McCONNELL v. GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
• Decided: September 13, 2017
• Docket: S16G1786
• Status: 200

Opinion

302 Ga. 18 FINAL COPY

S16G1786. MCCONNELL et al. v. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR.

MELTON, Presiding Justice.

Thomas McConnell filed this action against the Georgia Department of

Labor (Department), alleging claims for negligence in disclosing “personal

information,” invasion of privacy through the public disclosure of private facts,

and breach of fiduciary duty. All of these claims are connected to the

Department's disclosure of the personal information, including social security

numbers, of McConnell and some 4,000 proposed class members in an e-mail

sent to approximately 1,000 Georgians. The Department filed a motion to

dismiss McConnell’s claims, which the trial court granted on two bases: (1)

McConnell’s claims were barred by sovereign immunity and (2) on the merits,

each of McConnell’s contentions failed to state a claim upon which relief could

be granted. McConnell then appealed the trial court’s dismissal order to the

Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals affirmed the order of the trial court

after analyzing the merits of each of McConnell’s claims. McConnell v. Dept. of Labor, 337 Ga. App. 457 (787 SE2d 794) (2016). Although, in a footnote, the

Court of Appeals mentioned the trial court’s alternative ruling that McConnell’s

claims were barred by sovereign immunity, id. at 458 n. 2, the Court of Appeals,

itself, did not consider the application of that doctrine to McConnell’s

contentions. We granted certiorari to determine whether the Court of Appeals

erred by failing to address sovereign immunity, and we now hold that the Court

of Appeals did err in this manner.

The applicability of sovereign immunity1 to claims brought against the

State is a jurisdictional issue. Indeed “[s]overeign immunity . . . like various

other rules of jurisdiction and justiciability . . . is concerned with the extent to

which a case properly may come before a court at all.” Lathrop v. Deal, 301 Ga.

408, 432 (III) (B) (801 SE2d 867) (2017). Therefore, the applicability of

The Georgia Constitution provides broad sovereign immunity: 1

Except as specifically provided in this Paragraph, sovereign immunity extends to the state and all of its departments and agencies. The sovereign immunity of the state and its departments and agencies can only be waived by an Act of the General Assembly which specifically provides that sovereign immunity is thereby waived and the extent of such waiver. Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX (e). 2 sovereign immunity is a threshold determination,2 and, if it does apply, a court

lacks jurisdiction over the case and, concomitantly, lacks authority to decide the

merits of a claim that is barred. For this reason, the Court of Appeals erred by

deciding the merits of McConnell’s claims without first considering whether the

doctrine of sovereign immunity bars any of his allegations against the State.

Accordingly, we vacate the Court of Appeals’ judgment, and we remand the

case with the direction to make the threshold determination of whether the trial

court erred in its holding that McConnell’s claims are barred by sovereign

immunity.

Judgment vacated and case remanded with direction. Hines, C. J.,

Benham, Hunstein, Nahmias, Blackwell, Boggs, JJ., Chief Judge Christopher

C. Edwards, and Judge D. Scott Smith concur. Peterson and Grant, JJ.,

disqualified.

2 McConnell contends that sovereign immunity for the specific types of claims he is making has been waived pursuant to the Georgia Tort Claims Act, OCGA §§ 50-21-20 to 50-21-37. 3 Decided September 13, 2017.

Certiorari to the Court of Appeals of Georgia — 337 Ga. App. 457.

Cohen, Cooper, Estep & Allen, Jefferson M. Allen, Scott A. Schweber, for

appellants.

Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Kathleen M. Pacious, Deputy

Attorney General, Loretta L. Pinkston-Pope, Senior Assistant Attorney General,

Angela E. Cusimano, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.