Georgia Department Of Public Safety v. Johnson

The trial court erred in deferring its ruling a motion to dismiss based on sovereign immunity until trial on the merits, because the factors controlling the trial court's exercise of discretion under O.C.G.A. 9-11-12 subsection (d) were clearly balanced in favor of prompt pre-trial determination of the motion.

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Andrews, Judge.Andrew Johnson drove his vehicle at high speeds in excess of the posted speed limit while fleeing from a pursuing Georgia State Patrol officer and ignoring the officer’s visual and audible signals to stop. To stop Johnson and end the high speed pursuit, the officer used his patrol vehicle to intentionally make contact with Johnson’s vehicle with a precision immobilization technique known as the PIT maneuver. After the officer executed the PIT maneuver, Johnson’s vehicle left the road, hit a tree, and Johnson suffered various injuries.

Johnson sued the Georgia Department of Public Safety (DPS), where the officer was employed in the Georgia State Patrol Division, alleging that his injuries were proximately caused by the officer’s negligent decision to use the PIT maneuver and that the DPS was liable for the officer’s negligence on the basis of respondeat superior. The DPS filed a pre-trial motion to dismiss the suit pursuant to OCGA § 9-11-12 (b) (1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the basis that it had sovereign immunity from the claim asserted in the suit. The trial court considered depositions, affidavits, and other discovery produced in the fully developed record, and entered a pre-trial order ruling that “the Court has, pursuant to OCGA § 9-11-12 (d), determined in this case that it is appropriate to defer ruling on [the DPS's] motion until trial of the case.” The trial court certified this ruling for immediate review, and we granted the DPS’s application for an interlocutory appeal. The DPS brings this appeal asserting that, by deferring any ruling on the sovereign immunity issue until the trial of the case, the trial court erred by failing to rule on a threshold issue prior to trial and by requiring the DPS to litigate the merits of a claim barred by sovereign immunity. For the following reasons, we affirm the trial court’s deferral ruling in part, vacate the ruling in part, and remand the case to the trial court.

Georgia Department Of Public Safety v. Johnson

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