery encompass rape, for which the state enjoyed immunity. Sherin subsequently reached the same conclusion about the molestation of a young child by an older one. In addition to Christensen and Hutchinson, Sherin relied on two decisions where the gravamen of the complaint was simple battery and the exception truly applied.41 Santamorena, our most recent decision, also involved rape and simply relied on Hutchinson, Christensen, and Sherin to conclude that the suit was barred by sovereign immunity.
Thus, in whole or in part, the decisions which I would reconsider all depend on Hutchinson, a case in which the parties did not dispute, and presumably did not argue, whether the words “assault and batter/’ should be read narrowly or expansively. We should apply well-established rules of statutory construction to define “assault” and “battery” as simple assault and simple battery. I believe that we deviated from the legislative intent when we expanded those words to encompass every violent crime of which assault or battery is a lesser included offense.
A restrained interpretation of OCGA § 50-21-24 (7) would not expose the state to greatly increased liability. The assault and battery exemption would still, as intended by the General Assembly, ban many lawsuits less compelling than the one we review today.42 *407And the state would still have immunity from many suits involving grievous injuries or wrongful death because of the discretionary act exemption, for example.43 Moreover, in this case, other defenses can be considered at a later time. But this case is before us now on appeal from the trial court’s denial of a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. I would affirm the decision of the trial court.
Decided December 1, 2000
Reconsideration dismissed December 15, 2000
Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, John C. Jones, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Gray, Hedrick & Edenfield, Bruce M. Edenfield, Robert L. Bunner, for appellant.
Lawson & Sippel, John A. Lawson, Cole & Cox, Charles E. Cox, Jr., Jason K. Priebe, for appellees.

 217 Ga. App. 70 (456 SE2d 642) (1995).

 219 Ga. App. 10 (464 SE2d 14) (1995).

 229 Ga. App. 621 (494 SE2d 518) (1997).

 237 Ga. App. 58 (514 SE2d 82) (1999).

 Compare OCGA §§ 51-1-13; 51-1-14 with OCGA §§ 16-5-20; 16-5-23; 16-5-23.1. See generally C. Adams & C. Adams, Ga. Law of Torts, § 2-2 (1999).

 See, e.g., Ray M. Wright, Inc. v. Jones, 239 Ga. App. 521, 523 (521 SE2d 456) (1999).

 Hutchinson, supra.

 Sherin, supra.

 Christensen, supra; Santamorena, supra.

 See Mott v. Central R., 70 Ga. 680 (1883); see generally Sutherland Statutory Construction, § 47.16, pp. 271-272 (6th ed. 2000).

 Anderson v. Southeastern Fidelity Ins. Co., 251 Ga. 556 (307 SE2d 499) (1983), citing 73 AmJur2d 406, Statutes, § 213.

 Dunham v. State, 140 Fla. 754 (192 S. 324-326) (1939).

 See Undercofler v. VFW Post 4626, 110 Ga. App. 711 (139 SE2d 776) (1964) (“general expressions may sometimes he restrained so as to make the statute bear reasonable construction”).

 See, e.g., Edwards v. Dept. of Children &c. Svcs., 271 Ga. 890 (525 SE2d 83) (2000).

 Id. at 71.

 As authority the court in Hutchinson cited the tort statute and Hendricks v. Southern Bell Tel. &c. Co., 193 Ga. App. 264 (387 SE2d 593) (1989), which held that a battery could be committed without an intent to injure.

 Sherin, supra, citing Mattox v. Bailey, 221 Ga. App. 546 (472 SE2d 130) (1996); Miller v. Dept. of Public Safety, 221 Ga. App. 280 (470 SE2d 773) (1996).

 See, e.g., Rhoden v. Dept. of Public Safety, 221 Ga. App. 844 (473 SE2d 537) (1996) (rowdy fans at Falcons game arrested after throwing paper airplanes and cups of beer onto field); Miller, supra (excessive force by arresting officer “amounting to an . . . assault and battery”); Mattox, supra (corrections officer “slammed” plaintiff’s head into a door and thereafter beat him).