Worth County School District v. Tibbetts

319 Ga. 103
FINAL COPY

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.

In Tibbetts v. Worth County School District, 367 Ga. App. 246

(885 SE2d 291) (2023), the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court.

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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

certiorari to the Court of Appeals, and we granted it.1

We asked the parties to address whether the employment

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.
3
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

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

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?
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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.” 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 certification level and

14 years of experience.3 Tibbetts’s prior employment contracts with

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

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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

service and a “T5 certificate level.”4 The contract also contained

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
professional 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., r. 160-5-2-
.05 (3) (a).
4 The contract tendered to Tibbetts provided that his

annual salary is based upon a T5 certificate level and 15 years of

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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 e-mailed Tibbetts with a link to

complete the form contract. The e-mail 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 e-mail 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 e-mail to all principals in the District,

instructing them to remind teachers to sign and return their

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
appropriations acts.
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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

e-mail 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

the form generated by the online system, lacked the oath of

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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 e-

mail 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

[would] end at the conclusion of [his] 2018-2019 contract.”

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On May 17, 2019, Tibbetts e-mailed 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 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

to return his contract on time, the District believed that he had

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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

SE2d 282) (2023) (holding that the trial court was not authorized to

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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 Ed., 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., 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, 550-551 (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.

Tibbetts argued that the employment contract offered to him

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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
other certificated professional employee shall be continued for the
ensuing school year unless the teacher or certificated professional

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offered employment contract as “nonconforming.” Tibbetts, 367 Ga.

App. at 248-249 (3). 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 (3). 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, 367 Ga. App. at 248 (2). 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. at 250 (4). As explained below, this analysis is flawed

because it is based on the faulty assumption that the District offered

employee elects not to accept such employment by notifying the
local governing board or executive officer in writing not later than
June 1.
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Tibbetts a nonconforming contract.

OCGA § 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 in original.) Id. at 248 (3). Although the Court of Appeals

did not address whether the presence of blanks in Tibbetts’s

employment contract would render it nonconforming, we asked the

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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. OCGA § 20-2-212 (a)

provides, in part, that the “General Assembly shall annually

appropriate funds to implement a salary schedule for certificated

6 See supra note 2.

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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., r.

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

Arby’s, Inc. v. Cooper, 265 Ga. 240, 241 (454 SE2d 488) (1995)

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(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” 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 2019-2020

school year had not yet been set when the District offered to renew

7 See generally Butterworth v. Butterworth, 227 Ga. 301, 303-304 (3) (a)

(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).
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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 appropriations 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

only partially tied to a formula and was otherwise left to a

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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.” (Citation and

punctuation omitted.) Busch v. State, 271 Ga. 591, 592 (523 SE2d

21) (1999).

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OCGA § 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

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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,

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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

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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., 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 the

25
absence of a written contract.” (citations and punctuation omitted;

emphasis in 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.

Decided May 29, 2024.

Certiorari to the Court of Appeals of Georgia — 367 Ga. App.

246.

Smith Welch Webb & White, Grant E. McBride, Matthew C.

Collum, for appellant.

Charles E. Cox, Jr., for appellee.

Pereira Kirby Kinsinger & Nguyen, Phillip L. Hartley, Stephen

D. Pereira, amici curiae.

26