Sovereign immunity limits apply despite insurance policy Georgia court rules
The Georgia Supreme Court made the ruling in a wrongful death case involving a police crash.
The Georgia Supreme Court has recently released an opinion that seems to limit the amount that a family will be able to receive in a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of College Park, Georgia, stemming from a 2016 police crash that left a grandmother and two of her grandchildren dead.
The Supreme Court of Georgia has held that the city did not purchase insurance coverage for asserted negligence and reckless claims above the applicable $700,000 automatic sovereign immunity waiver, reversing the appellate court’s ruling that the policy increased the sovereign immunity waiver notwithstanding its immunity endorsements.
At issue was whether Georgia state law allowed for the city of College Park, through its insurance policy, to be held liable for the deaths of the three family members beyond the standard $700,000 state law limit.
The accident occurred on January 31, 2016. The grandmother, Dorothy Wright and her two grandchildren, 12-year-old Cameron Costner and 6-year-old Layla Partridge, were on their way to church when they were hit by a driver being chased by College Park Police. Their attorneys have characterized the case as a “reckless high-speed pursuit.” Joi and Douglass Partridge and Floyd Costner, the Plaintiffs, filed a lawsuit against the City, raising claims for negligence and recklessness resulting in the wrongful death of the three decedents. The City raised sovereign immunity as a defense.
The city carried a $5 million policy through Atlantic Specialty Insurance Company. The policy provided coverage for negligent acts involving the city’s motor vehicles up to $5 million, but also included immunity endorsements that say that Atlantic has no duty to pay damages. The Plaintiffs assert that the insurance policy limit is $5 million for the three deaths, while Atlantic maintains that the policy limit is capped at $700,000 under statute and the terms of the insurance policy.
The family’s attorneys argued that the existence of this insurance policy waived the city’s ability to be held to the $700,000 cap, which by state law is intended to serve as a standard waiver of sovereign immunity legal provisions that would otherwise bar a person from suing a city at all. Atlantic Specialty argued that their policy was only designed to cover College Park beyond the statutory $700,000 on matters for which sovereign immunity did not apply.
The policy contained an endorsement which states “[w]e have no duty to pay ‘damages’ on your behalf under this policy unless the defenses of sovereign and governmental immunity are inapplicable to you.” The endorsement further adds that the Policy “does not constitute, nor reflect an intent by [the City], to waive or forego any defenses of sovereign and governmental immunity available to any insured, whether based upon statute(s), common law or otherwise, including Georgia Code Section 36-33-1, or any amendments.
The Georgia Supreme Court agreed with Atlantic Specialty, holding that the mere existence of the policy did not waive sovereign immunity beyond the $700,000 cap. This decision overruled earlier decisions by the original trial court and the Georgia Court of Appeals in favor of the $5 million reward.
The immunity endorsement does not render the Policy’s higher-than-$700,000 meaningless. The premiums that the City paid purchased insurance coverage up to the statutory sovereign immunity waiver limits and up to $5 million in the aggregate for claims to which sovereign immunity does not apply.
According to a press release from the Supreme Court of Georgia, “. . . the Court considered whether the City, in its discretion, purchased liability insurance in excess of $700,000 that actually covers the claims at issue. And the Court found that based on a plain reading of the policy’s immunity endorsements, the City’s insurance did not cover claims – like the plaintiffs’ claims – to which the defense of sovereign immunity applied.”
Insurance Coverage Law Center editor’s Note: This is a landmark case for Georgia. In the past, attorneys have been able to bypass the recovery cap in cases where there is an insurance policy in place, but as of this opinion, attorneys can no longer expect to recover the policy limits in cases where the policy specifically excludes claims where sovereign immunity applies. In this case, the families may still win some relief after the death of their family members, but the recovery will be capped at the statutory $700,000 limit.
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