Who decides the exact fault percentages in a Georgia injury trial?
The jury sets the numbers. In a Georgia personal-injury trial heard by a jury, the jurors decide what percentage of fault belongs to each party and to any properly identified non-party. The judge supervises the process and the law that governs it, but the actual division of blame is a finding of fact reserved for the jury.
The jury’s role under the apportionment statute ¶
O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33 frames the task. The jury first decides the total amount of damages, then assigns a percentage of fault to each person who contributed to the injury. Those percentages drive the result: whatever blame lands on the plaintiff trims the plaintiff’s award by the same proportion, and once that figure hits 50% the plaintiff walks away with nothing. Each defendant is then responsible for damages matching its own assigned percentage.
The jury reaches these figures by weighing the evidence and the credibility of witnesses. There is no fixed formula. Jurors apply their judgment to the facts within the limits the court sets.
What the judge controls ¶
The judge does not pick the percentages, but the judge shapes the framework in which the jury works:
- Deciding what evidence the jury may hear, including whether a non-party may be considered at all.
- Instructing the jury on the law of negligence, causation, and apportionment.
- Designing the verdict form so the jury records its findings in the right order.
- Ruling on motions that test whether the evidence can support a particular allocation.
If the evidence cannot reasonably support blaming a given party or non-party, the judge can keep that allocation away from the jury before it ever votes.
When there is no jury ¶
Not every case goes to a jury. In a bench trial, the judge serves as the finder of fact and personally assigns the fault percentages using the same statutory rules. And most claims resolve by settlement, where the parties negotiate a figure that reflects their own estimates of how a jury would likely divide fault, without anyone formally fixing the numbers.
The bottom line ¶
In a Georgia jury trial, the jurors decide the exact fault percentages, applying the apportionment statute to the evidence before them. The judge sets the legal boundaries and decides what the jury may consider, a judge fills the fact-finding role in a bench trial, and in settlements the parties reach their own implied allocation rather than leaving it to a verdict.
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.