Mitсhell Vertner brought suit against Fulton County; four county employees, Robert Gerber, W. C. Austin, Al Pierce, and Carl Smithwick; and Gregory Smith, a county prison inmate, to reсover damages for injuries incurred when he was attacked by Smith. The trial court granted summary judgment to the county and the four county employees on the grounds of sovereign and official immunity, and Vertner appeals that ruling with regard to the individual defendants.
The record reveals that during the relevаnt time period, appellee Austin was deputy warden of the Alpharetta Correctional & Rehabilitation Center of the Fulton County corrеctional system (the “ACRC”). Appellee Gerber was director of the county Department of Planning & Community Development, which provided trash trucks and drivers to the ACRC to be used for inmate work details, and appellee Smithwick was a trash truck driver employed by the department. Appelleе Pierce was included as a defendant in the lawsuit in his capacity as successor to the warden of the county correctional system at the time of the incident at issue. The ACRC housed county inmates serving sentences for misdemeanor offenses as well as some state inmates, but held nо prisoners classified by the State as maximum security. In May 1985, Gregory Smith was a county inmate serving a 12 month sentence for criminal damage to property, a misdemeanor.
In his deposition, Austin described the procedure followed by the ACRC in processing new inmates and assigning them to work details. He еxplained that all inmates underwent a medical checkup at Bell-wood, a central facility, which then transferred a report to the ACRC indicating the extent to which the inmate was physically capable of serving on work crews. The ACRC also received a form detailing the persоnal history of the inmate. All other information in inmates’ files, including the complete report from the medical checkup, was retained at Bellwood pursuant to established correctional system procedure. Based on information gleaned from the reports he received and an interview with the incoming inmate, Austin then assigned inmates to an appropriate work crew for work to be performed outside the institution.
Thе history sheet transmitted to the ACRC on May 7, 1985 concerning Smith stated that he had been incarcerated five times previously, but did not indicate the offenses for which he was convicted. His medical classification authorized work “without restrictions.” Smith’s complete file, which was retained at Bellwood, revealed that he had been diagnosed as a chronic paranoid schizophrenic and that a *646 dose of 1200 mg of thorazine per day had been prescribed for him. Austin testified he had been aware Smith was on some sort of medication, but did not know either the diagnosis or the type of medicine. After reviewing the available records and interviewing Smith, Austin assigned him to a trash truck detail run by Smithwick.
On May 24, 1985, Smithwick, who was not authorized to carry a weapon, left the ACRC with Smith and another inmate to pick up trash along the roadside in a residential area. Smith apparently became еnraged by a directive given by Smithwick and began chasing Smithwick, threatening him with a pitchfork. When Smithwick ran to a nearby house to summon help, Smith followed. Appellant was servicing the air conditioning unit outside the house. Smith accosted appellant, threw him to the ground, and stabbed him in the head with the pitchfоrk, injuring him severely.
It is undisputed that Fulton County has no liability insurance coverage for this incident and thus cannot be held to have waived its sovereign immunity. See Ga. Const. 1983, Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court recently held in
Logue v. Wright,
A government emplоyee who is invested with discretion and empowered to exercise his judgment in the course of execution of his duties is considered a quasi-judicial officer, and is immune from liability when performing discretionary tasks that are within the scope of his employment and are not wilful, malicious, or cоrrupt.
Hennessy v. Webb,
Thе record in the instant case shows that the correctional system’s warden, represented in this action by Pierce, delegated to Austin the task оf reviewing information provided about the inmates,
*647
conducting his own examination of them, and then determining their work crew assignment. There is no evidenсe to suggest that he merely followed established guidelines in making these assignments; instead, his unrebutted testimony indicated that he evaluated and weighed the information available and made decisions based on his judgment and experience. We agree with appellees that these acts were analogous to those of the prison warden in
Price v. Owen,
Since we have determined that the challenged acts of the warden and Austin were discretionary, and there is no evidence Gerber and Smithwick participated in any decisions at issue, we affirm the trial court’s grant of summary judgment.
Judgment affirmed.