How Does Governmental Immunity Work in an Auto Accident Case Against a City or County?
The plaintiffs, as executrix of the estate of the deceased, and the deceased’s daughter, appealed from the trial court’s order dismissing Chatham County (“the County”) from a wrongful death and personal injury action on sovereign immunity grounds.
What is Sovereign Immunity?
The doctrine of sovereign immunity, also known as governmental immunity, protects all levels of government from legal action unless they’ve waived their immunity from suit. A motion to dismiss grounded in sovereign immunity challenges a trial court’s subject matter jurisdiction, rather than the merits of a plaintiff’s complaint. To survive a motion to dismiss on this basis, the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing that sovereign immunity has been waived.
When a defendant (like a city or a county) raises a sovereign immunity challenge, the trial court may receive evidence if necessary to develop the record and make relevant factual findings to decide the threshold issue of whether the defendant’s entitlement to sovereign immunity deprives the court of subject matter jurisdiction. Although the Court of Appeals reviews the trial court’s ruling de novo, the Court will uphold the factual findings underlying that ruling if they are supported by any evidence.
Savannah was sued after city officers were involved in an accident
The plaintiffs sued the County, the City of Savannah (“the City”), and others in 2018, alleging that, on March 9, 2016, a car being pursued at high speeds by unmarked police vehicles in Savannah collided with a car driven by the deceased. The complaint asserted, among other things, that County and City officers jointly engaged in the high-speed pursuit of the suspect as part of an undercover drug investigation, violating police policy and negligently caused the death of the deceased. The County moved to dismiss the claims against it, arguing that it was protected from suit by sovereign immunity, and the trial court granted the motion.
The case subsequently proceeded to trial against the City and the suspect, resulting in a jury verdict for the plaintiffs exceeding $3,500,000. The jury apportioned fault between the two defendants, assessing the City’s fault at 37.5% and suspect’s fault at 62.5%. In entering judgment, the trial court reduced the total damages awarded against the City to $500,000, the amount of the City’s limited waiver of sovereign immunity under O.C.G.A. § 36-92-2. This appeal followed.
Plaintiffs didn’t challenge the jury’s verdict on appeal. Rather, they argued that the trial court erred in dismissing the County from the lawsuit; that, like the City, the County waived its sovereign immunity up to $500,000 in damages stemming from the County’s actions during the police chase; and that this $500,000 should be stacked on top of the City’s $500,000 judgment.
Court of Appeals analysis of O.C.G.A. § 36-92-2(a)(3)
Chief Judge Amanda H. Mercier wrote in her opinion for the appellate panel that O.C.G.A. § 36-92-2(a)(3) provides:
The sovereign immunity of local government entities for a loss arising out of claims for the negligent use of a covered motor vehicle is waived up to … $500,000.00 because of bodily injury or death of any one person in any one occurrence, an aggregate amount of $700,000.00 because of bodily injury or death of two or more persons in any one occurrence, and $50,000.00 because of injury to or destruction of property in any one occurrence, for incidents occurring on or after January 1, 2008.
As used in this provision, a “claim” is “any demand against a local government entity for money for a loss caused by negligence of a local government entity officer or employee using a covered motor vehicle while carrying out his or her official duties or employment.” The term “local government entity” includes counties, as well as municipal corporations. And a “covered motor vehicle” is any vehicle owned, leased, or rented by the local government entity at issue.
On appeal, plaintiffs pointed to no specific evidence that the County owned, leased, or rented any of the police vehicles involved in the incident leading to the deceased’s death. Instead, they contended that, pursuant to an intergovernmental agreement executed in February 2016, the City and County operated and shared responsibility for a joint police force, necessarily waiving sovereign immunity with respect to the police activity. The panel disagreed.
Under the 2016 agreement, the Savannah-Chatham Metro Police Department (“SCMPD”) served as the contracting authority for the City and County governments. It said, “the full range of police services in the unincorporated area of the County and in the jurisdictional area of the City.” All SCMPD police officers were to be sworn in by the City and the County, but were classified as City employees. The agreement provided that capital assets and equipment would “be generally owned by the entity that directly purchased the item.” Vehicles purchased by the County were deemed County property, while vehicles purchased by the City belonged to the City. The agreement specified that “nothing in this agreement shall be construed as a rental agreement between the parties for use of SCMPD cars, nor is there any waiver of sovereign immunity based upon renting of SCMPD cars.”
It also made clear that the agreement didn’t “waive any immunity or defense available to either party under law.”
In their complaint, Plaintiffs alleged that unmarked cars used by officers assigned to the SCMPD, the County-run Counter Narcotics Team (“CNT”), and the Savannah-Chatham Undercover Narcotics Investigative Team (“UNIT”) participated in the undercover surveillance and pursuit of the suspect on March 9, 2016. Asserting that the trial court was required to take this allegation — and a claimed connection between the County and the unmarked cars — as true, plaintiffs argued that dismissal was improper. But a trial court addressing a motion to dismiss on sovereign immunity grounds is not bound by the allegations in the complaint. On the contrary, the court may consider evidence and make factual findings relating to sovereign immunity, Chief Judge Mercier wrote.
That is exactly what the trial court did here: in resolving the motion to dismiss, the court found that all police vehicles involved in the incident giving rise to plaintiffs’ claims were owned by the City, not the County, rendering the sovereign immunity waiver in O.C.G.A. § 36-92-2(a)(3) inapplicable to the County. At least some evidence supported this conclusion. A captain with the SCMPD testified by affidavit that “no officers, agents, employees, or vehicles representing … Chatham County[ ] were involved in the March 9, 2016 incident.” The director of the County’s Risk Management Department, which maintained an inventory of all County-owned vehicles assigned to the SCMPD, similarly averred that “none of the vehicles involved in the incident alleged in the plaintiffs’ complaint was owned or operated by Chatham County.” The record also showed that SCMPD officers, including those assigned to UNIT, were employed by the City. And although the County operated its own drug task force (CNT), the County presented evidence that CNT officers and vehicles didn’t take part in the March 9, 2016 undercover operation or the pursuit of the suspect.
This evidence supported the trial court’s determination that County-owned vehicles weren’t involved in the deceased’s death. The plaintiffs’ reliance on the 2016 intergovernmental agreement — which they insisted establishes a joint venture as to all police activities — was unavailing. Rather than demonstrating County ownership of the vehicles, the agreement made clear that SCMPD police vehicles were not jointly owned; they were owned by the government entity (the City or the County) that purchased them, and nothing in the agreement established a rental relationship between the parties.
Simply put, the trial court was authorized to find that the County didn’t own, lease, or rent any of the police vehicles at issue here. Under the plain terms of §§ 36-92-1 and 36-92-2(a)(3), these vehicles weren’t “covered motor vehicles” with respect to the County.
Accordingly, because Plaintiffs didn’t demonstrate that the County waived sovereign immunity as to the plaintiff’s auto accident claims, the trial court properly granted the County’s motion to dismiss. The judgment was affirmed. Carson v. Chatham Cty., No. A26A0303, 2026 Ga. App. LEXIS 227, at *1-8 (Ga. App. May 4, 2026)
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