As a general matter, yes. Georgia's apportionment statute ties each defendant's payment obligation to that defendant's own percentage of fault. Under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33, once a jury allocates fault, a...
The contrast is dramatic. In a pure contributory-negligence state, any fault by the injured person, even one percent, completely bars recovery. Georgia rejects that all-or-nothing approach. It uses a modified...
A defendant trying to pin part of the blame on the injured person can draw on the same kinds of proof used to establish negligence generally, applied in reverse. The...
Comparative fault applies to wrongful-death claims much as it does to other injury claims, with one important twist: the fault that matters belongs to the person who died, not to...
The core distinction is whether a loss comes with a receipt. Economic damages cover measurable, out-of-pocket financial harm; non-economic damages cover human losses that have no fixed price tag. Both...
To recover compensatory damages in a Georgia injury claim, a person generally must prove their case by a preponderance of the evidence. That standard asks whether the claim is more...
Beyond any statutory cap, the U.S. Constitution sets an outer boundary on punitive damages, and that limit applies in Georgia courts. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids...
Georgia's apportionment rules drew renewed attention in the 2025 legislative session, when the General Assembly passed a broad tort-reform package. The core mechanism for assigning fault to people who were...
Yes. When another driver's negligence damages a vehicle in Georgia, the owner may recover for that property loss. The usual measure is the reduction in the vehicle's value caused by...
The verdict form turns the jury's judgment into a set of numbers that must add up to 100 percent. After hearing the evidence, the jurors record how much fault belongs...