that if a government official is sued successfully for something he did in his official capacity, the government - meaning us taxpayers - picks up the tab. The point is to protect taxpayers from bad official decisions, while not constantly second-guessing every government decision. I used to teach this stuff, and the example I usually used was this:
Despite a number of accidents at a particular intersection in a town, the city council decides not to put in a stoplight because they concluded there wasn't enough money in the town's budget to install and maintain it, because the impeded traffic flow would cause more congestion, and because they examined the statistics and concluded the stoplight wouldn't prevent many accidents. But after another accident the victim sues the city, alleging the accident could have been prevented if they'd agreed to install a stoplight. The city council is protected by discretionary immunity because it was acting in its official capacity and its decision was discretionary, based on their evaluation of the circumstances.
If, however, the stoplight had been approved but city employees installed it incorrectly and it malfunctioned and was a contributing cause of an accident, the plaintiff could sue the city for negligence because the installation would have been a ministerial act, which did not involve the exercise of discretion and the city would therefore not be immune from liability.
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