Decided June 16, 2026
Georgia Supreme Court of Georgia 2026 Medical malpracticeWrongful deathDamagesConstitutional law
Reaffirming Nestlehutt under stare decisis, the Supreme Court held that OCGA § 51-13-1's $350,000 noneconomic damages cap cannot be applied at all to a verdict that includes constitutionally protected noneconomic damages — here, the estate's pre-death pain and suffering. Because the statute lumps every claimant's noneconomic damages into one capped sum and offers no way to carve a verdict apart, the Court vacated an order that had cut a $29,250,000 wrongful death award to $350,000. It expressly reserved whether the cap could reach a stand-alone wrongful death award.
Decided June 11, 2026
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2026 InsuranceBad faithMedical malpractice
The Court of Appeals affirmed a jury verdict of more than $12 million against MagMutual after the insurer's mishandling let a wrongful-death malpractice case go into default against its own insured, vascular surgeon Ganesh Perera. The court upheld roughly $9.1 million in consequential career-and-reputation damages above the $1 million policy limit and $3.12 million in OCGA § 13-6-11 litigation expenses.
Decided May 22, 2026
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2026 Medical malpracticeExpert affidavits
Reversing a dismissal, the Court of Appeals held that under OCGA § 43-9-16(g) a chiropractor who takes and reads an X-ray is held to the same standard of care as a physician — so a musculoskeletal radiologist's expert affidavit was sufficient to keep Christy Coll's malpractice complaint alive on the X-ray theory, even though he could not opine on chiropractic treatment itself.
Decided May 20, 2026
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2026 Medical malpracticeEmergency careTrial practice
The Court of Appeals vacated a defense verdict and remanded, holding that the trial court wrongly believed OCGA § 51-1-29.5's command that the court "shall instruct the jury" compelled it to let the jury apply the emergency-care gross-negligence standard — an issue no party had listed in the pretrial order. The trial court retained discretion whether to allow the late issue and must now exercise it.
Decided April 21, 2026
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2026 Medical malpracticeDiscoverySanctions
The Court of Appeals held that a post-mortem pacemaker analysis contradicting the plaintiff's cardiac-causation theory was responsive to broad discovery and should have been disclosed. The fee award was vacated, but § 9-15-14(b) fees remain possible on remand.
Decided February 3, 2026
Georgia Supreme Court of Georgia 2026 Medical malpracticeExpert testimonyEvidenceAppeals
The Georgia Supreme Court denied certiorari in Ga. Bone & Joint Surgeons, P.C. v. Keel. Justice Bethel's concurrence explains that Condra v. Atlanta Orthopaedic Group does not require a personal-practices jury instruction and that pattern-instruction status alone cannot decide whether a requested charge should be given.
Decided February 3, 2026
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2026 Medical malpracticeEvidence
The Court of Appeals reversed dismissal where the trial court demanded orthopedic post-operative experience from a § 9-11-9.1 expert. At the pleading stage, the question is whether the expert's experience is relevant to the alleged omission, not whether the expert shares the defendant's specialty.
Decided January 30, 2026
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2026 Medical malpracticeStatute of limitations
The Court of Appeals reversed dismissal of a failure-to-diagnose prostate-cancer complaint. The pleadings did not affirmatively prove the limitations defense, so the new-injury exception belonged in discovery and summary judgment, not Rule 12(b)(6).
Decided January 22, 2026
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2026 Medical malpracticeJury selection
The Court of Appeals reversed a defense verdict after the trial court refused to strike a venireperson whose firm represented MagMutual, the defendants' malpractice insurer. The opinion preserves the civil rule that forced peremptory use plus exhaustion is presumptively harmful.
Decided November 3, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeCivil procedureAppeals
The Court of Appeals of Georgia reversed summary judgment for a hospital and physician group, holding that corporate healthcare entities were not auxiliary emergency management workers under GEMA and that Georgia's Pandemic Business Safety Act did not apply retroactively to April 2020 care.
Decided October 30, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeExpert testimonyEvidence
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed a defense verdict for Metro Ambulance Services, holding that exclusion of rebuttal expert testimony was harmless and that paramedic treatment decisions required professional judgment rather than negligence-per-se instructions.
Decided October 29, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeCivil procedureAppeals
The Court of Appeals of Georgia vacated a $13.7 million attorney-fee award in a medical malpractice case, holding that OCGA 9-11-68 does not authorize fees for appellate work or other legal services performed after the initial entry of judgment in the trial court.
Decided October 28, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeCivil procedureAppeals
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed attorney-fee awards against a plaintiff who voluntarily dismissed a premature abusive-litigation suit, holding that anti-SLAPP fees and OCGA 9-15-14 fees remained available after dismissal.
Decided October 22, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeCivil procedure
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed summary judgment for an obstetrician, holding that a graphic verbal description of a stillborn delivery did not support intentional infliction of emotional distress and that negligent infliction claims were barred by Georgia's impact rule.
Decided October 21, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeCivil procedure
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed summary judgment for an emergency-physician staffing company, holding that the physician was an independent contractor because the company did not control the time, manner, or method of her medical work.
Decided October 1, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeExpert testimonyEvidence
The Court of Appeals of Georgia reversed summary judgment for Emory Healthcare, holding that conflicting testimony about which IV site was used and expert testimony based on differential diagnosis created jury questions in a Dilantin extravasation case.
Decided September 30, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeExpert testimonyEvidence
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed a defense verdict in an emergency-room malpractice case, holding that OCGA 51-1-4's definition of gross negligence applies under the ER statute and that the jury instructions properly required proof of gross negligence in at least one alleged way.
Decided September 29, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeExpert testimonyEvidence
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed a medical-malpractice verdict arising from a child's fatal button-battery ingestion, holding that a radiologist's timing opinion was admissible even though one part of the opinion involved uncertainty about the battery's charge level.
Decided June 26, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeExpert testimonyCivil procedure
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed a $6.5 million medical-malpractice judgment and a $1.82 million attorney-fee award, holding that expert testimony on understaffing and ACLS response supported causation and that the trial court could consider a contingency-fee agreement when awarding OCGA 9-11-68 fees.
Decided June 17, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeExpert testimonyEvidence
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed summary judgment for Emory Healthcare, holding that the plaintiffs' expert-nurse affidavits failed to attach referenced medical records and did not establish qualifications to opine on causation from delayed detection of a neonatal IV infiltration.
Decided March 14, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeCivil procedure
The Court of Appeals of Georgia reversed denial of a hospital's motion to dismiss, holding that allegations of a 12-hour failure to restart Heparin during a COVID-19 admission did not plead gross negligence under the Georgia COVID-19 Pandemic Business Safety Act.
Decided March 10, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeExpert testimonyEvidence
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed a verdict against an emergency physician, holding that expert testimony supported a finding of gross negligence where critical stroke and dissection information was not communicated to the on-call neurologist.
Decided March 10, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Expert testimonyEvidenceCivil procedure
The Court of Appeals of Georgia allowed property-damage claims based on environmental-consultant testimony but reversed the denial of summary judgment on personal-injury claims, holding that the plaintiff's treating physician was not qualified to prove toxic-tort specific causation.
Decided March 7, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeStatute of limitationsCivil procedure
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed denial of a motion to dismiss a medical-malpractice renewal action, applying emergency-order tolling to the statute of repose and holding that later-paid federal dismissal fees did not defeat renewal where the amount was not yet determined.
Decided March 4, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeExpert testimonyEvidence
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed a defense verdict in a sepsis-related medical-malpractice case, while cautioning trial courts against using exceptional-circumstances foreseeability language in future malpractice jury charges.
Decided February 19, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeStatute of limitationsCivil procedure
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed dismissal of a medical-malpractice renewal complaint filed outside the five-year repose period, holding that alleged concealment did not support equitable estoppel where the plaintiffs had filed a timely initial action.
Decided January 31, 2025
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2025 Medical malpracticeCivil procedure
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed a nearly $2 million attorney-fee award under OCGA 9-11-68, holding that the plaintiff's offer of settlement was clear enough to identify the offeror's capacities and the claims to be resolved.
Decided October 29, 2024
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2024 Medical malpracticeStatute of limitationsAppealsCivil procedure
The Court of Appeals vacated summary judgment in a malpractice renewal action, holding that the renewal statute does not defeat the five-year statute of repose but that the trial court must consider COVID-19 judicial-emergency tolling under Golden.
Decided October 25, 2024
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2024 Medical malpracticeAppealsCivil procedureEvidence
The Court of Appeals affirmed a $15 million verdict after a bladder-perforation death, rejecting challenges to pain-and-suffering instructions, preexisting-condition instructions, and the trial court's refusal to order remittitur.
Decided October 22, 2024
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2024 Medical malpracticeStatute of limitationsAppeals
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed summary judgment for a physician and his employer, holding that a patient's medical malpractice claim for long-term steroid complications was time-barred because the statute of limitation began to run when symptoms first manifested, rather than when treatment ended.
Decided October 7, 2024
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2024 Medical malpracticeStatute of limitationsAppealsCivil procedure
The Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of a guardian's malpractice claims, applying OCGA § 9-3-73(b)'s no-tolling rule for mental incompetence and holding that the complaint alleged professional negligence, not ordinary negligence.
Decided September 23, 2024
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2024 Medical malpracticeCivil procedureExpert testimony
The Georgia Court of Appeals vacated a trial court's dismissal of a legal-malpractice complaint against an attorney and remanded for reconsideration, holding that the trial court erred by ruling on a dispositive motion filed by counsel after disqualifying that same counsel on conflict-of-interest grounds.
Decided August 12, 2024
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2024 Medical malpracticeCivil procedureExpert testimony
The Court of Appeals reversed partial summary judgment for malpractice plaintiffs, holding that plaintiffs must prove each element, cannot shift the burden to the defendant, and cannot obtain rulings on duty and breach without fair notice.
Decided July 2, 2024
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2024 Medical malpracticeEvidenceAppeals
The Court of Appeals affirmed a defense verdict for Eastside Medical Center, holding that any error in admitting a co-defendant doctor's settlement was harmless because the record and special verdict form showed no hospital liability.
Decided June 17, 2024
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2024 Medical malpracticeEvidenceJury selectionCivil procedureAppeals
The Court of Appeals affirmed a $4.5 million malpractice verdict, holding that a juror's insurance comment and disability-benefit testimony gave the trial court discretion to instruct jurors not to consider insurance or other benefits.
Decided March 15, 2024
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2024 Medical malpracticeAppeals
The Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for emergency physicians, holding that a psychiatric patient's accidental drowning three days after discharge was too remote in time, place, and mechanism to establish proximate cause.
Decided March 5, 2024
Georgia Court of Appeals of Georgia 2024 Medical malpracticeExpert testimonyCivil procedureEvidence
The Court of Appeals revived a hospital battery claim based on an alleged forged surgical-consent signature, while affirming dismissal of medical-negligence and promissory-estoppel claims for lack of an expert affidavit and indefiniteness.
Decided January 17, 2024
Georgia Supreme Court of Georgia 2024 Medical malpracticeAppealsCivil procedureStatute of limitations
The Supreme Court of Georgia transferred a medical-malpractice tolling appeal, holding that its exclusive constitutional jurisdiction was not triggered because the trial court relied on Deen without distinctly ruling on a novel constitutional question.
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