Tray Canady, who was injured in a wreck on a smoke-covered highway outside Ludowici, brought suit in the Superior Court of Long County against the Georgia Forestry Commission “the Commission”, the Georgia Department of Transportation, the Georgia State Patrol, and a forest management company employed by the owner of the property where the smoke originated. After a hearing, the trial court granted the motion for summary judgment filed by the State Patrol but denied the motions for summary judgment filed by the Commission and the Department of Transportation. Following the grant of its application for interlocutory review, the Commission appeals, contending the trial court misconstrued applicable law regarding sovereign immunity and the Commission’s duties to the public. For the reasons which follow, we affirm in part and reverse in part. In reviewing a grant or denial of summary judgment, this Court conducts a de novo review of the evidence. To prevail at summary judgment under OCGA § 9-11-56, the moving party must demonstrate that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the undisputed facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, warrant judgment as a matter of law. Citation and punctuation omitted. English v. Fulton County Bldg. Authority , 266 Ga. App. 583 597 SE2d 626 2004. Viewed in the light most favorable to Canady, the record shows the following facts. In December 2000, Sabine & Waters of Georgia, Inc. “Sabine”, a forestry management company, managed a tract of approximately 190-200 acres of timber land near U. S. Highway 301 in Long County for the owner, Harry Chapman. On the morning of December 5, 2000, Sabine employee Donald Pickard requested permission from the Commission to do a controlled burn of a 30- to 50-acre section of Chapman’s property. Earlier, timber had been harvested from the Chapman property, and Sabine was engaged in the process of preparing the site for replanting through a series of controlled burns.
After consulting Commission guidelines and detailed weather forecasts for December 5, Robert Long, a Chief Ranger for the Commission, authorized the burn with the stipulation that Sabine begin the burn early and end the burn early so that the smoke could dissipate before evening. The permit, which was issued verbally and documented in a burning authorization log, expired at 6:00 p.m. According to Long, he told Pickard that no smoke should be rising from the site at that time.
