Five Albany teachers and school administrators who worked in a special education program and were put on the state Child Abuse Registry because some of their students allegedly groped other students have lost their suit because of sovereign immunity of the state and procedural details with a ruling Monday from the Georgia Supreme Court.

“This case involves a variety of constitutional challenges to Georgia’s Child Abuse Registry that a group of high school teachers and administrators filed directly in superior court after their names were put on the Registry. We cannot properly reach the merits of those challenges, however—and neither could the trial court—because some of the claims are barred by sovereign immunity and the remaining ones should have been raised in the then-pending administrative proceeding also initiated by the teachers and administrators,” Presiding Justice David Nahmias wrote for a unanimous court.