Death of Eleven Year Old Student May Re-Open Sovereign Immunity Debate

The suicide death of an elementary school student who was the victim of relentless bullying at Dunaire Elementary School has reopened the debate about sovereign or governmental immunity for public schools.  The parents of eleven year old Jaheem Herrera described repeated acts of physical violence as well as emotional and verbal abuse.  His mother says she reported the abuse to the school several times, without much being done to remedy the problem.  DeKalb County School officials insist they have taken all necessary steps to remove violence and bullying from their campuses.  However, other parents have since come forward with similarly disturbing stories.

While it appears that the school may have breached their duty of care, Georgia gives schools and employees immunity from civil liability.  The immunity turns on whether the breach of conduct is determined to be related to "ministerial" or "discretionary" duties.  In recent years, the court's persistent protection of governmental employees has caused the line between the two to become blurred.  The Georgia Supreme Court itself remarked earlier this week in a separate case involving school liability that the distinction was difficult to make.  The failure to make such distinction effectively renders virtually blanket immunity to schools and their employees against almost all civil claims.  The only recourse is for the Georgia Legislature or the Supreme Court of Georgia itself to remedy the disingenuous interpretation of the rule - or risk further confusing the distinctions and continuing to protect government wrong-doers to the detriment of their victims. 

The attitude of public servants has changed in the last six years along with the political environment in Georgia. We now find that some of the employees of government, whether state trooper, teachers or counter clerks feel that the people they serve have become an annoyance and that citizens can be bullied and abused with no consequences to the government workers. Their supervisors protect them and become complicit in the abuse. Certain politicians, known for back door dealing, protect these wrong doers politically, judicially and legislatively.  This is analogous to the the medical malpractice arena. When these same politicians limit liability and damages of doctors that negligently hurt patients the abuse gets much worse since there is no incentive to temper the bad conduct. The only way that Georgia can improve the performance of our public servants is to hold them to a standard of conduct that reflects the true attitudes of Georgians. 

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