Publication Date
12-19-2025
Document Type
Casenote
Abstract
In late 2021, a shooting at a housing complex reignited a centuries-old question: when may a municipality claim the sovereign’s shield? In Guy v. Housing Authority of the City of Augusta (“Guy II”), the Supreme Court of Georgia vacated a court of appeals decision that had analogized a housing authority to a state agency and thus found it immune from suit. In its decision, the supreme court explained that such questions must be resolved by examining whether the entity would have been immune under English common law as it existed in 1776. The case was remanded for the lower court to apply this test and determine whether the Housing Authority of the City of Augusta was immune from suit. The supreme court’s decision in Guy marks a jurisprudential shift, requiring courts to base sovereign immunity analyses on English common law rather than analogizing municipal entities to state agencies.
Recommended Citation
Nasser, Macyn L.
(2025)
"A Return to Roots: Guy v. Housing Authority of Augusta and the Revival of Common Law Sovereign Immunity,"
Mercer Law Review: Vol. 77:
No.
1, Article 25.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu/jour_mlr/vol77/iss1/25