Court Opinion

ID: 9591208
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:03:00.136675+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:08.184528
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
concurring specially.
I concur specially, because I cannot agree that the language in Article I of our Constitution, “the state and all of its departments and agencies” should be interpreted to include counties. Certainly, a county is one of the “political subdivisions,” as contemplated in for*393mer Article VI, Section V, Paragraph I of the Constitution of the State of Georgia, 1976, but it is not a department or agency of the state.
Decided May 29, 1985.
Doremus & Jones, Julian B. Smith, Jr., for appellant.
Hugh B. McNatt, Jiles M. Barfield, for appellee.
Nonetheless, for the reasons set out in my dissent in Robinson v. City of Decatur, 253 Ga. 779, 781 (325 SE2d 752) (1985), I agree that the judgment should be affirmed. When a public body has purchased liability insurance, there is no necessity for the protection which sovereign immunity provides to the public. Conversely, the insurer, as a private, for-profit entity, should not be accorded the protection of sovereign immunity, which exists for the benefit of the public. Thus, as in this case, when the public utility of sovereign immunity has evaporated, that doctrine should not serve to shield what is purely a private interest.