The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- Georgia
- Level
- State
- Authority
- Title 38, Chapter 3, Article 2 (Organization and Administration)
- Effective
- standing
- End
- standing (read as 2021-09-30)
- In force
- Standing (a statutory duty; in force throughout the six quarters)
- Quarters
- 2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
- Limitation types
- Standing dutyOperating condition
- Addressees
- the State and its political subdivisions and their employees and agents; volunteer and auxiliary emergency management workers and members of agencies engaged in emergency management activity (extended to healthcare facilities and workers by the April 14 and May 12, 2020 orders)
- Character
- liability shield condition
- Collection
- Standing duties: Georgia DUT-GA
Operative words
[E]xcept in cases of willful misconduct, gross negligence, or bad faith,... any volunteer or auxiliary emergency management worker... engaged in any emergency management activity complying with or reasonably attempting to comply with Articles 1 through 3 of this chapter; or any order, rule, or regulation promulgated pursuant to Articles 1 through 3 of this chapter... shall [not] be liable...
Penalty
None (an immunity conditioned on compliance with the orders; conduct outside compliance, or amounting to willful misconduct, gross negligence or bad faith, answers in tort)
What it required
The standing immunity of the Emergency Management Act protects only emergency-management activity 'complying with or reasonably attempting to comply with' the Act and 'any order, rule, or regulation promulgated pursuant to' it; compliance with the Governor's orders is the condition of the protection. The Governor's Executive Orders of April 14 and May 12, 2020 (recited in SB 359's findings, Ex. DUT-GA-012, and in Arbor Management, Ex. DUT-GA-017, at 14) extended this immunity to healthcare institutions and workers as auxiliary emergency management workers, and SB 359 continued those protections beyond the emergency.
Retrieval noteSame volume PDF as Ex. DUT-GA-006; section text at PDF p. 558. The quotation abridges subsection (b), which also covers 'the employees, agents, or representatives of the state or any political subdivision thereof' and activity under 'any ordinance relating to precautionary measures enacted by any political subdivision of the state'; the operative words 'shall be liable' are governed by the opening 'Neither... nor,' and the bracketed '[not]' marks that construction.