What is Georgia’s 10-year statute of repose for product liability claims?

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Georgia places an outer time limit on most claims that a product was defectively designed or made. Under O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11, a strict-liability product action generally must be brought within ten years of the date the product was first sold for use or consumption. Once that decade passes, the claim is ordinarily cut off no matter when an injury occurs.

How a statute of repose works

A repose period is different from an ordinary filing deadline because it runs from a fixed event rather than from the moment someone is hurt. Here, the clock starts when the product first leaves the manufacturer’s control for use, not when it fails or when a person is injured by it. The result is that a product can age out of liability even if it sat unused for years and then caused harm. The purpose is to give manufacturers a defined endpoint to their exposure for older goods.

Exceptions written into the statute

The ten-year bar is not absolute. The statute itself carves out situations where a claim may proceed beyond the decade:

  • Conduct showing a willful, reckless, or wanton disregard for life or property.
  • Negligence in making a product that causes a disease or a birth defect.
  • A continuing duty to warn of a danger once the manufacturer learns of it, which the statute expressly preserves.

These exceptions are narrow and fact-driven, so they do not reopen every old claim. Whether a given case fits within one of them depends on the specific evidence about the product and the manufacturer’s conduct.

Why the start date matters

Because the period turns on the first sale for use, pinning down that date can decide whether a claim survives. Records from the manufacturer, the original retailer, or warranty and registration documents may establish when the product entered the market. A claim filed even slightly past ten years from that date faces dismissal unless an exception applies.

The bottom line

Georgia’s ten-year statute of repose sets a firm outer boundary on product-defect claims, measured from a product’s first sale for use, and it can extinguish a claim before any injury even happens. The statute’s built-in exceptions for egregious conduct, disease or birth defects, and post-sale duties to warn provide the main avenues for pursuing harm from an older product, but each is limited and depends on the facts.

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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