Atlanta Appellate Team Obtains Reversal at Georgia Supreme Court in Case of First Impression

Atlanta, Ga. (February 15, 2022) - Atlanta Insurance Coverage and Appellate Partners Seth M. Friedman and Christopher Meeks recently obtained a reversal at the Georgia Supreme Court in a case of first impression. At issue was the extent to which a municipality had waived its sovereign immunity though the purchase of a commercial automobile insurance policy.

Under Georgia law, municipalities automatically waive their sovereign immunity up to $500,000 per person and $700,000 per accident for losses arising out of the negligent use of covered motor vehicles under the Georgia statute. However, municipalities can increase the waiver of sovereign immunity if they buy insurance that provides coverage beyond the automatic statutory waiver.

In this matter, which was covered by Law360, our client issued an insurance policy to a municipality. The policy stated it was not a waiver of the municipality’s sovereign immunity, and that the policy did not provide coverage “unless the defenses of sovereign and governmental immunity are inapplicable.” The trial court and the Georgia Court of Appeals both held that, due to the language in the applicable Georgia statutes, the full $5 million limits of the insurance policy were available for the claims against the municipality regardless of the language in the policy.

The Georgia Supreme Court granted our petition for certiorari and then reversed the Georgia Court of Appeals. The Georgia Supreme Court held that the language in the insurance policy expressly precluding coverage when a sovereign immunity defense applies was enforceable and limited recovery against the municipality in this case to the $700,000 automatic waiver.

The full opinion can be found here, and oral argument from October 2021 can be viewed here. Read the Law360 article, titled "Ga. High Court Upends $5M Insurance Limit Over Fatal Crash," here (subscription may be required).

Mr. Friedman is a national vice-chair of Lewis Brisbois' Insurance Coverage and Bad Faith Litigation Practices, of which Mr. Meeks is also a member. They regularly and successfully handle appeals in state and federal courts.