Files v. Hous. Auth. of City of Douglas, A23A0506, 2023 WL 4194717 (Ga. Ct. App. June 27, 2023)
The question before us is whether a city housing authority is a State agency, department or instrumentality.2
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In sum, in these cases and others that will be discussed below, our courts have examined the legislation creating the entity and the public purposes of the entity. As part of that analysis and in determining whether an entity was, as outlined in Kyle, “indelibly intertwined with the State in a manner that qualifies it for the protection of sovereign immunity as a State instrumentality[,]” 290 Ga. at 91 (1), 718 S.E.2d 801, our courts have also examined whether an entity’s governance and reporting were local or statewide; the geographic area in which it served the public; and its economics in terms of how, variously, its funding, its income-generation, and/or its debts and liabilities might impact the State.
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Here, the record does not show that the Housing Authority is so indelibly intertwined with the State as to invoke the protection of State sovereign immunity. “[I]t stands to reason that the doctrine [of sovereign immunity] would be inapplicable to a lawsuit in which there is no sovereignty to protect.” City of College Park, 306 Ga. at 311 (1), 830 S.E.2d 179. For these reasons, and the authority in Miller and Kyle, we find that the trial court erred in granting the Housing Authority’s motion for summary judgment.