On January 25, 2026, the Supreme Court of Georgia denied further review of the Superior Court of DeKalb County’s judgment in favor of former Mayor John Ernst and City Manager Christian Sigman. On an earlier appeal the Court of Appeals had reversed a judgment against the City of Brookhaven and remanded for reconsideration of a critical evidentiary issue. Our firm served as the Chief Legal Officer for Brookhaven and managed this process from beginning to conclusion.
The Supreme Court’s Judgment ends a nearly decade-long dispute over the development of a residential neighborhood of single-family homes into a 216-unit condominium project adjacent to Buford Highway in the City of Brookhaven. The application sought to rezone the property and to obtain from the City the street and right of way known as Bramblewood Drive. This dead in cul-de-sac consisted of 32 residences built in the 1970s. The purchase of the roadway was essential to the project as much of the development would use the old right-of-way to build on. The developer offered only $500,000 for the over 2 acres of land. Brookhaven had recently sold other right-of-way to another project for over $1.5 million. The parties could never reach resolution on the purchase price.
Over the course of several months various discussions occurred. First, the City Manager was tasked with finding a location to build a new Public Safety building that had been authorized by voters in November 2017. On possible location would have been the northwestern end of the Bramblewood tract abutting Cross Keys High School. This would have placed the Public Safety Building in a central location with access to both major arteries traversing Brookhaven and provided the developer a much needed second point of ingress/egress other than just onto Buford Highway. Negotiations over purchase price of the right of way lasted for months. Additionally, the City sought a different development plan altogether, with offered tax credits and incentives, but the developer did not want to alter its plan.
Ultimately Ardent and one of the frustrated homeowners sued claiming the City and its elected and appointed officials had unlawfully interfered with its contractual and constitutional rights in frustrating the project. Appellate Counsel Robbie Ashe and Jennifer Peterson of Bondurant Mixson & Elmore, and Trial Counsel Ted Meeker successfully argued that the Trial Court had erred in the first trial by not granting the City’s motion to dismiss based on its sovereign immunity.
On remand to the Trial Court from the Court of Appeals, the Court took the unusual and unique opportunity to revisit its original rulings on individual immunity guaranteed to the individual defendants by the Georgia Constitution. Acknowledging she made an analytical error on her ruling on motions and then at trial, the Judge granted the renewed motion and entered judgment for Ernst and Sigman.
On appeal for the second time, the Court of Appeals carefully reviewed all of the arguments made by Ardent and concluded Ernst and Sigman acted within their elected and appointed authority and did not act with the specific intent to cause Ardent and its co-plaintiff harm. Under Georgia law, a public official acting within their official and discretionary authority is immune from suit unless they acted with the specific intent to cause the injured party harm. Official duties are those connected with their roles for the local government. Discretionary authority are those tasks and decisions that require deliberation and professional judgment about potentially disputed facts. The judgment of the Court of Appeals reaffirmed the broad authority local government officials have in making long-term decisions about the health, safety and welfare of their communities and the responsibility to maximize return on the sale of public property.
Our firm was gratified our advice and the decisions of the City of Brookhaven and its officials were ultimately vindicated and the trial court’s errors in the early days of the litigation corrected. This saga reveals the reality of navigating the intersection between government as proprietor and government as regulator when it comes to managing complex development applications by sophisticated entities and parties.
