The Georgia Supreme Court will decide whether the city of Augusta Housing Authority has immunity from a tenant’s negligence claims in a case that could impact thousands of people living in housing authority complexes statewide.
On Tuesday the court granted review in Christina Guy’s premises liability lawsuit against Augusta’s housing authority, which she accused of failing to keep its low-income Dogwood Terrace apartment complex safe. Guy was a tenant of the complex when she was shot in the leg during an attempted robbery on the front porch of her apartment in November 2021, case records show.
A Richmond County judge ruled in May 2023 that the authority had sovereign immunity under state law, tossing Guy’s claims. Sovereign immunity is a legal doctrine that shields governments from lawsuits.
In Georgia, sovereign immunity from liability is generally extended to state and local governments, departments and agents unless waived by the General Assembly.
In July 2024, the Georgia Court of Appeals upheld the county judge’s decision, writing that the authority was “performing an essential public and governmental function on behalf of the city in its operation and management of low-income housing.” It said the authority was “acting as an instrumentality of the city” and therefore entitled to sovereign immunity.
Opponents of the ruling say it strips tenants of protection against the failure of housing authorities to make repairs or keep properties reasonably safe.
“The expansion of sovereign immunity to local housing authorities is unprecedented, and now threatens to expose thousands of Georgia residents to the negligence or neglect of their landlords by eliminating any legal means of seeking redress for their landlord’s negligence,” Guy’s lawyer wrote in her petition for the state Supreme Court’s review.
In granting review Tuesday, the court ordered parties to submit briefs only on the question of whether the housing authority is entitled to sovereign immunity under Georgia law. The court assigned the case to its May 2025 oral argument calendar.
In response to Guy’s petition for review, the housing authority’s lawyers told the court Guy wants to “turn immunity law on its head” and urged the court to reject her request to “entertain that concept of a drastic change in the law.”
“Public housing projects, like this one, are operated on public streets where every person is constitutionally allowed to enter and where policing is done by a sheriff or the city police department,” the authority’s attorneys wrote. “Sovereign immunity is practically necessary for (public housing authorities) to operate in Georgia. Otherwise, the floodgates would be opened for premises liability lawsuits that (recently) arise with some frequency in low-income neighborhoods.”
The Georgia Trial Lawyers Association backed Guy’s argument, telling the state Supreme Court in a case filing that the sovereign immunity granted to Augusta’s housing authority is not supported by state law.
“For the first time in nearly a century, the Court of Appeals held that housing authorities possess sovereign immunity from their tenants’ claims,” the association’s president and counsel wrote. “In the course of expanding immunity, the Court of Appeals applied a flawed sovereign immunity analysis from the wrong section of the Georgia Constitution, using overruled case law involving a county hospital authority.”
Georgia has some of the weakest tenant protections in the country, according to housing advocates. But in 2024, Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law a bill that would provide tenants some protection through the Safe at Home Act.
The bill was proposed on the back of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s series “Dangerous Dwellings,” which exposed terrible conditions — including violent crime, rats and mold — at apartment complexes in metro Atlanta.
When Guy’s case was before the Georgia Court of Appeals, the housing authorities of Macon-Bibb County, Columbus and the city of Decatur filed a brief supporting immunity for the Augusta housing authority. They argued that without immunity, housing authorities could not recover the costs of liabilities through rent, would face higher insurance premiums and the money would come out of their operating budgets.
A bipartisan effort by state legislators in 2024 to give housing authorities the same level of immunity as counties and cities failed to advance before the end of the legislative session.
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