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Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Jones, 236 Ga. 448, 224 S.E.2d 25 (1976)

Georgia recognises no presumption of negligence arising from the fact of a rear-end collision; the question is one for the jury on the evidence.

Cited on: A chain rear-end where no one was cited: what to do next · Rear-ended on a motorcycle: who has to prove what · Struck from behind at an intersection: what has to be shown +1 more

Agic v. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, 334 Ga. App. 679, 780 S.E.2d 79 (2015)

A guilty plea or a forfeited bond is an admission usable in the civil case; a fine paid after a not-guilty plea is not.

Cited on: Concussed in a crash, then given a sobriety test or a ticket: what Georgia law looks at · Called to court after a work-vehicle brake failure you were not cited for

Ammons v. State, 315 Ga. 149, 880 S.E.2d 544 (2022)

Refusals of field sobriety tests requiring cooperation, and of a roadside breath test, cannot be introduced at trial.

Cited on: Concussed in a crash, then given a sobriety test or a ticket: what Georgia law looks at · Refusing a roadside alcohol test because of crash injuries

Dent v. Memorial Hospital of Adel, 270 Ga. 316, 509 S.E.2d 908 (1998)

Failing to follow an order or keep needed equipment on hand can be ordinary negligence; equipment-type decisions are normally professional judgments.

Cited on: A fall inside a hospital: premises claim or malpractice claim? · An ambulance without a paramedic, and pain left untreated until the hospital

Gates v. Glass, 291 Ga. 350, 729 S.E.2d 361 (2012)

Local motor-vehicle immunity waivers run in two tiers: a mandatory waiver up to set limits, and a waiver to the extent of insurance above them.

Cited on: A car leaving a gas station hit the bus you were driving, then a second car: how fault is weighed · An ambulance without a paramedic, and pain left untreated until the hospital

State v. Randall, 315 Ga. 198, 880 S.E.2d 134 (2022)

A blood-test refusal may be mentioned at least to explain the absence of a result.

Cited on: Refusing a roadside alcohol test because of crash injuries · What to Do Before a Georgia DUI Court Date After Refusing the Test

American Multi-Cinema, Inc. v. Brown, 285 Ga. 442, 679 S.E.2d 25 (2009)

The two-part knowledge test for a premises slip or trip.

Cited on: A fall inside a hospital: premises claim or malpractice claim?

Bergstrom v. State, 347 Ga. App. 295, 819 S.E.2d 84 (2018)

The Court of Appeals REJECTED both facial and as-applied constitutional challenges to Georgia's implied consent statute, holding under Olevik v. State that the implied consent notice is not inherently coercive, that it imposes no criminal penalty for refusal, and that it need not comprehensively explain every consequence of refusing; the driver's consent to a state-administered breath test at a roadblock was voluntary under the totality of the circumstances, and suppression was properly denied.

Cited on: Checkpoint DUI-Drugs Arrest After Consenting to a Blood Draw

Byrom v. Douglas Hospital, Inc., 338 Ga. App. 768, 792 S.E.2d 404 (2016)

A wheelchair-transfer fall from staff conduct needing no medical judgment was ordinary negligence; no expert affidavit was required.

Cited on: A fall inside a hospital: premises claim or malpractice claim?

Chamberlain v. State, 246 Ga. App. 423, 541 S.E.2d 64 (2000)

A physical inability to give a second sample was not a refusal.

Cited on: Refusing a roadside alcohol test because of crash injuries

Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. v. McCall, 312 Ga. 422 (2021)

Sets out Georgia’s Long Arm Statute, OCGA § 9-10-91, which reaches a nonresident only as to claims arising from defined acts within Georgia. The decision turned on the other side of that line: a corporation registered to do business here is not a “nonresident” under OCGA § 9-10-90, so the Long Arm Statute does not apply to it at all and it is subject instead to the general jurisdiction of Georgia courts on any claim, wherever the claim arose. The long-arm limits are what govern a defendant who has never registered in Georgia.

Cited on: Suing an Airbnb Host After a Fall at a Property Abroad

Driscoll v. Walters, 267 Ga. App. 688, 600 S.E.2d 744 (2004)

A driver leaving a lot and a driver who entered the center turn lane early were found equally negligent.

Cited on: A car leaving a gas station hit the bus you were driving, then a second car: how fault is weighed

Duncan v. State, 202 Ga. App. 456, 415 S.E.2d 7 (1992)

A reckless-driving conviction was affirmed where there was evidence of excessive speed and endangering others.

Cited on: A reckless driving ticket after swerving to avoid an animal

Frost v. Frost, 299 Ga. 278, 787 S.E.2d 693 (2016)

Written offers and counteroffers exchanged in negotiation were properly excluded under § 24-4-408(b).

Cited on: Sideswiped in the rain, and offering to fix the other driver's scratch

Fulton County School District v. Jenkins, 347 Ga. App. 448, 820 S.E.2d 75 (2018)

School districts share sovereign immunity; the school-bus student-insurance statute does not waive it.

Cited on: A car leaving a gas station hit the bus you were driving, then a second car: how fault is weighed

GEICO Indemnity Co. v. Whiteside, 311 Ga. 346, 857 S.E.2d 654 (2021)

Breaching a notice condition did not automatically bar a failure-to-settle claim.

Cited on: You left the scene of a crash in a panic: where Georgia law leaves you now

Gibson v. Preferred Risk Mutual Insurance Co., 216 Ga. App. 871, 456 S.E.2d 248 (1995)

Where the policy ended the duty to defend at exhaustion, good-faith settlements exhausting the limit ended it.

Cited on: Sued by your own passenger after a crash you caused, while you are hurt and out of work

Golden v. Floyd Healthcare Management, Inc., 319 Ga. 496, 904 S.E.2d 359 (2024)

Held that O.C.G.A. § 38-3-62(a) empowers an authorized judicial official to suspend, toll, or extend a statute of repose; that the COVID-19 judicial emergency orders did so; and that applying them to toll the five-year medical malpractice repose period in § 9-3-71(b) did not violate due process, because a defendant's rights under a repose statute vest only when the repose period would have expired, not on the date of the allegedly negligent treatment. The Court disapproved earlier decisions stating that a statute of repose can never be tolled for any reason.

Cited on: Hernia Complication Years After Surgery and Georgia's Filing Deadlines

Holcomb v. Monahan, 30 F.3d 116 (11th Cir. 1994)

EMTALA's § 1395dd(a) screening duty is not a federal malpractice claim: it requires only that the hospital apply the same screening procedures to the plaintiff that it applies to other patients, and is 'not designed to redress a negligent diagnosis.' To succeed on a § 1395dd(b) failure-to-stabilize claim the plaintiff must show the patient had an emergency medical condition, the hospital KNEW of the condition, the patient was not stabilized before transfer/discharge, and the hospital neither obtained consent to transfer nor certified the transfer's benefits. Summary judgment for the hospital was affirmed where the plaintiff showed no disparate screening and no evidence the hospital knew of an emergency condition at discharge.

Cited on: Pain Care Withheld and Discharge While Insurance Was Pending

Holloway v. U. S. Bank Trust National Ass'n, 317 Ga. App. 452 (2012) — Court of Appeals of Georgia

There is some evidence that U. S. Bank acquired its security deed from a party who acquired her interest through constructive fraud, so the bank has not shown as a matter of law that it acquired good title.

Cited on: Options for Challenging a Quitclaim Deed You Believe Was Obtained by Fraud

In re J. G., 829 S.E.2d 828 (2019) — Court of Appeals of Georgia

The record contains no colloquy in which the court advised the father of his right to counsel, nor does it show that the court inquired into whether the father was indigent or waiving his right to counsel, and the father did not receive court-appointed counsel.

Cited on: Facing a CPS Custody Hearing After a Newborn's Removal

Jackson v. Moore, 190 Ga. App. 329, 378 S.E.2d 726 (1989)

A swerve to avoid a cyclist, with no evidence of excessive speed or other endangering driving, did not show reckless disregard.

Cited on: A reckless driving ticket after swerving to avoid an animal

Kettle v. State, 339 Ga. App. 612, 794 S.E.2d 238 (2016)

On a motion to suppress arising from a roadblock DUI arrest, a driver's affirmative response to the implied consent notice does not by itself establish Fourth Amendment consent — the State must prove the consent to a blood test was free and voluntary under the totality of the circumstances (age, education, intelligence, length of detention, and any threats, intimidation, or coercion); and a constitutional challenge to the checkpoint itself asks whether the roadblock program had an appropriate primary purpose other than general crime control and whether the checkpoint was well identified under LaFontaine v. State. On these facts the court found voluntary consent and a valid roadblock and AFFIRMED the denial of suppression.

Cited on: Checkpoint DUI-Drugs Arrest After Consenting to a Blood Draw

Langlois v. Wolford, 246 Ga. App. 209, 539 S.E.2d 565 (2000)

Leaving the scene without speaking to the injured driver let the jury consider punitive damages.

Cited on: You left the scene of a crash in a panic: where Georgia law leaves you now

Lankford v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 307 Ga. App. 12, 703 S.E.2d 436 (2010)

Where a policy made notice a condition precedent, an unexcused near two-year delay foreclosed the insured's claim.

Cited on: You left the scene of a crash in a panic: where Georgia law leaves you now

Mornay v. National Union Fire Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh, PA, 331 Ga. App. 112, 769 S.E.2d 807 (2015)

Joinder of a carrier's insurer reaches only a vehicle within the statutory definition of a motor carrier; an exempt van's insurer won summary judgment.

Cited on: A truck hit your father: whose claim it is and what the family can do

Nicollette Black v. Hai Hong Trinh, 347 Ga. App. 585, 820 S.E.2d 209 (Ga. Ct. App. 2018)

EMTALA imposes its screening, stabilization, and transfer duties on hospitals only, not on individual physicians; a Georgia plaintiff therefore cannot use O.C.G.A. § 51-1-6 (breach of a legal duty) to convert an EMTALA violation into a claim against the treating doctors. Claims against individual clinicians must instead be pled as state-law professional negligence, which requires an actual doctor-patient relationship.

Cited on: Pain Care Withheld and Discharge While Insurance Was Pending

Quinney v. Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, Inc., 325 Ga. App. 112, 751 S.E.2d 874 (Ga. Ct. App. 2013)

A patient may pursue a state-law professional negligence claim against ED clinicians alongside a federal EMTALA failure-to-stabilize claim against the hospital arising from the same emergency-department episode; the two proceed under different standards. The court held O.C.G.A. § 51-1-29.5's clear-and-convincing gross-negligence standard applied to the ED care, but that expert affidavit testimony can create a jury question on gross negligence (reversing summary judgment), and separately that a jury could find the hospital knew of an emergency medical condition and transferred the patient unstabilized in violation of EMTALA.

Cited on: Pain Care Withheld and Discharge While Insurance Was Pending

Robinson v. Kroger Co., 268 Ga. 735, 493 S.E.2d 403 (1997)

A plaintiff need not disprove her own negligence until the owner's knowledge is shown and the owner points to the plaintiff's negligence.

Cited on: A fall inside a hospital: premises claim or malpractice claim?

Southern General Insurance Co. v. Holt, 262 Ga. 267, 416 S.E.2d 274 (1992)

An insurer that fails to settle a claim against its insured within the policy limits, where an ordinarily prudent insurer would have settled, can be liable for a judgment above those limits.

Cited on: Your Insurer Hired a Lawyer to Defend You in Georgia: Who Does That Lawyer Represent?

Thompson v. Allstate Insurance Co., 285 Ga. 24, 673 S.E.2d 227 (2009)

Under a limited release preserving UM claims, the claimant may keep suing the released driver to establish UM benefits, after exhausting the liability limits.

Cited on: Sued by your own passenger after a crash you caused, while you are hurt and out of work

Toliver v. Dawson, 370 Ga. App. 451 (2023)

Where the other driver was never charged and could no longer be prosecuted, § 9-3-99 did not toll the limitation period.

Cited on: Hit-and-run victim in Georgia: the conditions that come before the claim

Torstenson v. Doe, 257 Ga. App. 389, 571 S.E.2d 432 (2002)

An object thrown from an unknown truck was not actual physical contact; without a corroborating eyewitness the UM claim failed.

Cited on: Hit-and-run victim in Georgia: the conditions that come before the claim

W. J. Bremer Co. v. Graham, 169 Ga. App. 115, 312 S.E.2d 806 (1983)

A child has no claim for loss of consortium of a parent injured, not killed, by a third party's negligence.

Cited on: A truck hit your father: whose claim it is and what the family can do

Whitaker Farms, LLC v. Fitzgerald Fruit Farms, LLC, 320 Ga. 208, 908 S.E.2d 531 (2024)

Statements made in settlement negotiations were inadmissible when offered to prove liability on a claim.

Cited on: Sideswiped in the rain, and offering to fix the other driver's scratch

Wright v. Metro Ambulance Services, Inc., 377 Ga. App. 516 (2025)

A paramedic's medication, oxygen and defibrillation decisions during transport were professional judgment; the defense verdict was affirmed.

Cited on: An ambulance without a paramedic, and pain left untreated until the hospital