State Trooper David Phillips was traveling behind a pickup truck driven by Pamela Davis, who is a rural mail carrier, when he began running radar on vehicles that were approaching him in the other lane. Phillips was using Ms. Davis’ truck as a cover in a technique known as blocking. Ms. Davis stopped her truck, which had a flashing strobe light on top, signaled a left turn, and waited for traffic to clear. Once Phillips realized that Ms. Davis had stopped, he braked as hard as possible, but was unable to avoid a collision with her truck. Ms. Davis and her husband Scott Davis Appellees brought suit against the Department of Public Safety. The Department moved for summary judgment based on the exception in OCGA § 50-21-24 6 to the waiver of sovereign immunity in the Georgia Tort Claims Act. The trial court denied the motion, and the Court of Appeals affirmed on interlocutory appeal. Department of Public Safety v. Davis , 289 Ga. App. 21 656 SE2d 178 2007. We granted certiorari to consider whether the Court of Appeals correctly analyzed OCGA § 50-21-24 6 in light of Georgia Forestry Comm. v. Canady , 280 Ga. 825 632 SE2d 105 2006.
In Canady , we recognized that our construction of OCGA § 50-21-24 6 should accomplish a “balance between the inherently unfair and inequitable results from the strict application of sovereign immunity and the need to limit the State’s exposure to tort liability that the General Assembly expressed as its goal in OCGA § 50-21-21.” Georgia Forestry Comm. v. Canady , supra at 830. Including all of the relevant language, OCGA § 50-21-24 6 reads as follows: “The state shall have no liability for losses resulting from . . . the failure to provide, or the method of providing, law enforcement, police, or fire protection . . . .” Canady interpreted the phrase “method of providing” police or fire protection as covering the acts or omissions of state employees in both making and implementing policy, thereby achieving “complete protection of the policymaking decisions of the executive branch of government from judicial review.” Georgia Forestry Comm. v. Canady , supra. Trooper Phillips may have been implementing policy when he caused the collision in question. However, a separate issue must be addressed in this case. Appellees assert that the evidence shows that their alleged losses did not result from an implementation of policy. This issue can only be resolved by construing and applying the portion of OCGA § 50-21-24 6 which mandates that, in order for the state to be immune from liability, the alleged losses must “result from” the method of providing police or fire protection.
