- Court
- Court of Appeals of Georgia
- Year
- 2025
- Case
- Smith v. Gadegbeku
- Citation
- 377 Ga. App. 39; 921 S.E.2d 524
- Decided
- September 30, 2025
OCGA 51-1-4 defines gross negligence for purposes of the Emergency Room Statute, OCGA 51-1-29.5. The trial court's jury instructions properly harmonized the statutory definition with the medical-malpractice gross-deviation standard and did not require plaintiffs to prove gross negligence in every alleged way.
Summary
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed a defense verdict in an emergency-department malpractice action brought by the sons of Barbara Smith. The case involved allegations that emergency care after paralysis from an epidural injection failed to timely diagnose a spinal hematoma.
The appellate court rejected the plaintiffs’ challenges to the gross-negligence jury instructions.
Issues Decided
Definition of gross negligence under the ER statute
Decision
The court held that OCGA 51-1-4 supplies the definition of gross negligence for cases governed by OCGA 51-1-29.5.
Facts
The trial court instructed the jury on gross negligence using the statutory definition and also instructed on the medical-malpractice requirement that expert testimony show a gross deviation from the applicable standard of care.
Reasoning
The court relied on the statutory text and Supreme Court of Georgia precedent applying OCGA 51-1-4 in the emergency-medical-care context. It held that the instructions, viewed as a whole, properly harmonized the statutory definition with the expert-testimony requirement in medical-malpractice cases.
Whether plaintiffs had to prove every alleged act of gross negligence
Decision
The court held that the jury was properly instructed that plaintiffs had to prove gross negligence in at least one alleged way, not every alleged way.
Facts
The plaintiffs argued that some wording suggested the jury should consider the entirety of emergency care and could reject liability if the providers exercised slight care in any respect. But the trial court also instructed that plaintiffs did not have to prove gross negligence in every way claimed, only in one or more ways alleged.
Reasoning
The Court of Appeals read the charge as a whole and presumed the jury followed the instructions. The explicit “one or more ways” instruction cured the alleged ambiguity.
Commentary
The opinion reinforces the current shape of Georgia ER-malpractice instructions. Plaintiffs must be ready for both pieces: the statutory language about absence of slight care and the medical-malpractice formulation requiring expert testimony about a gross deviation from the standard of care.
The useful plaintiff-side point is the “one or more ways” language. Even under the gross-negligence standard, a plaintiff does not have to prove that every alleged failure was grossly negligent. The issue is whether at least one alleged breach meets the standard and proximately caused injury.
