Accordingly, we vacate our former opinion and adopt the judgment of the Supreme Court as our own. But because the Supreme Court of Georgia vacated the portion of our opinion pertaining to Tiffany Humphries in Case No. A21A0735 by concluding she has standing to bring an action against the Newton County Board of Commissioners under OCGA § 50-3-1, we must now consider whether her action for injunctive relief is barred by sovereign immunity (an issue which the Supreme Court understandably did not address).
[. . .]
Here, Humphries maintains the above-quoted portions of OCGA § 50-3-1 waive the county’s sovereign immunity from injunctive relief sought in actions brought under this Code section because any such suit must be filed in superior court, and superior courts (unlike state courts) are authorized to grant injunctive relief. But the plain language of the statute does not waive sovereign immunity for injunctive relief.24 Indeed, nowhere do the words enjoin, injunction, or injunctive appear within the statute—in fact, in 2019, the General Assembly removed language explicitly permitting such relief.25 And that is the proverbial nail in the interpretive coffin.
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