The STATE v. SASS GROUP, LLC (Two Cases)

Two Gwinnett County businesses that sold hemp-derived products like Delta-8-THC sued the State of Georgia and the Gwinnett County District Attorney (in her individual capacity) after the District Attorney announced raids and prosecutions targeting such products. The businesses wanted a court to declare their products legal and to stop the enforcement actions. A Fulton County judge granted them an injunction against the District Attorney and refused to dismiss the case, even though the State argued sovereign immunity barred the suit because it named someone besides the State. The Supreme Court of Georgia had to decide what a 2020 constitutional amendment means when it says suits under this new waiver must be brought "exclusively" against the State. The court held that word covers the whole lawsuit, not just individual claims, so naming any other defendant, even in a separate claim, requires dismissal of the entire case. The court reversed the denial of dismissal and vacated the injunction, sending the case back to be thrown out.

The word "action" in the constitutional waiver of sovereign immunity for declaratory relief means an entire lawsuit, not a single claim, so a suit naming any defendant other than the State (or an authorized local government) alongside the State must be dismissed in its entirety, even if other claims within it did not depend on the waiver.

Businesses and individuals who want to sue Georgia under this new declaratory-relief waiver must file a standalone lawsuit naming only the State, not add claims against officials sued personally, or risk having the whole case dismissed, reshaping how citizens challenge state action in court.

Reversed denial of dismissal, vacated injunction, remanded with direction to dismiss

1. The court read the constitutional text using its ordinary public meaning at the time it was adopted in 2020, looking to dictionaries, case law, and statutes to see how 'action' is normally used.
2. It found that 'action' is commonly used to mean an entire lawsuit or proceeding, while 'claim' refers to a specific demand within that lawsuit, and this distinction is reflected throughout Georgia case law and statutes.
3. The court examined other language in the same constitutional provision, noting that a clause barring damages or attorney's fees 'in an action' only makes sense if 'action' means the whole case, since such awards are given at the end of a lawsuit, not within a single claim.
4. It compared this provision to a separate constitutional paragraph that uses 'actions or claims' together, showing the drafters treated the two words as distinct, which confirmed that 'action' in the waiver provision could not simply mean 'claim.'
5. Applying this meaning, the court concluded that because the businesses' lawsuit named both the State and the District Attorney individually, it violated the requirement that such suits be brought exclusively against the State, so the whole case had to be dismissed under the plain constitutional text.

• sovereign immunity
• hemp products
• Delta-8-THC
• declaratory judgment
• Gwinnett County District Attorney