MCBRAYER v. SCARBROUGH

Sherrie McBrayer sued the Sheriff of Tift County after her husband died while restrained, tased, and left face down in the back seat of a patrol car. She claimed his death arose from the deputies' negligent use of a covered motor vehicle, which under Georgia law can waive the sheriff's usual immunity from lawsuits (sovereign immunity, meaning the government generally cannot be sued unless a law allows it). A Tift County trial court dismissed her case on the pleadings, and the Court of Appeals of Georgia agreed, reasoning that the deputies never 'actively' used the car 'as a vehicle' since it wasn't running or being driven. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed. It held that the Court of Appeals had wrongly narrowed the plain meaning of 'use' by adding words like 'actively' and 'as a vehicle' that the statutes never contained. Because loading and restraining someone in a patrol car is a use of the vehicle, the court reversed and sent the case back to the Court of Appeals.

The word 'use' in Georgia's motor vehicle sovereign immunity waiver statutes carries its ordinary, broad meaning and is not limited to actively driving or operating a vehicle as a vehicle; restraining or loading a person into a patrol car is a 'use' of that covered motor vehicle sufficient to waive sovereign immunity.

The ruling broadens when Georgia sheriffs and local governments can be sued over what happens inside patrol cars, even when the car isn't moving. Families of people injured or killed while detained in police vehicles gain a clearer path to hold local governments accountable, and law enforcement agencies may need to reassess how they handle detainees inside vehicles.

Reversed and remanded

1. The court reviewed the case using de novo review, meaning it examined the legal questions fresh without deferring to the lower courts' conclusions, since sovereign immunity issues are questions of law.
2. It explained that sheriffs sued in their official capacity share the county's sovereign immunity, a constitutional protection that can only be waived by a specific act of the Georgia General Assembly.
3. The court looked at the plain text of the waiver statutes (OCGA §§ 33-24-51 and 36-92-2), which waive immunity for losses arising from the 'negligent use of a covered motor vehicle,' and noted neither statute defines 'use' narrowly.
4. Consulting dictionary definitions from the time the statutes were written, the court found 'use' ordinarily means employing or putting something into service, a meaning broad enough to include detaining someone in a car, not just driving it.
5. Because the legislature could have added words limiting 'use' to active driving but did not, the court concluded the Court of Appeals of Georgia improperly narrowed the statute by inserting the words 'actively' and 'as a vehicle,' and it overruled that line of Court of Appeals cases.
6. Applying this broader meaning, the court found that restraining the decedent in the patrol car and loading him into it were both a 'use' of the vehicle sufficient to trigger the waiver of sovereign immunity, so the lawsuit could move forward.

• sovereign immunity
• wrongful death
• patrol car restraint
• Tift County sheriff
• statutory interpretation