Does Georgia’s repose clock start at the negligent act or at my injury?

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The repose clock starts at the negligent act, not at the moment the injury appears or is discovered. That single feature is what makes the repose period so unforgiving, and it is the main reason late-developing injuries can be barred before a patient ever realizes something went wrong.

Measured from the act or omission

O.C.G.A. § 9-3-71 provides that no medical malpractice action may be brought more than five years after the date on which the negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred. The triggering event is the provider’s conduct. The statute does not measure repose from when symptoms surface, when a diagnosis is made, or when the patient connects the harm to the earlier treatment.

This is a deliberate design. A statute of repose exists to give finality, so it fixes the start date to an objective event, the act itself, rather than to the more variable moment of injury or discovery. The result is a clean five-year window running from the date of the negligence, after which the claim is generally extinguished.

Why the start date matters so much

Tying repose to the act, rather than the injury, creates several practical consequences:

  • An injury that develops slowly may not become apparent until much of the five years has already passed, leaving little time to act.
  • An injury discovered after five years from the act is generally barred, because the repose period measures backward to the conduct, not forward from awareness.
  • The ordinary two-year limitation period and the five-year repose can start from the same conduct yet run out at very different times, so meeting one does not guarantee meeting the other.

The narrow exceptions Georgia recognizes, such as the separate foreign-object rule, use their own measuring points and do not change the basic principle that the standard repose runs from the negligent act.

The bottom line

Georgia’s medical malpractice statute of repose under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-71 begins at the negligent act or omission, not at the injury or its discovery. Because the five-year clock is anchored to the provider’s conduct, a harm that emerges late can be time-barred regardless of when the patient learned of it.

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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