Shekhawat v. Jones

• Citation: 746 S.E.2d 89,293 Ga. 468
• Decision Date: 11 July 2013
• Docket Number: No. S12G0552.,S12G0552.
• Parties: SHEKHAWAT et al. v. JONES et al.
• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia

293 Ga. 468

746 S.E.2d 89

SHEKHAWAT et al.

v.JONES et al.

No. S12G0552.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

July 11, 2013.

Adam L. Appel, Kim Michelle Ruder, Carlock, Copeland & Stair LLP, Atlanta, Annarita McGovern Busbee, Derrick Lee Bingham, Owen Gleaton Egan Jones & Sweeney, LLP, Atlanta, for appellant.

Gary B. Blasingame, Andrew J. Hill III, Josh Brian Wages, Blasingame Burch Garrard & Ashley, P.C., Athens, Vincent Aaron Toreno, Ken David & Associates, LLC, Atlanta, for appellee.

Floyd Michael Taylor, David E. Hudson, James Vance Painter, Hull Barrett, P.C., Augusta, James S.V. Weston, Trotter Jones, LLP, Augusta, Samuel S. Olens, Atty. Gen., Kathleen M. Pacious, Deputy Atty. Gen., Loretta L. Pinkston, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Claude McLaurin Sitton, Asst. Atty. Gen., Department of Law, for amicus curiae appellant.

HUNSTEIN, Chief Justice.

We granted certiorari in this case to determine whether physicians employed as faculty members at the Medical College of Georgia (“MCG”) were entitled to official immunity in treating a patient at MCG's Children's Medical Center. Appellees Kenneth Jones and Clara Ramon, individually and as parents and next friends of their minor son, (“Plaintiffs”) filed a medical malpractice action against Appellants Prem Singh Shekhawat, M.D. and Wayne Mathews, M.D., along with other defendants, arising from treatment rendered to Plaintiffs' child at the Children's Medical Center in December 2003. The trial court granted summary judgment to both Appellants, concluding that they were entitled to official immunity under the Georgia Tort Claims Act. The Court of Appeals reversed, finding a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Appellants, in treating Plaintiffs' child, were acting within the scope of their employment with the State under the analysis utilized by this Court in Keenan v. Plouffe, 267 Ga. 791, 482 S.E.2d 253 (1997). Jones v. Allen, 312 Ga.App. 762, 720 S.E.2d 1 (2011). We granted certiorari to review Keenan's application, and we now conclude that Keenan must be overruled, because it conflates our standard for official immunity with that for sovereign immunity. Utilizing the proper analysis, we hold that Appellants were entitled to official immunity because they were acting within the scope of their state employment in rendering the medical care at issue. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

“On appeal from the grant of summary judgment this Court conducts a de novo review of the evidence to determine whether there is a genuine issue of material fact and whether the undisputed facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, warrant judgment as a matter of law.” Youngblood v. Gwinnett Rockdale Newton Cmty. Serv. Bd., 273 Ga. 715, 717–718(4), 545 S.E.2d 875 (2001). So viewed, the relevant evidence shows as follows.

On December 28, 2003, Plaintiffs' newborn son suffered a life-threatening condition and was transferred to MCG from another hospital. Dr. Shekhawat, the MCG neonatologist who was on call, directed the transport team that brought the child to MCG, personally treated the child when he arrived, and supervised a resident fellow who performed follow-up treatment. The child underwent surgery in the early morning hours of December 29, and Dr. Mathews, the on-call anesthesiologist, assisted with the operation. Prior to the surgery, a resident anesthesiologist intubated the child under Dr. Mathews' supervision. Following surgery, the child's endotracheal tube became unsecured, resulting in a dramatic drop in his heart rate and requiring emergency life-saving measures. The child suffered significant permanent disabilities, which Plaintiffs allege are the result of the medical team's failure to ensure the child was adequately oxygenated during intubation.

At the time they treated the child, Dr. Shekhawat and Dr. Mathews were both employed as associate professors of medicine at MCG by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. As MCG faculty physicians, defendants' job responsibilities included instruction of medical students, residents, and fellows, both in the classroom setting and through the clinical treatment of patients at MCG facilities. Both were paid an annual salary by the Board of Regents for all their teaching and clinical work at MCG, and each was a party to a written employment agreement with the Board of Regents on behalf of MCG. Dr. Shekhawat and Dr. Mathews have both attested that their treatment of Plaintiffs' child was rendered solely in the course of their employment as state-employed faculty physicians at MCG.

1. The doctrine of official immunity in its current form originates with the ratification and enactment of a constitutional amendment generally reinstating sovereign immunity to the State. See Charles N. Kelley, Jr., Peach Sheets, Georgia Tort Claims Act: Provide a Limited Waiver of Sovereign Immunity, 9 Ga. St. U.L. Rev. 349, 349–350 (1992). Prior to the 1990 amendment, the State had waived its sovereign immunity as to claims covered by liability insurance, though only up to the dollar amount of coverage provided. Id. at 349; see Martin v. Dep't of Public Safety, 257 Ga. 300, 357 S.E.2d 569 (1987). With the amendment's enactment, this waiver of immunity was removed and sovereign immunity was generally restored “[e]xcept as specifically provided by the General Assembly in a State Tort Claims Act.” Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX (d). See id. at (a) (General Assembly may waive sovereign immunity by enacting a State Tort Claims Act). In 1992, our legislature enacted the Georgia Tort Claims Act (“GTCA”), OCGA §§ 50–21–20 to –36. Ga. L. 1992, p. 1883, § 1.

Expressly framed as an effort to balance the unfairness that immunity visits on injured parties with the State's interest in protecting the public purse from liability arising from the array of functions that government performs, the GTCA waives the State's sovereign immunity in limited circumstances, in accordance with prescribed procedures. See OCGA § 50–21–21; see also Kelley, 9 Ga. St. U.L. Rev. at 352 (explaining GTCA's detailed procedural requirements). As the “exclusive remedy for any tort committed by a state officer or employee,” OCGA § 50–21–25(a), the GTCA permits suits against the State for the torts of state officers and employees when committed “while acting within the scope of their official duties or employment.” OCGA § 50–21–23(a).

Closely intertwined with the GTCA's restoration of sovereign immunity is its recognition of official immunity. While sovereign immunity protects from tort liability the State itself, including its agencies and instrumentalities, official immunity protects state employees from being sued in their personal capacities. Donaldson v. Dep't of Transp., 262 Ga. 49, 56, 414 S.E.2d 638 (1992) (Hunt, J., concurring). Thus, the GTCA, while allowing tort suits to proceed against the State within its prescribed parameters, also makes clear that any liability rests not with state employees in their individual capacities but rather with “the state government entity for which the state officer or employee was acting.” OCGA § 50–21–25(b). See also Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX (d) (with limited exceptions, “officers and employees of the state or its departments and agencies shall not be subject to suit or liability, and no judgment shall be entered against them, for the performance or nonperformance of their official functions”).

The result is that, where a state employee commits a tort while acting within the scope of his employment with the State, the State through the employing government agency may be held liable, but the individual state employee may not. See Riddle v. Ashe, 269 Ga. 65(2), 495 S.E.2d 287 (1998). Where the alleged tortfeasor was not acting within the scope of his employment, however, the State's sovereign immunity remains intact, and any recourse must be sought against the tortfeasor personally. See OCGA § 50–21–25(a) (state officer or employee does not enjoy immunity “ if it is proved that the officer's or employee's conduct was not within the scope of his or her official duties or employment”); see also Donaldson, 262 Ga. at 56, 414 S.E.2d 638 (Hunt, J., concurring) (distinguishing between liability in state employee's official capacity versus liability in personal capacity).

As this explication of the statute makes clear, the sole issue in determining whether an individual state employee may be liable as a defendant in a tort suit is whether the employee was acting within the scope of his employment with the State in committing the allegedly tortious act. See Riddle v. Ashe, 269 Ga. at 66–67(2), 495 S.E.2d 287 (“a state actor is immune from suit if acting within the scope of his or her official duties”); Ford v. Caffrey, 293 Ga.App. 269, 271, 666 S.E.2d 623 (2008) (explaining that defendant would enjoy official immunity if he committed alleged torts “as a state employee within the scope of his official duties or employment”); Massey v. Roth, 290 Ga.App. 496, 497, 659 S.E.2d 872 (2008) (if the defendants “were acting within the scope of their employment ... this suit is barred by the Georgia Tort Claims Act”). Accordingly, the sole question presented here is whether Drs. Shekhawat and Mathews were acting within the scope of their employment with MCG in rendering the medical treatment that is the subject of this malpractice action.

Unfortunately, our appellate jurisprudence on official immunity in the context of state-employed physicians has for the past decade and a half strayed considerably from this straightforward analysis. The genesis of this misguided path was this Court's opinion in Keenan v. Plouffe. In Keenan, which also involved malpractice claims against an MCG physician, we held that the state-employed physician did not enjoy official immunity, on the ground that the physician's conduct in treating patients called for “the exercise of his...