Worth County School District v. Tibbetts
Supreme Court of Georgia
Worth County School District v. Tibbetts
Opinion
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court
Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the
opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any
prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and
official text of the opinion.
In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: May 29, 2024
S23G0791. WORTH COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT v. TIBBETTS.
ELLINGTON, Justice.
Appellant Worth County School District (“the District”)
employed appellee John R. Tibbetts (“Tibbetts”) as a teacher. After
the District offered Tibbetts a contract of employment for the
upcoming school year, the District sent Tibbetts a certified letter
notifying him that it had not received his signed contract within the
time allowed and his employment would end when his contract for
the current school year ended. Thereafter, Tibbetts brought a breach
of contract action against the District, alleging that the contract
offered to him did not comply with Georgia’s statutory requirements
for teacher contracts because it was missing terms and contained
blanks. Therefore, Tibbetts contended, the contract offered did not
operate as a valid offer, and his employment contract for the prior
school year was renewed by operation of law pursuant to OCGA §
20-2-211 (b), which prescribes the manner of annually renewing or
not renewing the employment contracts of teachers and other
certificated professional personnel.
The District moved for summary judgment, arguing, among
other things, that sovereign immunity barred Tibbetts’s breach of
contract action. The trial court agreed, holding that there was no
existing written contract between the parties that operated to waive
sovereign immunity under the ex contractu clause of the
Constitution of the State of Georgia, Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. I, Sec.
II, Par. IX (c). In granting the District’s motion, the trial court found
that the District offered Tibbetts a contract that complied with
OCGA § 20-2-211 (b), but that Tibbetts did not timely accept that
offer. “Under these facts,” the trial court concluded, “OCGA § 20-2-
211 (b) does not clearly indicate a renewed contract by operation of
law and does not provide a basis for Mr. Tibbetts to establish a clear
waiver of sovereign immunity.” Tibbetts appealed the trial court’s
order to the Court of Appeals.
2
In Tibbetts v. Worth County School District, 367 Ga. App. 246(885 SE2d 291
) (2023), the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court.
It determined that the contract the District offered Tibbetts for the
upcoming school year failed to comply with the requirements of
OCGA § 20-2-211 (b); therefore, Tibbetts’s contract for the previous
school year was renewed by operation of law pursuant to OCGA §
20-2-211 (b) and constituted a contract in writing as required by
OCGA § 20-2-211 (a). Tibbetts, 367 Ga. App. at 248-250 (2)-(4); see
id. at 249 (4) (“The literal language of OCGA § 20-2-211 [(a)] requires
all teachers to have written employment contracts[.]” (emphasis in
original)). The Court of Appeals reasoned, therefore, that Tibbetts’s
claim was one for breach of a written contract, and sovereign
immunity was waived pursuant to the ex contractu clause. Id. at
247-248 (2). The Court of Appeals held that the trial court erred in
granting summary judgment to the District and reversed the trial
court’s order. Id. The District then petitioned this Court for a writ of
3
certiorari to the Court of Appeals, and we granted it. 1
We asked the parties to address whether the employment
contract the District offered to Tibbetts for the 2019-2020 school
year complied with the requirements of OCGA § 20-2-211 (b) and, if
it did not, whether Tibbetts’s existing written employment contract
for the previous school year was renewed by operation of law, such
that sovereign immunity is waived for Tibbetts’s breach of contract
claim. 2 As explained below, we hold that the Court of Appeals erred
in reversing the grant of summary judgment in favor of the District
because the employment contract the District offered Tibbetts for
1 We granted the writ of certiorari on November 7, 2023. The case was
docketed to the term beginning in December 2023 and orally argued on March
21, 2024.
2 We asked the parties to address these questions:
(1) Did the employment renewal contract that was offered to
[Tibbetts] for the 2019-2020 school year comply with the
requirement in OCGA § 20-2-211 (b) that “[s]uch contracts . . . shall
be complete in all terms and conditions of the contract, including
the amount of compensation to be paid to such teacher . . . during
the ensuing school year, and shall not contain blanks or leave any
terms and conditions of the contract open?”
(2) If the contract did not comply with that requirement,
was [Tibbetts’s] existing written employment contract renewed by
operation of law, such that sovereign immunity is waived under
Article I, Section II, Paragraph IX (c) of the Georgia Constitution
of 1983 for a claim of breach of such a renewed contract?
4
the 2019-2020 school year satisfied the requirements of OCGA § 20-
2-211 (b). Because Tibbetts failed to timely accept this offer, no
written contract exists to support Tibbetts’s claim for breach of a
written contract. Absent such a claim, there is no waiver of sovereign
immunity pursuant to the ex contractu clause.
1. Standard of Review, Pertinent Facts, and Procedural
History.
“On appeal from a grant of summary judgment, we review legal
questions de novo and review the evidence in the light most
favorable to the nonmoving party to determine whether there is a
genuine issue of material fact.” (Citation omitted.) Milliken & Co. v.
Ga. Power Co., 306 Ga. 6, 8(1) (829 SE2d 111
) (2019). So viewed, the
record shows that the District employed Tibbetts as a teacher during
the 2018-2019 school year pursuant to a written contract for
employment that expired at the end of the school year, as defined by
the District’s annual calendar. The contract did not specify
Tibbetts’s salary in dollars; rather, it set Tibbetts’s salary with
reference to the State Salary Schedule for a person with Tibbetts’s
5
certification level and 14 years of experience.3 Tibbetts’s prior
employment contracts with the District – for the 2015-2016, 2016-
2017, and 2017-2018 school years – also referred to the salary
schedule rather than listing a specific salary amount.
On March 21, 2019, the District’s superintendent
recommended that the Worth County Board of Education offer
Tibbetts a contract for the 2019-2020 school year, and the Board did
so. The District made the offer by posting Tibbetts’s written
employment contract to its online system on March 29, 2019. Like
the District’s previous employment contracts, the 2019-2020
contract did not list a specific salary amount; rather, it referenced
the State Salary Schedule for teachers with 15 years of creditable
3 OCGA § 20-2-212 (a) provides, in pertinent part: “The State Board of
Education shall establish a schedule of minimum salaries for services rendered
which shall be on a ten-month basis and which shall be paid by local units of
administration to the various classifications of professional personnel required
to be certificated by the Professional Standards Commission.” Further, “[a]
local unit of administration shall not pay to any full-time certificated employee
a salary less than that prescribed by the schedule of minimum salaries, except
as required by this Code section[.]” Id. Local school boards are required to
“place each employee holding a renewable certificate or non-renewable
certificate on the State Salary Schedule that corresponds to the employee’s
creditable years of experience.” Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 160-5-2-.05 (3) (a).
6
service and a “T5 certificate level.” 4 The contract also contained
blank spaces for Tibbetts’s Social Security Number, his signature,
and the date he accepted the contract. On March 31, 2019, the
District’s human resources director emailed Tibbetts with a link to
complete the form contract. The email stated: “If you are accepting
this contract, it must be signed and submitted by Monday, April 15,
2019.” See OCGA § 20-2-942 (b) (6) (“Local boards shall make
contract offers available to teachers for a minimum ten-day review
period. A teacher accepts the contract by signing and returning it
any time during the ten-day period.”). On April 12, 2019, the director
sent an email to all District employees with outstanding offers,
including Tibbetts, reminding them of the April 15 acceptance and
return deadline. Three days later, on April 15, 2019, the
superintendent sent an email to all principals in the District,
4 The contract tendered to Tibbetts provided that his
annual salary is based upon a T5 certificate level and 15 years of
creditable service to be paid in accordance with the salary
schedules and work schedules adopted by the employer. The salary
specified herein may be subject to adjustment according to the
anticipated budget for the 2019-2020 school year and . . . is
conditioned upon the continued availability of state funds under
appropriation acts.
7
instructing them to remind teachers to sign and return their
contracts on time and that untimely returns would be treated as
refusals of the offered employment.
While the District’s offer was pending, Tibbetts sought
employment in other school districts, Tift County and Cook County.
In his sworn deposition, Tibbetts said that if he had received an offer
from either of those school districts, he would have accepted a job
with it instead and he would not have filed the instant lawsuit.
Tibbetts said that he signed and returned the District’s offered
employment contract to the District through the online system on
April 15, 2019; however, there is no documentary evidence in the
record that the employment contract was received by the District –
either through its online system or otherwise. Tibbetts received no
email confirmation that the contract had been successfully
submitted on April 15, nor did he receive an error message from the
online system indicating that the contract had not been submitted.
Tibbetts also said that he physically returned a copy of the contract
to the District, but the document he claims he submitted varied from
8
the form generated by the online system, lacked the oath of
allegiance, and had no marks indicating that it was received by the
District.
After the April 15 deadline for receiving accepted contracts had
passed, the District’s human resources director sent Tibbetts a
certified letter informing him that his signed contract had not been
received, thanked him for his service, and wished him luck in his
future endeavors. On May 4, 2019, Tibbetts sent the director an
email with an attachment of the contract that he contends he signed
on April 15. According to her sworn affidavit, the director again
checked the online system but was unable to locate Tibbetts’s signed
contract in the system. If the contract had been submitted, it would
have appeared in his personnel file. She found no other documents
associated with Tibbetts’s name in the system. The system showed
only that the contract was sent to Tibbetts on March 29, 2019, and
was 21 days overdue. On May 14, the director informed Tibbetts that
because the District had not received his signed contract by the
deadline, his “employment with the Worth County School District 9
[would] end at the conclusion of [his] 2018-2019 contract.”
On May 17, 2019, Tibbetts emailed the human resources
director and inquired if his name was included on the list of
approved contracts. She informed Tibbetts that he had been
recommended for renewal on March 21, 2019, and was issued a
contract offer on March 29, 2019, but that he had failed to accept the
offer by signing and returning the contract by the April 15, 2019,
deadline. Later that same day, the superintendent told Tibbetts that
the School District was not going to offer him a contract after the
deadline. On several occasions, the director contacted the online
system’s support staff to ensure that there had been no system
errors when Tibbetts had allegedly attempted to return his
employment contract, and she was assured that no such errors had
occurred. No other employee complained of having problems
accepting and returning their contracts through the online system,
and no other employee returned a contract after the deadline.
The District has a policy of not accepting late contracts or
making exceptions for noncompliant teachers. When Tibbetts failed
10
to return his contract on time, the District believed that he had
declined the offer and had accepted employment elsewhere.
Consequently, the District began hiring for his position so that it
would have enough teachers for the following year. In her affidavit,
the human resources director stated that “[a]t no point was Mr.
Tibbetts discharged, suspended, or demoted by the Worth County
Board of Education. Mr. Tibbetts is currently not employed by the
Worth County Board of Education because he failed to accept his
employment contract within the time period provided.” Tibbetts
ultimately signed and returned a contract to work in the Lee County
School District for the 2019-2020 school year. The Lee County
contract did not include a specific salary amount, but, like the
District’s contract, referenced Tibbetts’s certification level and years
of experience.
2. Analysis.
Sovereign immunity is a threshold issue that must be
addressed prior to resolving the merits of Tibbetts’s breach of
contract claim. See, e.g., Bray v. Watkins, 317 Ga. 703, 704 (895
11
SE2d 282) (2023) (holding that the trial court was not authorized to address the merits of claims that could have been barred by sovereign immunity, without first conducting a threshold jurisdictional review of such claims). The District is entitled to sovereign immunity, see Thigpen v. McDuffie County Bd. of Educ.,255 Ga. 59, 59
(335 SE2d 112
) (1985) (holding that sovereign immunity extends to the state and all of its departments and agencies, which includes the McDuffie County Board of Education), unless Tibbetts has carried his burden of showing a waiver of the District’s immunity, see Ga. Dept. of Labor v. RTT Assocs., Inc.,299 Ga. 78, 81
(1) (786 SE2d 840
) (2016) (“The burden of demonstrating a waiver of sovereign immunity rests upon the party asserting it.”). Further, “[i]mplied waivers of sovereign immunity are generally disfavored.” Dept. of Transp. v. Mixon,312 Ga. 548, 550
(2) (a) (864 SE2d 67
) (2021). Tibbetts contends that he carried his burden of
showing a waiver of sovereign immunity under the ex contractu
clause of the Georgia Constitution, see Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. I,
Sec. II, Par. IX (c), based on the following argument.
12
Tibbetts argued that the employment contract offered to him
by the District for the 2019-2020 school year failed to comply with
OCGA § 20-2-211 (b) because the contract contained blanks and was
missing terms, like his salary amount, such that his written contract
from the previous year was automatically renewed under OCGA §
20-2-211 (b).5 The Court of Appeals agreed, characterizing the
5 OCGA § 20-2-211 (b) provides:
Any other provisions of this article or any other laws to the
contrary notwithstanding, each local governing board shall, by
not later than May 15 of the current school year, tender a new
contract for the ensuing school year to each teacher and other
professional employee certificated by the Professional Standards
Commission on the payroll of the local unit of administration at
the beginning of the current school year, except those who have
resigned or who have been terminated as provided in Part 7 of
Article 17 of this chapter, or shall notify in writing each such
teacher or other certificated professional employee of the
intention of not renewing his or her contract for the ensuing
school year. Such contracts when tendered to each teacher or
other professional employee shall be complete in all terms and
conditions of the contract, including the amount of compensation
to be paid to such teacher or other professional employee during
the ensuing school year, and shall not contain blanks or leave any
terms and conditions of the contract open. A letter of intent or
similar document shall not constitute a contract and shall not be
construed to require or otherwise legally bind the teacher or other
professional employee to return to such school system. Upon
request, a written explanation for failure to renew such contract
shall be made available to such certificated personnel by the
executive officer. When such notice of intended termination has
not been given by May 15, the employment of such teacher or
13
offered employment contract as “nonconforming.” Tibbetts, 367 Ga.
App. at 248-249 (2). Moreover, although the District did not receive
Tibbetts’s acceptance of the offered contract before the April 15
deadline, the Court of Appeals nevertheless concluded that offering
Tibbetts a nonconforming contract could not “displace the procedure
the statute mandates[,]” implying that the District’s offer was no
offer at all. See id. at 249 (2). Because the District offered Tibbetts a
nonconforming contract that he was not required to accept, the
Court of Appeals reasoned, Tibbetts’s previous year’s written
contract was renewed by operation of law under OCGA § 20-2-211
(b) and “the renewed contract remained a contract in writing.”
Tibbetts, at 250 (4). Having identified the existence of a written
contract, the Court of Appeals held that “sovereign immunity has
been waived, and Tibbetts is entitled to sue for breach.” Id. As
explained below, this analysis is flawed because it is based on the
other certificated professional employee shall be continued for the
ensuing school year unless the teacher or certificated professional
employee elects not to accept such employment by notifying the
local governing board or executive officer in writing not later than
June 1.
14
faulty assumption that the District offered Tibbetts a
nonconforming contract.
Code Section 20-2-211 (b) provides, in pertinent part, that the
contract tendered to each teacher “shall be complete in all terms and
conditions of the contract . . . , including the amount of compensation
to be paid to such teacher . . . during the ensuing school year, and
shall not contain blanks or leave any terms and conditions of the
contract open.” Id. The Court of Appeals stated that it did “not reach
the issues arising from the blanks in the contract tendered by the
District.” Tibbetts, 367 Ga. App. at 247 (1). However, it concluded
that the contract was “nonconforming” because it did not meet the
statutory requirement that it
“includ[e] the amount of compensation to be paid to
[Tibbetts] during the ensuing school year[.]” OCGA § 20-
2-211 (b) (emphasis supplied). Instead[,] the offer
referenced a salary schedule. Although the District
argues this reference was sufficient because it referenced
the schedule in place at that time, that schedule pertained
to the prior school year, not the ensuing school year.
(Emphasis supplied.) Id. at 248 (3). Although the Court of Appeals
did not address whether the presence of blanks in Tibbetts’s
15
employment contract would render it nonconforming, we asked the
parties to address whether the contract offered for the 2019-2020
school year complied with the requirement of OCGA § 20-2-211 (b)
because it contained blanks and omitted Tibbetts’s salary amount.6
The contract did not specify a specific dollar amount for
Tibbetts’s salary, and it contained blanks for Tibbetts’s Social
Security Number, his signature, and the date he signed the contract.
As explained below, Tibbetts’s salary amount was stated with
sufficient specificity and the blanks do not represent missing terms
and conditions of a contract for employment under OCGA § 20-2-
211(b). Consequently, Tibbetts’s contract of employment was not, as
the Court of Appeals concluded, nonconforming under the statute.
First, with respect to Tibbetts’s salary, that term was not left
blank. Rather, Tibbetts’s salary was specified in the contract by
referencing the published State Salary Schedule set by the General
Assembly and the State Board of Education. Code Section § 20-2-212
(a) provides, in part, that the “General Assembly shall annually
6 See supra note 2.
16
appropriate funds to implement a salary schedule for certificated
professional personnel. For each state fiscal year, the state board
shall adopt the salary schedule for which funding has been
appropriated by the General Assembly.” That subsection also
provides, in pertinent part, that “[t]he State Board of Education
shall establish a schedule of minimum salaries for services
rendered[,]” and that “[t]he placement of teachers on the salary
schedule shall be based on certificate level and years of creditable
experience[.]” Additionally, local school boards are required to “place
each employee holding a renewable certificate or non-renewable
certificate on the State Salary Schedule that corresponds to the
employee’s creditable years of experience.” Ga. Comp. R. & Regs.
160-5-2-.05 (3) (a). Thus, Tibbetts could determine the exact amount
of his salary by referring to the State Salary Schedule for a person
with his level of certification and years of creditable experience.
This Court has held that a contract term setting employee
compensation is sufficiently definite where it is based on a method
or formula for determining the exact amount of compensation. See
17
Arby’s Inc. v. Cooper, 265 Ga. 240, 241(454 SE2d 488
) (1995)
(recognizing that “[t]o be enforceable, a promise of future
compensation must be made at the beginning of the employment[,]”
and that “the promise of future compensation must also be for an
exact amount or based upon a ‘formula or method for determining
the exact amount’ ” (citations and emphasis omitted)). Tibbetts’s
contention that the rule in Arby’s must yield to the “specific rule”
rule in OCGA § 20-2-211 (b) has no merit. There is nothing in OCGA
§ 20-2-211 (b) that rejects the use of a salary schedule; it only
requires the contract to set forth the “amount of compensation.”
Moreover, construing OCGA § 20-2-211 (b) in light of OCGA § 20-2-
212 (a),7 which requires the annual funding and publishing of a
mandatory State Salary Schedule for teacher compensation, the
District had no choice but to express Tibbetts’s salary with reference
to the salary schedule because the salary schedule for the upcoming
7 See generally Butterworth v. Butterworth, 227 Ga. 301, 303-304(180 SE2d 549
) (1971) (Setting forth the “elementary rule of statutory construction”
that statutes “in pari materia,” i.e., statutes relating to the same subject
matter, must be construed together.).
18
2019-2020 school year had not yet been set when the District offered
to renew his contract.
Although the State Salary Schedule for the upcoming school
year had not yet been published when the District offered Tibbetts
his contract, the schedule from the prior year was still in effect.
Moreover, the contract expressly provided that Tibbetts’s salary
“may be subject to adjustment according to the anticipated budget
for the 2019-2020 school year and . . . is conditioned upon the
continued availability of state funds under appropriation acts.”
Accordingly, when the District extended its contract offer in March,
it expressly informed Tibbetts that he was to be paid based on his
certificate level and years of creditable service, according to the
State Salary Schedule. And, when the State updated its salary
schedules, his pay automatically would be adjusted in accordance
with that schedule. Thus, the compensation term the contract
offered Tibbetts was easily ascertainable, sufficiently definite, and
not left open or up to the discretion of the District. Cf. Arby’s, Inc.,
265 Ga. at 241 (holding that a promise of a future bonus that was
19
only partially tied to a formula and was otherwise left to a
supervisor’s discretion was not a sufficiently definite promise of
future compensation to be enforceable). For this reason, the Court of
Appeals erred in finding that Tibbetts’s contract for the ensuing
school years failed to conform with OCGA § 20-2-211 (b) because it
referenced the State Salary Schedule. See Tibbetts, 367 Ga. App at.
248 (3).
Second, the “blanks” on the contract the District offered
Tibbetts for the upcoming school year – spaces for Tibbetts’s Social
Security Number, signature, and the date of his acceptance – did not
violate OCGA § 20-2-211 (b) because those blanks did not represent
a missing term or condition of the contract. The statute’s
requirement that the contract “not contain blanks” must be read in
context. To discern the meaning of text of a statute we “must look at
the context in which the statute was written, remembering at all
times that the meaning of a sentence may be more than that of the
separate words, as a melody is more than the notes.” (Footnote
omitted.) Busch v. State, 271 Ga. 591, 592(523 SE2d 21
) (1999).
20
Code Section § 20-2-211 (b) provides, in pertinent part:
Such contracts when tendered to each teacher or other
professional employee shall be complete in all terms and
conditions of the contract, including the amount of
compensation to be paid to such teacher or other
professional employee during the ensuing school year,
and shall not contain blanks or leave any terms and
conditions of the contract open.
Here, the key context is the surrounding statutory language. That
language makes clear that the “blanks” the statute is concerned with
are not just any “blanks,” but blanks that leave out “terms and
conditions” of the contract. The statute states that the contract
“when tendered to each teacher . . . shall be complete in all terms
and conditions . . . and shall not contain blanks or leave any terms
and conditions of the contract open.” In other words, the statute
expresses an affirmative requirement – the contract must be
“complete in all terms and conditions” – and then states how that
requirement could be violated – by leaving “blanks” or “open” terms
and conditions. Put simply, this language merely makes sure that
the teacher to whom a contract is tendered under this provision can
determine the terms and conditions of the contract by looking at the
21
tendered contract. Given this understanding, the spaces for
Tibbetts’s social security number, signature, and date are plainly
not the kind of nonconforming “blanks” contemplated by the statute.
The lines on the contract for Tibbetts’s signature and the date
of acceptance must, of necessity, be given to him blank because his
signature and the date he signed indicate when he accepted the
contract. The date and signature blanks are blanks provided for
Tibbetts to denote his acceptance, and it would make no sense for
the contract to fail under the plain language of OCGA § 20-2-211 (b)
because it contained such blanks when the District tendered it to
Tibbetts. Similarly, the fact that the District’s contract left the line
for Tibbetts’s Social Security Number blank would not stymie
Tibbetts’s ability to determine the terms and conditions of the
contract by reading the tendered contract. If the District, as
Tibbetts’s employer, did not have Tibbetts’s Social Security Number
on file, Tibbetts could simply provide it to the District when he
completed any forms required to process his pay, such as tax-
withholding forms. Also, as with the blank left for his signature,
22
Tibbetts could have filled in the blank provided for his Social
Security Number himself when he accepted the contract. These
spaces do not reflect missing terms or conditions, but merely the
method by which a teacher may indicate acceptance of the contract.
Indeed, when a contract is tendered to another party, it is expected
that the contract would leave a space for the other party to fill in
identifying information (here, a name and social security number)
and then sign and date the contract to indicate the party’s
acceptance. For these reasons, the blanks left on the contract for
Tibbetts’s Social Security Number, signature, and date did not
render the contract nonconforming under OCGA § 20-2-211 (b).
The Court of Appeals reasoned that the District’s
“nonconforming contract” offer for the upcoming school year
triggered the “automatic renewal provision” of OCGA § 20-2-211 (b),
resulting in a written contract. Tibbetts, 367 Ga. App at. 246. The
Court of Appeals then determined, based on that contract, that the
District’s sovereign immunity had been waived and that Tibbetts
was entitled to sue for breach of contract pursuant to “the ex
23
contractu clause of our state Constitution, Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. I,
Sec. II, Par. IX (c).” Id. However, as explained above, the District’s
contract offer satisfied the requirements of OCGA § 20-2-211 (b). It
was not a nonconforming offer that would result, according to the
Court of Appeals’ analysis, in the renewal of the previous year’s
contract. Thus, there was no renewed contract to support a waiver
of sovereign immunity under the ex contractu clause of the Georgia
Constitution.
Further, because Tibbetts failed to accept the written contract
the District offered to him for the upcoming school year by signing
and returning the contract before the April 15 deadline, no binding
contract was formed based on the District’s March 21 offer. See, e.g.,
Robinson v. Tate, 217 Ga. 93(121 SE2d 21
) (1961) (holding that,
where acceptance of a contract was required by the offer to be
received within a stated time, there was no contract where
acceptance was not so received and there was nothing more to show
that the offer remained open or that the late acceptance became a
counter-offer accepted by the offeror). See also OCGA § 20-2-942 (b)
24
(6) (“Local boards shall make contract offers available to teachers for
a minimum ten-day review period. A teacher accepts the contract by
signing and returning it any time during the ten-day period.”
(emphasis supplied)). Consequently, there is no written contract at
issue in this case.
Rather, the undisputed facts support the trial court’s finding
that Tibbetts simply failed to accept and return the offered contract
of employment within the deadline set by the District. Therefore,
Tibbetts has not carried his burden of showing a waiver of sovereign
immunity based upon the ex contractu clause of the Georgia
Constitution. See, e.g., RTT Assocs., Inc., 299 Ga. at 81(1) (“The burden of demonstrating a waiver of sovereign immunity rests upon the party asserting it.”); Layer v. Barrow County,297 Ga. 871
(1) (778 SE2d 156
) (2015) (“Although sovereign immunity has been
waived for actions ex contractu for the breach of any written
contract, sovereign immunity generally will bar a lawsuit for breach
of an unwritten contract. And sovereign immunity also will bar a
lawsuit for damages upon quasi-contractual theories of liability in
25
the absence of a written contract.” (citations and punctuation
omitted; emphasis original)).
For the foregoing reasons, the Court of Appeals erred in finding
a waiver of sovereign immunity under these circumstances and by
reversing the trial court’s order granting summary judgment in
favor of the District on this ground.
Judgment reversed. All the Justices concur.
26
Reference
- Status
- Published