MCBRAYER v. SCARBROUGH

Sherrie McBrayer sued the Sheriff of Tift County after her husband died while restrained face down in the back seat of a parked patrol car, following his arrest and being tased. She argued the deputies' negligence in loading and restraining him in the car counted as the 'use' of a covered motor vehicle, a category for which Georgia law waives local governments' sovereign immunity, meaning they can be sued. A superior court and then the Court of Appeals of Georgia sided with the sheriff, holding that the car had to be 'actively in use' 'as a vehicle,' such as being driven, for the immunity waiver to apply. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed, holding that the statutes' word 'use' is broader than active driving and covers detaining someone in the car. The court reversed and sent the case back to the Court of Appeals.

The word 'use' in the statutes waiving sovereign immunity for negligent use of a covered motor vehicle is not limited to active driving or transportation; it broadly includes employing a vehicle for other purposes, including restraining and detaining a person inside it, so loading and confining someone in a patrol car qualifies as a 'use' that can waive immunity.

The ruling widens the circumstances in which people can sue Georgia sheriffs and other local governments over what happens inside or around parked patrol cars and other government vehicles, not just crashes, affecting how counties and their insurers assess risk and defend such lawsuits.

Reversed and remanded

1. The court explained that sovereign immunity, which normally shields counties and their officials from lawsuits, can only be waived by a specific statute, and the party suing must prove the waiver applies.
2. Because the sheriff was sued in his official capacity, the case turned on whether Georgia's motor-vehicle immunity waiver statutes (OCGA §§ 33-24-51(b) and 36-92-2) covered the deputies' actions with the patrol car.
3. Applying ordinary rules of statutory interpretation, the court looked to dictionary definitions from the years the statutes were passed and found that 'use' broadly means employing or putting something into service, not just driving it.
4. The court noted the statutes never say 'use' must mean active transportation or driving, and the legislature could have added such a limit but did not, so courts should not read that restriction into the law.
5. Applying this broad meaning to the facts, the court concluded that detaining, loading, and restraining the decedent in the patrol car counted as a 'use' of the vehicle, since detention was a purpose for which the car was designed.
6. The court rejected the idea that the scope of 'use' should be defined by the county's insurance policy, explaining that a 2002 change in the law created an automatic waiver of immunity up to a set dollar amount regardless of insurance coverage.

• sovereign immunity waiver
• patrol car death
• wrongful death lawsuit
• Tift County sheriff
• covered motor vehicle statute