When is a Patrol Car “In Use” for a Sovereign Immunity Defense?
A plaintiff in a 2019 case was struck by a car driven by a suspect fleeing from police officers, causing her to suffer major injuries. After she filed a personal injury lawsuit against the City, the City asked that the case be dismissed on sovereign immunity grounds. The question was whether the City waived sovereign immunity through its law enforcement officers’ “use of a vehicle.”
Background
In March 2015, City of Roswell law enforcement officers were engaged in a vehicle pursuit of a suspect fleeing after committing a home invasion. A police officer was driving his patrol car when he heard about the high-speed pursuit in progress. The officer realized that the pursuit was heading towards him, and he drove to a nearby intersection ahead of the chase, parked and exited his patrol car, and got his “Stop Sticks” spikes from the trunk. While standing behind his car, he deployed the spikes on the road. The suspect swerved to avoid the spikes and lost control of his car, striking the plaintiff, who was walking on the sidewalk. As a result, the plaintiff sustained multiple permanent injuries to her head, neck, and leg, and she also suffered permanent memory loss.
The plaintiff filed suit against the City, asserting a claim for negligence. The City moved for summary judgment on sovereign immunity grounds, and the plaintiff subsequently amended her complaint to assert that the officer was negligent in his use of his patrol car and that sovereign immunity was thus waived per O.C.G.A. § 33-24-51. The trial court denied the City’s motion, finding that issues of fact remained as to whether the officer’s “efforts to assist in the chase by using his patrol car to drive to the intersection, his use of the police car to monitor the chase on his radio, his use of the tire-deflating spikes mounted in the police car’s trunk and his deployment of the spikes while standing behind the police car” constituted “use of the police car” for purposes of waiving sovereign immunity.
On appeal, the City argued that the trial court erred in concluding that material fact issues remained as to whether the officer’s actions during the incident constituted the “use” of a vehicle to waive the City’s sovereign immunity.
The Decision of the Court of Appeals
Presiding Judge M. Yvette Miller wrote that sovereign immunity is a threshold issue that the trial court is required to address before reaching the merits of any other argument. It is axiomatic that the party seeking to benefit from the waiver of sovereign immunity bears the burden of proving such waiver.
Under Georgia law, municipal corporations are protected by sovereign immunity pursuant to the Georgia Constitution, unless that immunity is waived by the General Assembly. Moreover, Georgia law provides that municipal corporations waive immunity for a loss arising out of claims for the negligent use of a covered motor vehicle. To establish that sovereign immunity has been waived, The plaintiff must show:
- Her claim arose from the use of a municipal automobile;
- The vehicle was the cause in fact of the injury; and
- The vehicle was the proximate cause of the injury.
The judge explained that a determination of whether an event arises from the “use” of a motor vehicle depends largely on the circumstances. Nonetheless, statutes that provide for a waiver of sovereign immunity are to be strictly construed against a finding of waiver. In construing the meaning of “use,” the Court has said that the question to be answered is whether the injury originated from, had its origin in, grew out of, or flowed from the use of the motor vehicle as a vehicle. And while the term does extend beyond actual physical contact, it doesn’t imply remoteness.
To meet this burden, the plaintiff alleged that the officer used his car as a vehicle when he (1) monitored the high-speed chase while in the car; (2) stored the spikes in the trunk of the car; and (3) stood behind the car as he deployed the spikes. When the Court considered the plaintiff’s injury, it concluded that none of these activities, either considered together or in isolation, constitute the “use” of an automobile required to waive sovereign immunity.
Judge Miller reasoned first that the officer’s use of his patrol car to assist the pursuit, follow the pursuit on his radio, and drive to the intersection was too remote from the plaintiff’s injury to waive immunity. That was especially true given that the car had already been parked on the side of the road at the time of the incident. The officer wasn’t actively using his vehicle when the plaintiff’s injury occurred, and so this use of a vehicle wasn’t sufficient to constitute waiver.
Second, the officer’s storage of the stop sticks in his car’s trunk also didn’t give rise to a waiver of sovereign immunity, the judge wrote. In an earlier decision, the Court stated:
We decline to hold that the use, failure to use, or misuse of emergency medical or safety equipment arises out of the maintenance or operation of a county vehicle merely because such equipment is stored or transported on, is removed from, or is left off of, such a vehicle. The operation or maintenance of any motor vehicle, as used in [O.C.G.A. § 33-24-51], has nothing to do with whether certain rescue equipment was present on a county vehicle.
Plus, Judge Miller noted that it was the officer’s actual use of the spikes that allegedly led the fleeing suspect to injure the plaintiff—not his storage of the spikes in his car. The officer’s alleged tortious conduct thus didn’t “originate in” or “flow from” the fact that the stop sticks were stored in the car, nor was such storage the direct cause of the plaintiff’s injuries.
Next, the fact that the officer was standing behind the parked car when he deployed the spikes also didn’t mean the car was “in use.” The Court of Appeals has previously concluded similarly in numerous other cases that police officers using their vehicles as static props doesn’t constitute using their vehicles “as vehicles.” Additionally, the fleeing suspect also allegedly swerved to avoid the stop sticks, not the patrol car. As a result, the police vehicle’s presence at the scene didn’t directly contribute to the accident and the plaintiff’ injuries. Thus, the fact that the officer deployed the spikes while standing behind his vehicle does not mean that he was using his car as a vehicle
Finally, the Court emphasized that statutes that provide for a waiver of sovereign immunity are to be strictly construed against a finding of waiver. So, Judge Miller reasoned that even if the Court considered all the circumstances and all of the alleged uses of the officer’s vehicle together, it couldn’t be said that any use of the patrol car “as a vehicle” was sufficiently related to the plaintiff’ injuries to constitute waiver of sovereign immunity.
Because the officer’s patrol car was not in use “as a vehicle” for the purpose of waiving sovereign immunity at the time that the plaintiff was injured, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s denial of summary judgment. City of Roswell v. Hernandez-Flores, 2022 Ga. App. LEXIS 506 (October 28, 2022).
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