The Court unanimously affirmed the circuit court’s judgment sustaining the City’s motion for summary judgment and overruling the appellant’s motion for summary judgment on the grounds that the City of St. Louis’s sovereign immunity barred the appellant’s claim that the City was obligated to indemnify the City’s police officers who owed the appellant $2.5 million for violating the appellant’s civil rights pursuant to a 2016 decision in federal court. Because the overruling of a summary judgment motion is generally not appealable, the Court reviewed the denial of the appellant’s motion only because it was completely intertwined with the grant of summary judgment in the City’s favor, which the Court likewise affirmed. The Court noted that in Missouri sovereign immunity applies to all suits against public entities and that it is the plaintiff’s burden to show that the relevant entity waived the immunity either through “express statutory consent or a recognized common law exception.” In making its decision, the Court emphasized that these are the only two methods by which a plaintiff can show waiver of sovereign immunity thereby rejecting the appellant’s contention that the City waived its sovereign immunity through implied consent by failing to address the issue in an earlier motion.
