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Department of Transp. V. Montgomery Tank Lines Inc.

The definition of loss in the Georgia Tort Claims Act is broad enough to include contribution and indemnity claims.

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We granted certiorari in these cases to determine whether the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the waiver of sovereign immunity set forth in the Georgia Torts Claim Act the “GTCA” applies to lawsuits seeking contribution and indemnity from the State on the ground that it was a joint tortfeasor.1 We conclude that GTCA waives the State’s sovereign immunity for such claims so long as the activity of the State that is alleged to make it a tortfeasor, and thus subject to a claim for contribution or indemnity, does not fall within one of the exceptions to the waiver of sovereign immunity listed in OCGA § 50-21-24. Because the Court of Appeals’s judgment in Case Nos. S02G0700 and S02G0701 is consistent with our holding, we affirm the Court of Appeals’s judgment in those cases. On the other hand, although the Court of Appeals’s judgment in Case No. S02G1028 is consistent with our holding, it prematurely decided the issue whether the alleged tortious activity of the State fell within an exception set forth in § 50-21-24. Accordingly, in that case, we affirm the Court of Appeals’s judgment in part and vacate it in part.2

1. To begin, we note that the GTCA waives the State’s sovereign immunity in broad language. In this regard, OCGA § 50-21-23 a provides as follows:

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