Justia Injury Law Opinion Summaries

High school student Antoine Williams tragically died after engaging in horseplay with another student while his teacher was out of their classroom. Antoine’s parents, appellants Jena Barnett and Marc Williams filed a complaint against Appellee Phyllis Caldwell, the teacher. They alleged that Caldwell was liable in her individual capacity for Antoine’s wrongful death because she had been negligent in supervising his classroom. The trial court granted Caldwell’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that she was entitled to official immunity because her acts were the product of discretionary decisions concerning the supervision of students. The Court of Appeals affirmed. After review, the Georgia Supreme Court concluded that student supervision was not unalterably discretionary in all respects, but here, because the school’s policy was not so definite as to render Caldwell’s actions ministerial, therefore, she was entitled to official immunity. View "Barnett v. Caldwell" on Justia Law

High school student Antoine Williams tragically died after engaging in horseplay with another student while his teacher was out of their classroom. Antoine’s parents, appellants Jena Barnett and Marc Williams filed a complaint against Appellee Phyllis Caldwell, the teacher. They alleged that Caldwell was liable in her individual capacity for Antoine’s wrongful death because she had been negligent in supervising his classroom. The trial court granted Caldwell’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that she was entitled to official immunity because her acts were the product of discretionary decisions concerning the supervision of students. The Court of Appeals affirmed. After review, the Georgia Supreme Court concluded that student supervision was not unalterably discretionary in all respects, but here, because the school’s policy was not so definite as to render Caldwell’s actions ministerial, therefore, she was entitled to official immunity. View "Barnett v. Caldwell" on Justia Law

In 2010, Patrick Edokpolor and Linda Iyahea filed a lawsuit against Grady Memorial Hospital Corporation for the wrongful death of their decedent, Rose Edokpolor. Grady failed to waive formal service of process, and in 2013, the trial court granted a motion under OCGA 9-11-4 for an award of the expenses that plaintiffs incurred in perfecting service. The trial court, however, reserved the amount of the award for determination at a later date. In October 2014, the trial court entered summary judgment in favor of Grady, but it continued to reserve the amount of the expenses of service award. Three months later, plaintiffs filed a motion to reconsider and modify the summary judgment, asserting that the case was still pending (and the summary judgment was only interlocutory and, therefore, subject to reconsideration and modification) because the award of expenses remained outstanding. In September 2015, the trial court entered an order establishing the amount of the expenses to which plaintiffs were entitled, but concluding that summary judgment was final and no longer subject to reconsideration or modification. Plaintiffs appealed, arguing the trial court erred when it awarded summary judgment to Grady, and arguing that summary judgment still was appealable because the expenses award remained outstanding until September 2015. The Court of Appeals disagreed and dismissed the appeal, concluding that the reserved issue about expenses under OCGA 9-11-4 (d) (4) was “ancillary” to the case and, therefore, the summary judgment was a final judgment that had to be appealed within 30 days. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed: because this reserved issue remained pending at the time the trial court awarded summary judgment to Grady, the summary judgment was not a “final judgment[ ]” under OCGA 5-6-34 (a) (1), and plaintiffs were not required to bring their appeal within 30 days of that judgment. View "Edokpolor v. Grady Memorial Hospital Corp." on Justia Law

Following the death of Ben Everson, his parents sued Brian Jordan, the emergency room physician who attended to Ben two days before his death. Jordan’s motion for summary judgment was denied by the trial court, and he appealed to the Court of Appeals. In Everson v. Phoebe Sumter Medical Center, 798 SE2d 667 (2017), the Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of summary judgment. In reaching its decision, the Court of Appeals held that an independent, intervening act breaks the chain of causation in a wrongful death case only to the extent that the independent, intervening act was “wrongful or negligent.” Because this holding was erroneous and was in conflict with longstanding precedent of the Georgia Supreme Court, the Supreme Court granted certiorari review and reversed that portion of “Everson.” View "Jordan v. Everson" on Justia Law

The issue before the Georgia Supreme Court in this case was whether an employer has to show the availability of suitable employment to justify suspension of workers’ compensation benefits after already establishing that an employee’s work-related aggravation to a preexisting condition has ceased to be the cause of the employee’s disability. The Court of Appeals held the answer was yes; the Supreme Court disagreed, finding the Court of Appeals erred in remanding this case for the ALJ court to determine if the employer demonstrated suitable employment for the injured employee. View "Ocmulgee EMC v. McDuffie" on Justia Law

This case concerned OCGA 36-11-1 and a split of opinions in two controlling case law precedents decided by the Georgia court of Appeals. In In re Estate of Leonard, 783 SEd2 470 (2016), Joe Leonard, Jr. allegedly sustained injuries while riding as a passenger aboard a Whitfield County Transit Services bus. Leonard hired a lawyer; his lawyer sent a letter to Robert Smalley, an attorney in Dalton, Georgia. Although Smalley was engaged in private practice, he also served as the County Attorney for Whitfield County, a position to which he was appointed prior to his receipt of Leonard’s letter. In that letter, Leonard’s lawyer referred to the injuries that Leonard allegedly sustained in January, and he asked that Smalley accept the letter as a presentment of Leonard’s claim against the County. The County ultimately moved for summary judgment under OCGA 36-11-1 claiming that Leonard never properly presented his claim, and as such, was barred. The County acknowledged the letter Leonard’s lawyer sent to Smalley, but argued that was not a proper presentment because Smalley was not an in-house county attorney. The Georgia Court of Appeals said in Coweta County v. Cooper, 733 SE2d 348) (2012), that presentment may properly be made to the county attorney, but only if the county attorney is employed by the county in house. In this case, the Court of Appeals distinguished between inside and outside county attorneys, holding that presentment to an outside county attorney was not a proper presentment. The Georgia Supreme Court granted a petition for a writ of certiorari to review the decision in Leonard, and reversed, holding that presentment to the county attorney (inside or outside) was presentment for the purposes of OCGA 36-11-1. View "Croy v. Whitfield County" on Justia Law

Joshua Martin sustained life-changing injuries in a brutal attack at a bus stop outside the Six Flags Over Georgia amusement park in 2007. A jury determined that Six Flags was liable for those injuries, along with the four named individual defendants who perpetrated the attack. The trial court apportioned the jury’s $35 million verdict between the parties, assigning 92% against Six Flags and 2% each against the four assailants. On cross-appeals by Six Flags and Martin, a majority of the twelve-member Court of Appeals found no error in the jury’s determination regarding Six Flags’ liability but concluded that the trial court had erred in its pretrial rulings regarding apportionment of fault, necessitating a full retrial. The Georgia Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine: (1) whether Six Flags could properly be held liable for the injuries inflicted in this attack; and (2) assuming liability was proper, whether the trial court’s apportionment error does indeed require a full retrial. After review, the Supreme Court concluded: (1) because the attack that caused Martin’s injuries began while both he and his assailants were on Six Flags property, Six Flags’ liability was not extinguished simply because Martin stepped outside the property’s boundaries while attempting to distance himself from his attackers; and (2) the trial court’s apportionment error did not require a full retrial, but rather required retrial only for the apportionment of damages. View "Martin v. Six Flags Over Georgia II, L.P." on Justia Law

In 2011, Appellee Sean Elliott filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Appellants Resurgens and Dr. Tapan Daftari in the State Court of Fulton County. Elliott alleged that Dr. Daftari failed to timely diagnose and treat an abscess in his thoracic spinal cord, which resulted in his paralysis. During trial four years later, Elliott attempted to call Savannah Sullivan, a nurse who was not specifically identified as a potential witness in either Elliott’s written discovery responses or in the parties’ pre-trial order (“PTO”). The trial court subsequently excluded Sullivan as a witness. After the jury returned a defense verdict, Elliott appealed to the Court of Appeals, arguing that the trial court’s exclusion of Sullivan was error. The Court of Appeals agreed, reversing the jury’s judgment and remanding for a new trial. The Georgia Supreme Court concluded the Court of Appeals erred in its judgment, and reversed. View "Resurgens, P.C. v. Elliott" on Justia Law

Following the suicide death of her 14-year-old daughter, Appellee Laura Lane Maia sued the mayor and city council of the City of Richmond Hill (collectively, “the City”) and Douglas Sahlberg, individually and in his capacity as an officer with the Richmond Hill Police Department (collectively “Appellants”), alleging wrongful death and associated claims. Appellee’s daughter, Sydney Sanders, attempted suicide by cutting herself in the neck, chest, and abdomen, and she was subsequently taken to the hospital for medical treatment. Officers with the Richmond Hill Police Department (“RHPD”), including Officer Sahlberg, responded to the hospital to investigate, and Sanders’s injuries were photographed by the officers. Sahlberg accessed those photographs on his work computer and showed them to his daughter, K.S., who was a classmate of Sanders; shortly thereafter, K.S. was seen using her cell phone to show the images to other classmates. Sanders was distraught and mortified to discover that the photographs had been shared. In her complaint, Appellee averred (inter alia): that Salhberg had a duty to keep the injury photographs confidential; that he had breached that duty; that Sahlberg should have known that the publication of the photographs created a reasonable apprehension that Sanders would further harm herself; and that Sanders’s death was caused by Sahlberg’s negligent conduct. Appellants moved for summary judgment, asserting that Appellee could not demonstrate causation because, under Georgia law, suicide was generally an independent act which breaks the chain of causation from the events preceding the death. The trial court denied the motion with a one-page order and granted a certificate of immediate review. A divided Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that, because “Sanders’s suicide was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of Sahlberg’s negligent conduct, [Sanders’s] act of suicide was not an intervening act that would preclude Sahlberg’s breach of duty from constituting the proximate cause of that injury.” The Supreme Court concluded Appellee could not demonstrate proximate cause and therefore reversed the Court of Appeals. View "City of Richmond Hill v. Maia" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellee J.B. was injured when certified registered nurse anesthetist (“CRNA”) Paul Serdula sexually assaulted her in a surgical suite in the dental practice of defendant-appellant Goldstein, Garber & Salama, LLC ("GGS"). The Georgia Supreme Court granted certiorari to the Court of Appeals in this matter to determine whether the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that a reasonable jury could find that a third party’s sexual molestation of J.B. was an act foreseeable by GGS, whether that Court erred in affirming the trial court’s denial of GGS’s motion for a directed verdict on the issue of negligence per se, and whether GGS waived any objection to the jury verdict’s apportionment of fault. Finding the trial court should have granted GGS’s motion for directed verdict with respect to the foreseeability of Serdula's actions, it was error for the Court of Appeals to hold otherwise, the Supreme Court reversed the appellate court's judgment. Furthermore, the Court determined the appellate court erred with respect to the directed verdict on the issue of negligence per se. The Court did not reach the issue of whether GGS waived any objection to the jury's apportionment of fault. The case was remanded for further proceedings. View "Goldstein, Garber & Salama, LLC v. J.B." on Justia Law