A case involving a woman shot at an Augusta housing project could soon help shield housing authorities across the state from liability.
The Supreme Court of Georgia heard oral arguments Tuesday in Guy v. Housing Authority of the City of Augusta, a 2022 premises liability case filed by Dogwood Terrace tenant Christina Guy.
Guy, who was shot in the leg on her front porch during a Nov. 16, 2021, armed robbery, argued the authority did nothing to limit access by the armed robbers, despite having superior knowledge of the complex’s history of violent crime.
Her complaint, filed by Augusta attorney Kyle Califf, said the complex had seen 515 incidents of violent crime including 38 shootings in the years 2019-2022.
A few weeks after Guy was shot, 8-year-old Arbrie Anthony was murdered there by alleged gang members while petting a therapy horse. The authority applied to demolish the complex in 2023.
To Guy’s claims, the authority asserted it has sovereign immunity, a defense that protects government entities from liability in the performance of their official duties, regardless of circumstances, unless waived under provisions in the Georgia Constitution.
Richmond County State Court and later the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the defense. The appeals court wrote the authority was acting as an “instrumentality of the city,” using public funds to perform an essential public purpose.
Justices of the state’s high court on Tuesday questioned Califf and Christopher Cosper, attorney for the housing authority, about the origins and extent of the authority’s claimed immunity.
Califf argued the authority was not a department or agency of the state, or a county, municipality or school district eligible for the protection.
Instead it’s a “separate and self-governing corporation” enabled under a state law that authorized cities to approve them, such as Augusta did in 1937.
The authority is outside the city’s control, he said, and today the only connection between them is “that the city mayor appoints the commissioners of the housing authority.”
Cosper argued an authority is a municipality under state law and possesses the same common law immunity that surrounds many Georgia governmental entities which perform a government purpose.
Housing authorities in Macon and Columbus filed an amicus brief in support of the Augusta authority, arguing that without the immunity, lawsuits will restrict their ability to supply public housing. A trial lawyers’ association wrote in support of Guy that the ruling will further erode protections for Georgia renters which are already among the nation’s weakest.
Chief Justice Nels S.D. Peterson told Califf and Cosper the court will render its decision within the time requirements of the Georgia Constitution.
