Rawls v. Bulloch County School Dist., A96A1725
| Decision Date | 16 October 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. A96A1725,A96A1725 |
| Citation | 223 Ga.App. 234,477 S.E.2d 383 |
| Parties | , 113 Ed. Law Rep. 1328, 96 FCDR 3794 RAWLS v. BULLOCH COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Richard Phillips, Ludowici, for appellant.
Chambers, Mabry, McClelland & Brooks, Lawrence J. Hogan, Charles G. Ragsdale, Beckmann & Pinson, Joseph H. Barrow, Savannah, William R. Dekle, Turner & Pool, Vanderver R. Pool, Statesboro, for appellee.
James Rawls sued the Bulloch County School District, alleging it negligently failed to protect him from a foreseeable attack by Timmy Marshall. The trial court granted summary judgment to the school district, finding it entitled to sovereign immunity. Rawls appeals, claiming the trial court erred because an issue of material fact still exists regarding whether the school district was negligent. We affirm.
On the afternoon of Thursday, October 15, 1992, Angie Rawls, the sister of James Rawls, was looking out the school bus window to see if her brother would board the bus to go home from Statesboro High School, where both were enrolled. Timmy Marshall, another Statesboro High student, was sitting between Angie Rawls and the bus window. Marshall asked why Angie was looking at him, and she responded that she was not. Angie Rawls and Marshall argued until James Rawls boarded the bus. There was no other seat left for James Rawls to sit in, so he asked Marshall if he could share Marshall's seat. Marshall refused, but James sat down with him anyway. Marshall elbowed James and James asked Marshall to stop. Marshall elbowed James again and James responded by punching Marshall. After this scuffle, Marshall left the seat and shouted to the bus driver that he would kill James and Angie.
There was no school on Friday, October 16. On the following Monday, October 19, James and Angie Rawls and Marshall all rode the bus to school. After the bus arrived at the school, James and Angie Rawls got off together and walked toward the school building. They were 10 to 30 feet away from the bus when Marshall attacked James Rawls with a hammer. James suffered a fractured skull requiring the implantation of a metal plate, multiple broken teeth, and some paralysis on the left side of his body.
The school district correctly claims it is entitled to sovereign immunity from James Rawls' suit. "The 1991 amendment [to Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX] extending sovereign immunity 'to the state and all of its departments and agencies' includes county-wide school districts...." Coffee County v. Snipes, 216 Ga.App. 293, 294, 454 S.E.2d 149 (1995); see Davis v. Dublin City Bd. of Ed., 219 Ga.App. 121, 122(1), 464 S.E.2d 251 (1995). This sovereign immunity "can only be waived by an Act of the General Assembly which specifically provides that sovereign immunity is thereby waived and the extent of such waiver." Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX (e). See Gilbert v. Richardson, 264 Ga. 744, 747-748(3), 452 S.E.2d 476 (1994).
Rawls' assertion that OCGA § 20-2-1090 provides such a waiver in these facts is without merit. OCGA § 20-2-1090 requires county school boards to purchase insurance for the purpose of "insuring the school children riding [school buses] to and from school against bodily injury ... resulting from an accident or collision in which such buses are involved." No bus...
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Mason v. Metropolitan Gov. Of Nashville
...experience, this was the first time a student actually had carried out such a threat. See, e.g., Rawls v. Bulloch County School District, 223 Ga.App. 234, 477 S.E.2d 383, 385 (1996) (holding that attack on plaintiff by fellow student was not foreseeable where plaintiff testified that studen......
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Fulton Cnty. Sch. Dist. v. Jenkins
...Jenkins’s argument that the statute waives FCSD’s sovereign immunity as to her claims is foreclosed by our decision in Rawls v. Bulloch County School District.12 In Rawls , a high-school student suffered various injuries, including a fractured skull, when he was attacked by another student ......
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..."did not assert the `relation back' doctrine before the State Court of Richmond County." 3. Cf. Rawls v. Bulloch County School Dist., 223 Ga.App. 234, 235-236, 477 S.E.2d 383 (1996) (OCGA § 20-2-1090, which requires county school boards to purchase insurance for the purpose of insuring scho......
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Payne v. Twiggs County School Dist., A98A0340.
...immunity is thereby waived and the extent of such waiver.'" (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Rawls v. Bulloch County School Dist., 223 Ga.App. 234, 235, 477 S.E.2d 383 (1996). Although Payne claims that OCGA § 20-2-1090 is such an "Act of the General Assembly" which specifically waives ......
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