{"id":32697,"date":"2010-10-18T15:57:39","date_gmt":"2010-10-18T15:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/police_chase_cases_and_soverei\/"},"modified":"2024-12-17T15:49:28","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T20:49:28","slug":"police-chase-cases-and-soverei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/police-chase-cases-and-soverei\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Chase Cases And Sovereign Immunity"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we have blogged about on many occasions in the past, there are many unfortunate situations where third party innocent victims become involved in reckless and dangerous police chases<\/a>. If the police are chasing a juvenile, a traffic offender or some other non-violent offender and while traveling at high speeds continues to chase the suspect under such dangerous conditions that they crash into an innocent third party, there should be legal liability for a reckless disregard of proper police procedure in this context. Indeed, under Georgia law, O.C.G.A. \u00a7 40-6-6 specifies that where there is evidence of a reckless disregard of proper police procedure in the decision to either initiate or continue a high speed pursuit,<\/a> such reckless disregard can be the basis of liability against the police if an innocent third party is injured due to such recklessness. Notwithstanding the statute, it is commonplace in any case brought by an innocent victim against the police for the government entity involved to assert sovereign immunity as a defense.
\nThis issue was decided long ago by the Georgia Supreme Court in a case called Cameron v. Lang. In that case the Georgia Supreme Court held that where a plaintiff proved that there was insurance coverage for the incident and also had proof that there was a reckless disregard of proper police procedure, then in that event, sovereign immunity would be waived. This is because Georgia law has long held that where there is insurance coverage applicable to the negligent use of a motor vehicle, sovereign immunity is waived for counties and municipalities.
\nThe argument now being advanced by police departments is that \u201creckless disregard of proper police procedure\u201d is not the same as \u201cnegligent\u201d use of a vehicle. This is a specious argument that has been rejected by most courts that face it but nonetheless the argument continues to be made. Moreover, many governmental entities do not carry any insurance and even though there is a statute which specifies that all governmental entities must have certain minimum amounts of self insurance coverage up to certain statutory limits, entities<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we have blogged about on many occasions in the past, there are many unfortunate situations where third party innocent victims become involved in reckless and dangerous police chases. If the police are chasing a juvenile, a traffic offender or some other non-violent offender and while traveling at high speeds continues to chase the suspect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-32697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-injury-wrongful-death","tag-personal-injury"],"yoast_head":"\nPolice Chase Cases And Sovereign Immunity — Trial Attorney Blog — October 18, 2010<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As we have blogged about on many occasions in the past, there are many unfortunate situations where third party innocent victims become involved in — October 18, 2010\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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