Does Georgia’s 10-year repose bar a failure-to-warn claim on an older product?

· 3 min read

Not necessarily. While the ten-year statute of repose in O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11 cuts off most strict-liability claims that a product was defectively designed or manufactured, the statute treats a manufacturer’s duty to warn differently. The law expressly preserves the obligation to warn of a danger after the manufacturer learns of it, which can keep a warning claim alive past the decade.

What the statute preserves

The repose provision states that nothing in it relieves a manufacturer of the duty to warn of a danger arising from use of the product once that danger becomes known to the manufacturer. This is a deliberate carve-out. A design or manufacturing defect is judged by the condition of the product when it was sold, so it makes sense to measure that exposure from the first sale. A duty to warn, by contrast, can arise later, when the maker discovers a hazard it did not know about at the time of sale.

Why a post-sale warning claim survives

The theory behind a continuing duty to warn is that knowledge of a danger may develop only after years of a product being in use. If a manufacturer learns its product can fail in a harmful way, the law recognizes a responsibility to alert users even though the original sale is far in the past. Because that duty is tied to the manufacturer’s later knowledge rather than to the product’s age, the ten-year clock does not automatically extinguish it.

That distinction means an injured person facing the repose bar on a design claim may still have a viable theory if the evidence shows:

  • The manufacturer came to know of a specific danger after the sale.
  • A reasonable manufacturer would have warned users or owners about it.
  • The absence of that warning contributed to the harm.

Limits to keep in mind

This carve-out is not a blanket exception. It applies to the failure to warn of a danger that became known to the manufacturer, not to a fresh attack on the product’s original design. The injury claim itself still has to be filed within the two-year personal-injury deadline under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33, and the claimant still must prove the manufacturer’s knowledge and the inadequacy of any warning.

The bottom line

Georgia’s ten-year repose generally ends design and manufacturing claims on old products, but it does not erase a manufacturer’s duty to warn of dangers it learns about after the sale. A failure-to-warn claim on an older product can survive the repose bar, though it depends on proving the manufacturer’s later knowledge and remains subject to the ordinary injury filing deadline.

This article is for general educational and informational purposes only and is not legal advice. It does not create an attorney-client relationship, and Georgia law may change. For advice about a specific situation, consult a licensed Georgia personal injury attorney.

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