Georgia Workers’ Compensation Case Law: 30 Court Decisions on Injuries at Work

Georgia’s Workers’ Compensation Act, OCGA § 34-9-1 et seq., pays benefits for what the statute calls “injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment,” as the Supreme Court of Georgia quoted it in 2004. Benefits are paid without regard to fault, and in exchange the Act is ordinarily the injured worker’s only remedy against the employer; the Supreme Court described that exchange in 1996 as a “quid pro quo.” The 30 appellate decisions below show how Georgia courts have decided when an injury is work-related, how the Act treats mental injuries and attacks for personal reasons, when a worker may still sue in tort, which defenses bar benefits, how income and medical benefits are awarded and changed, and how the deadlines and the cap on death benefits apply.

Counted by the question each court decided, 16 of the decisions favored the worker or the worker’s family, 13 favored the employer, its insurer or the defendant in a tort suit, and one went partly each way. In the tort cases, a ruling for the worker means the suit could go forward outside the Act. Fifteen are decisions of the Supreme Court of Georgia and 15 of the Court of Appeals of Georgia; one of the Supreme Court decisions (No. 13) answered a question certified by a federal court. A claim is heard first by an administrative law judge of the State Board of Workers’ Compensation, whose award the Board’s appellate division reviews; a dissatisfied party may then seek review in superior court and ask the appellate courts to review that ruling. Many of these cases turn on the standard of review: the findings of the State Board of Workers’ Compensation bind the courts when any evidence supports them, while its legal conclusions are reviewed anew. The links lead to the opinions themselves: reporter text from the Caselaw Access Project, the Supreme Court’s own PDF for No. 5, or court PDFs archived by CourtListener.

The Act Today

Quotations below from OCGA §§ 34-9-1 (4), 34-9-11 (a), 34-9-201 (c) and 34-9-204 (a), and the time limits of §§ 34-9-82 (a) and 34-9-104 (b), were checked against FindLaw’s text dated March 28, 2024, and agree with it. In the workers’ compensation chapter, the Office of Legislative Counsel’s summaries of general statutes enacted in 2024, 2025 and 2026 show changes only to § 34-9-26, on notices to peace officers disabled in the line of duty, and § 34-9-386, on the self-insurers guaranty trust fund, and neither bears on the decisions below. Some decisions applied earlier versions of other provisions. The death benefit cap applied in No. 30 was $150,000 for a 2012 death, and the text published by FindLaw as current in March 2024 states $320,000. That text also provides that an appeal from the Board to the superior court is taken by a “petition for review” in the manner provided in Chapter 3 of Title 5, which differs from the procedure described in some of the older decisions.

When an Injury Arises Out of and in the Course of Work

The two statutory requirements are, as the Supreme Court put it in 2004, “two independent and distinct criteria.” An injury arises in the course of employment when it happens at a time, place and activity connected with the job, and it arises out of employment when the work is a cause of it. The seven decisions below apply those tests to a commute, a walk from an employer’s parking lot, a traveling employee, a worker bending to pick up her own pill, lunch breaks and a stroke on a school bus.

1. Mayor & Aldermen of the City of Savannah v. Stevens (2004)

Mayor & Aldermen of the City of Savannah v. Stevens, 278 Ga. 166, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 7, 2004

Eunita Stevens, an administrative corporal in the Savannah Police Department, was injured in an accident on November 30, 1999, while driving to work in her own car and wearing her uniform. Department policy expected officers to preserve the peace and enforce the law within the city even when off duty, and the administrative law judge, the Board, the superior court and the Court of Appeals all found the injury compensable.

She satisfied only one of the two tests. Under the continuous employment doctrine for officers who are subject to call, her commute was in the course of her employment, but “Stevens’ car accident in this case was in no way related to her work as a police officer,” and “[t]he hazards she encountered were in no way occasioned by her job as a police officer.” Without a causal connection to her work, the injury did not arise out of her employment, and the judgment was reversed. The Court overruled a 1980 decision to the extent it had treated an officer’s injury on the way home as compensable without that connection.

2. Longuepee v. Georgia Institute of Technology (2004)

Longuepee v. Georgia Institute of Technology, 269 Ga. App. 884, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 5, 2004

Susan Longuepee worked for Georgia Tech’s School of Biology and parked in a campus facility that the university provided about three blocks from her building. At about 7:15 one morning, walking to her 7:30 start, she was struck by a Georgia Tech vehicle while crossing a public street on her route. She and her husband sued the university under the Georgia Tort Claims Act.

Her injury was compensable, which made the Act her only remedy against her employer. Travel to and from work is ordinarily outside the Act, but under the “parking lot” exception an injury during ingress to or egress from a parking facility that the employer owns, controls or maintains is covered, because the facility is treated as part of the employer’s premises. The facility need not adjoin the workplace, crossing a public street on the way did not matter, and her choice to walk for exercise rather than ride the campus bus did not turn the walk into a personal mission. Summary judgment for Georgia Tech was affirmed.

3. Ray Bell Construction Co. v. King (2007)

Ray Bell Construction Co. v. King, 281 Ga. 853, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 26, 2007

Howard King, a Florida resident, was the superintendent of a construction project in Jackson, Georgia. He lived in a Fayetteville apartment his employer provided and drove a truck his employer provided as a condition of his employment. On Sunday, August 11, 2002, after he had delivered family furniture to his storage shed, a personal errand, he was injured in a collision, and he died the next day. An administrative law judge awarded dependency benefits to his minor child, and the Board, the superior court and the Court of Appeals affirmed.

The award stood, 4 to 3. Under Georgia’s “continuous employment” doctrine, known elsewhere as the traveling employee doctrine, an employee “required by [his] employment to lodge and work within an area geographically limited by the necessity of being available for work on the employer’s job site” has broader coverage: activities reasonably undertaken for health and comfort are covered, but a purely personal mission is not. Coverage resumes when the employee is back “in the general proximity of the place where he was employed to be and at a time he was employed to be in that general proximity,” a question of fact. The Board found that King had finished his errand and was driving either to the job site or to his employer-provided housing, and the Court held that, back in the Fayetteville and Jackson area, he was covered either way.

4. Harris v. Peach County Board of Commissioners (2009)

Harris v. Peach County Board of Commissioners, 296 Ga. App. 225, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 11, 2009

Wendy Harris, a custodian at the Peach County Courthouse, stopped in a hallway on March 17, 2006, to discuss work with her supervisor and realized that a diuretic pill she had put in her pocket was missing. When her supervisor pointed to a pill on the floor, she bent to pick it up, heard something pop in her left knee and collapsed with a dislocated knee. Her supervisor testified that removing a foreign object from the floor was part of her job, even if it was her own medication; her doctor attributed the dislocation to the force on the knee as she reached down, given her size, and the administrative law judge found that the pressure of her weight, “slightly less than 300 pounds,” caused the injury. The Board adopted the administrative law judge’s award, and the superior court reversed on the ground that the hazard came from her obesity rather than her work.

The Board was authorized to treat the dislocation as work-related. “[L]ike taking a drink of water, taking required medication constitutes ministering to one’s personal necessities and will ordinarily result in no more than a slight deviation from the course of employment,” the Court of Appeals held. Because the Board applied the correct legal standard and the evidence authorized it to find that the dislocation arose out of her employment, the superior court erred in reversing.

5. Frett v. State Farm Employee Workers’ Compensation (2020)

Frett v. State Farm Employee Workers’ Compensation, 309 Ga. 44, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 16, 2020

Rochelle Frett, an insurance claims associate for State Farm, had a mandatory, unpaid 45-minute lunch break scheduled by an automated system, and she was free to do as she pleased during it. One day she heated her lunch in the employee breakroom and, as she started to leave to eat outside, slipped on water and fell. An administrative law judge awarded benefits, but the Board reversed on the ground that the injury arose out of “a purely personal matter.” The superior court affirmed the denial, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, relying on a 1935 Supreme Court decision to hold that an injury during a scheduled break did not arise out of the employment.

That 1935 decision, Ocean Accident & Guarantee Corp. v. Farr, was overruled, and the judgment was reversed and the case remanded. An injury is in the course of employment when it “occurs within the period of the employment, at a place where the employee may be in performance of her duties and while she is fulfilling or doing something incidental to those duties,” and preparing lunch in the employer’s breakroom met that test. It arises out of employment when “a reasonable person, after considering the circumstances of the employment, would perceive a causal connection between the conditions under which the employee must work and the resulting injury,” as a fall on a wet breakroom floor did. Farr had “impermissibly conflated” the two requirements. The Court cautioned that its statements “should not be read to create any bright-line rules,” and one justice dissented.

6. Henry County Board of Education v. Rutledge (2020)

Henry County Board of Education v. Rutledge, No. A19A1728, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 12, 2020

On March 18, 2014, James Rutledge, a 69-year-old school bus driver, saw smoke or steam coming from the dashboard while warming up his bus’s air brakes, passed out, and was found at the hospital to have suffered a stroke. There was testimony that he had high blood pressure and diabetes and had been unable to check his glucose for a month because his monitor was broken. After a complicated procedural history, the Board, reversing an award by the administrative law judge, found “the record equivocal, inconclusive, conflicting, and insufficient to show causation of an aggravation injury by a preponderance of the evidence,” and the superior court again vacated the Board’s decision.

The superior court erred in vacating the denial, the Court of Appeals held. Under § 34-9-1 (4), a stroke is not compensable unless the employee shows “by a preponderance of competent and credible evidence, which shall include medical evidence,” that it was “attributable to the performance of the usual work of employment,” although work need only be a “contributing factor.” The Board had analyzed whether the exposure on the bus contributed to or aggravated the stroke, so it applied the right legal framework, and the superior court could not set its findings aside.

7. Daniel v. Bremen-Bowdon Investment Co. (2021)

Daniel v. Bremen-Bowdon Investment Co., No. A18A1764, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 14, 2021

Sheryl Daniel, a seamstress for Bremen-Bowdon Investment Company, left her work station for a regularly scheduled lunch break, planning to drive home. Her car was in a lot the employer owned, but reaching it required walking down a public sidewalk and across the street, and she tripped on the sidewalk and was injured. An administrative law judge awarded benefits under the ingress and egress rule, but the Board reversed because the injury happened during a regularly scheduled lunch break. The superior court and the Court of Appeals affirmed, and the Supreme Court sent the case back after Frett (No. 5).

On remand the result changed. With Farr overruled, “any impediment to applying the ingress and egress rule to a scheduled lunch break has been removed,” the Court of Appeals held, and its earlier decisions applying that rule to lunch breaks were again good law. Daniel’s accident “resulted in an injury which both arose out of and was in the course of her employment and was thus compensable under the Act.” The denial was reversed, and an attorney fee ruling was vacated for reconsideration.

Mental Injuries and Attacks for Personal Reasons

As the Supreme Court quoted it in 1994, the Act’s definition of injury excludes an injury “caused by the willful act of a third person directed against an employee for reasons personal to such employee,” and the courts have long limited compensation for psychological injury. The four decisions below address a supervisor’s sexual harassment, a coworker’s pipe smoke, post-traumatic stress after a crash, and trauma without any physical injury.

8. Murphy v. ARA Services, Inc. (1982)

Murphy v. ARA Services, Inc., 164 Ga. App. 859, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 30, 1982

Linda Murphy was hired in January 1980 to work in a cafeteria that ARA Services operated at Klopman Mills. The facts, taken as undisputed for the appeal, were that her supervisor began sexually abusing her on her first day, demanding sex under threat of firing, and fired her the next month, and that ARA had known of his abuse of other female employees. She sued ARA for assault and battery and for negligence in hiring and keeping him, and the trial court held that the Act was her exclusive remedy.

Her claim fell outside the Act. The harassment occurred in the course of her employment but did not arise out of it: “the risk of the offensive conduct alleged by appellant is, unfortunately, a hazard to which she would be equally exposed aside from her employment.” The court held that her injuries “were caused by the wilful act of a third person for personal reasons and did not arise out of her employment,” so her claim was “neither covered nor barred” by the Act. Summary judgment for ARA was reversed.

9. Hennly v. Richardson (1994)

Hennly v. Richardson, 264 Ga. 355, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 27, 1994

In 1987 Jim Hennly, a vice president of First Federal Savings and Loan who smoked a pipe, moved into an office near the desk of Bonnie Richardson, the receptionist and switchboard operator, who had severe reactions to pipe smoke. The Court called it undeniable that she was ill from the smoke when First Federal fired her. She sued First Federal and Hennly for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other claims, and the Court of Appeals held those claims were not barred by the Act.

The claims belonged under the Act. First Federal had no policy restricting smoking, so “Hennly’s smoking was a part of that work environment, rather than an act directed at Richardson personally,” and “the injury to Richardson arose in the course of and out of her employment,” leaving the Act as the exclusive remedy for the battery and emotional distress claims. Testimony that some of Hennly’s acts were intentional was, in the Court’s words, “merely incidental to the gravamen” of a complaint about prolonged exposure. One justice dissented.

10. Southwire Co. v. George (1996)

Southwire Co. v. George, 266 Ga. 739, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 3, 1996

Southwire truck driver Denver George injured his knee, hip and chest when his tractor-trailer hit a car broadside after its driver ran a stop sign. A passenger in the car was killed instantly, and George saw her body strike the grill of his truck; at the hospital he was placed in the emergency room with the other driver, whose face was mangled. His orthopedist released him to full duty two months later, but a psychiatrist diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder that kept him from working as a truck driver. The administrative law judge, in an award the full Board adopted, denied benefits after the two months because his psychological problems came from what he witnessed rather than from the knee injury.

A mental disability is compensable in those circumstances. The Supreme Court held that “a claimant is entitled to benefits under the Workers’ Compensation Act for mental disability and psychic treatment which, while not necessarily precipitated by a physical injury, arose out of an accident in which a compensable physical injury was sustained, and that injury contributes to the continuation of the psychic trauma.” Because the Court of Appeals had made its own findings, the case was sent back for the Board to decide compensability under that standard.

11. Abernathy v. City of Albany (1998)

Abernathy v. City of Albany, 269 Ga. 88, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided January 26, 1998

Joel Abernathy, a park maintenance supervisor for the City of Albany, suffered psychic trauma, not preceded or accompanied by a physical injury, after what the Court described as “gruesome physical contact with cadavers” in the course of his work. The administrative law judge denied his claim for disability benefits because he had no physical injury, and the Board adopted that award.

Three justices dissented, but the denial stood. A psychological injury is compensable only if it arises “‘naturally and unavoidably’ . . . from some discernible physical occurrence,” and the General Assembly, despite amending the Act many times, had never changed that long-standing reading of § 34-9-1 (4). “Any enlargement of benefits and remedies must originate with the legislature,” the Court repeated from Doss (No. 13), while acknowledging that the result “appears to be a harsh one.”

The Exclusive Remedy and Lawsuits Outside the Act

When the Act applies, § 34-9-11 (a) provides, as the Court of Appeals quoted it in 2026, that the rights and remedies it grants “shall exclude and be in place of all other rights and remedies of such employee” on account of the injury. The five decisions below address who shares that immunity, whether the Act displaces claims based on an employer’s delay in authorizing treatment or a manager’s alleged fraud, the effect of a settlement on a suit against a coworker, and who must prove that the bar applies.

12. Yoho v. Ringier of America, Inc. (1993)

Yoho v. Ringier of America, Inc., 263 Ga. 338, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided September 13, 1993

Accu-Rite Machine Company contracted to repair the solvent recovery system at a printing plant owned by Ringier of America, and Yoho, an Accu-Rite employee, was injured in an explosion while working on it. When he sued the plant owner, it claimed to be his statutory employer and therefore immune from suit, and the Court of Appeals agreed under an “enterprise” theory, concluding that the owner had served as its own general contractor for the repairs.

Only a contractor can be a statutory employer. Under § 34-9-8 (a), secondary liability for benefits, and with it immunity from tort suits, belongs to a principal contractor that owes the work to someone else and sublets it: “A mere owner to whom the contractual obligation of performance is owed and from whom no contractual obligation of performance is due is not a ‘principal contractor’ under OCGA § 34-9-8.” The enterprise theory and the decisions following it were disapproved, and summary judgment for the owner was reversed. One justice concurred in the judgment only.

13. Doss v. Food Lion, Inc. (1996)

Doss v. Food Lion, Inc., 267 Ga. 312, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided November 12, 1996

Eric Doss was hurt in an on-the-job accident at Food Lion and sought workers’ compensation benefits. He later sued Food Lion in federal court, claiming that its delay in authorizing medical treatment made his condition worse, and the federal court of appeals asked whether Georgia law recognizes such a claim outside the Act.

It does not. Because the Act provides penalties for intentional delays in treatment and compensation for injuries made worse, no independent cause of action arises from an intentional delay in authorizing treatment. “The exclusivity provision is the bedrock of the workers’ compensation system,” the Court explained; workers’ compensation “has never been intended to make the employee whole,” and it “excludes benefits for pain and suffering, for loss of consortium, and it provides a cap on wage benefits.” The Court overruled a contrary Court of Appeals decision.

14. Potts v. UAP-GA. AG. CHEM., Inc. (1998)

Potts v. UAP-GA. AG. CHEM., Inc., 270 Ga. 14, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided September 14, 1998

Rusty LeBlanc became ill after cleaning chemicals for his employer, UAP-GA. AG. CHEM. One of his hospital doctors said that part of his reason for stopping treatment for chemical poisoning was the branch manager’s assurance that LeBlanc could not possibly have been exposed to any chemicals. After LeBlanc died, the administrator of his estate and his widow sued the company and the manager for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and the courts below held the suit barred by the Act.

The suit could proceed. “Tort immunity is dependent upon the compensability of the injury under the Act,” and the torts were alleged to have been committed off the worksite at a time when LeBlanc was not engaged in any work activity, so “the alleged torts did not arise ‘in the course of’ LeBlanc’s employment.” The Act’s penalties for false statements go to the state treasury and give the employee no reasonable remedy. Summary judgment was reversed, and one justice dissented.

15. Smith v. Ellis (2012)

Smith v. Ellis, 291 Ga. 566, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided September 10, 2012

Joseph Smith and John Ellis both worked for The Knight Group, a homebuilder. In February 2009 Ellis, who was not supposed to be at the subdivision where Smith worked, visited him there, and that afternoon fired a new rifle in an undeveloped field in the subdivision while Smith organized his tools nearby; clearing the third jammed round, he accidentally shot Smith in the right thigh. Smith accepted $6,000 from the employer in a Board-approved “no liability” settlement stipulating that he had not suffered a compensable injury, and then sued Ellis for negligence.

The appeal produced two rulings. A worker who takes compensation in a Board-approved settlement cannot then sue a coworker for the same injury if the coworker was acting as an “employee of the same employer,” the Court held, approving a 2002 Court of Appeals decision. But whether Ellis was acting in the course of his employment when he shot Smith, rather than as a “third-party tort-feasor,” was genuinely disputed, so summary judgment for Ellis was reversed.

16. Crook v. Six Flags Over Georgia II, L.P. (2026)

Crook v. Six Flags Over Georgia II, L.P., No. A26A0470, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 15, 2026

On October 1, 2023, Andrea Crook, a seasonal “scare actor” at Six Flags Over Georgia’s Fright Fest, was riding with other actors in the back of a cargo van driven by another park worker. The van’s door stayed open, and as the van went up a hill and around a curve she fell out, struck her head and died. Her husband, for himself and her estate, sued the Six Flags companies and the driver, and the state court dismissed the suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, treating the Act’s exclusivity bar as jurisdictional and placing on him the burden of proving that the Act did not apply.

Both steps were error, the Court of Appeals held. It described the exclusive remedy provision as a defense that the employer must establish rather than a limit on the court’s jurisdiction: “To the extent that Kellogg, Savannah Hosp. Servs., and T & R S. Sanitation can be construed as treating the exclusivity bar as jurisdictional, they are hereby disapproved.” The dismissal was reversed; the court did not decide whether the Act ultimately bars the claims.

False Job Applications and Drug Tests

Two defenses can defeat a claim for benefits even when the injury is work-related: a knowing misrepresentation of physical condition that induced the hiring, a defense the Supreme Court recognized in 1989 on the basis of the common law of fraud and contract, and the statutory bar in § 34-9-17 (b) for injuries due to alcohol, marijuana or a controlled substance. The three decisions below address both.

17. Georgia Electric Co. v. Rycroft (1989)

Georgia Electric Co. v. Rycroft, 259 Ga. 155, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided April 6, 1989

John C. Rycroft underwent spinal surgery, including two laminectomies and a fusion, after a 1984 herniated disc, and hurt his back again in June 1986. Applying to Georgia Electric in July 1986, he left his earlier employer off the application, answered “No” when asked whether he had ever had back trouble or injury, and, asked in person, again denied any injuries other than a broken finger. On August 19, 1986, he stumbled and fell while moving boards and fractured his spine at the site of the earlier fusion. He admitted he would not have been hired had he told the truth, and the employer said the same, but the Board refused to let it suspend his benefits.

False statements can bar benefits, the Supreme Court held, 4 to 3, adopting a three-part test: “(1) The employee must have knowingly and wilfully made a false representation as to his physical condition. (2) The employer must have relied upon the false representation and this reliance must have been a substantial factor in the hiring. (3) There must have been a causal connection between the false representation and the injury.” The Court grounded the defense in the policy favoring truthful employment applications and the rule that a contract procured by fraud is voidable, and it reversed.

18. Thomas v. Diamond Rug & Carpet Mills (1997)

Thomas v. Diamond Rug & Carpet Mills, 226 Ga. App. 403, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 9, 1997

On May 27, 1995, a forklift that Thomas was operating at Diamond Rug & Carpet Mills ran into a wall, injuring his left foot and ankle. A supervisor had seen him 45 to 60 minutes earlier smoking what appeared to be a marijuana pipe. He refused a drug test at the medical center and three more times during his hospital stay, saying he had been given narcotic pain medication in the ambulance. The employer was self-insured and had no drug-free workplace program, and Thomas testified he had not been told that refusing could affect his benefits. The administrative law judge, in an award the Board adopted, denied benefits under the statutory presumption that arises from an unjustified refusal, and the superior court affirmed.

Without advance notice, the refusal could not trigger the presumption. The Court of Appeals held that “an employee’s refusal to submit to a drug test following an on-the-job injury is not, as a matter of law, unjustifiable under OCGA § 34-9-17 (b) (3) if the employee has not been given advance notice that refusal will adversely affect entitlement to workers’ compensation benefits,” so the burden stayed on the employer to prove its defense. The denial was reversed and the case remanded.

19. McKay v. Inalfa Roof Systems, Inc. (2025)

McKay v. Inalfa Roof Systems, Inc., No. A24A1422, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 27, 2025

Sharron McKay suffered fractured ribs, a broken wrist, a dislocated shoulder and other injuries in a 2012 four-wheeler accident. Hired by Inalfa Roof Systems as an assembly operator in late 2020, she answered “no” to questions about prior injuries on a post-hire questionnaire, and the Board found the misrepresentation knowing and wilful. She hurt her back at work on June 11, 2021; when she returned in September, she told her supervisor about the earlier accident. On September 14, 2021, she injured her neck and back reaching across the assembly line. The Board denied benefits for both injuries, applying the Rycroft defense (No. 17) to the September injury, and the superior court affirmed.

McKay appealed only the ruling on the September injury, so the court did not address the June one. In a question of first impression, the Court of Appeals held that the defense does not apply where “the employer learns about the false representation after hiring the employee but before the injury in question, and despite that knowledge, retains the employee.” Like a party who keeps a contract after learning of fraud, the employer waived the defense by keeping her on. The denial for the September injury was reversed.

Income Benefits, Medical Care and Changes in Condition

Once an injury is accepted, disputes turn to whether the worker’s lost earnings still result from it, which physician treats it, and whether the employer may stop or change benefits. As the Supreme Court quoted the rule in 2007, the Board’s findings, “when supported by any evidence, are conclusive and binding,” and several of the eight decisions below turn on that rule.

20. Maloney v. Gordon County Farms (1995)

Maloney v. Gordon County Farms, 265 Ga. 825, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided October 16, 1995

Connie Maloney injured her shoulder at Gordon County Farms, returned to light duty, and was later fired for a reason unrelated to her disability. She applied for other jobs: Burger King offered her a position and withdrew it after she disclosed her restrictions, and five other employers made no offers. An administrative law judge reinstated her total disability benefits and the full Board adopted the award, but the Court of Appeals reversed, requiring her to prove why the employers did not hire her.

That extra requirement was overruled. To resume benefits on a change in condition, a claimant must show “that he or she suffered a loss of earning power as a result of a compensable work-related injury; continues to suffer physical limitations attributable to that injury; and has made a diligent, but unsuccessful effort to secure suitable employment following termination,” and the Board may then infer that the continuing disability caused the inability to find work. The Court of Appeals had erred in holding that no competent evidence supported the finding that Maloney met that burden, and its judgment was reversed.

21. Padgett v. Waffle House, Inc. (1998)

Padgett v. Waffle House, Inc., 269 Ga. 105, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided February 23, 1998

Scarlett Padgett returned to light duty at Waffle House after a February 1993 injury and received temporary partial disability benefits. In September 1994 she was fired for cause after three warnings about work rule violations, and when she could not find other work she sought total disability benefits. The administrative law judge found that she was “terminated for reasons which were directly related to her job injury” and awarded benefits; the Court of Appeals reversed because she had not shown a diligent job search.

A job search is not required when the injury caused the firing. Maloney’s job-search showing (No. 20) allows the Board to infer causation when the termination is unrelated to the injury, but “by proving that the work-related injury is the proximate cause of the termination, the claimant establishes the causal link between injury and worsened economic condition.” Otherwise an employer could withdraw light duty and stop benefits without proving that suitable work was available. Because the Board’s finding did not clearly determine what caused the firing, the case was sent back for that finding.

22. Burch v. STF Foods, Inc. (2019)

Burch v. STF Foods, Inc., 353 Ga. App. 172, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 29, 2019

Antonio Burch injured his upper back and shoulder in 2013 in a series of incidents at a Wendy’s restaurant that STF Foods operated, including moving a stock pot of chili and a collapse of a stack of boxes. Managers repeatedly told him not to lift; he kept doing so, and on December 19, 2013, he was fired for insubordination. The administrative law judge awarded disability benefits, but the Board reversed. Noting that the judge had found insubordination to be the “main reason” for the firing, the Board found that “[t]he proximate cause of the termination was neither the injuries nor the need for light duty, which were indirect causes at best, but the Employee’s disobeying instructions to limit himself to that light duty.”

The Board’s finding controlled. Burch’s own testimony, a separation notice citing insubordination and his manager’s written statement that every manager had told him not to lift were evidence supporting the Board’s finding. The superior court properly affirmed the denial, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.

23. Trejo-Valdez v. Associated Agents (2020)

Trejo-Valdez v. Associated Agents, No. A20A1499, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 29, 2020

After a compensable back injury and two surgeries, Jose Trejo-Valdez’s authorized physician recommended a spinal cord stimulator, and that request was denied. Later, at the employer’s request, a new authorized physician was appointed, and after further failed conservative treatment he recommended a trial of a stimulator. An administrative law judge approved the trial and the Board affirmed, but the superior court held the request barred by res judicata and ruled that the Board had put the burden of proof on the wrong party.

Neither ground held up. Res judicata applies to workers’ compensation claims, but because medical needs change, “a claimant may re-litigate a proposed course of treatment following the appointment of a new authorized treating physician and the claimant’s failure to respond to more conservative treatment alternatives.” When an employer contests treatment as not reasonably necessary, the Board’s rules place the burden of proof on the employer. The superior court’s judgment was reversed.

24. Padco Contracting, Inc. v. Hernandez (2021)

Padco Contracting, Inc. v. Hernandez, No. A21A0902, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 19, 2021

Lorenzo Hernandez fell from scaffolding at a Padco Contracting construction site on August 13, 2008, injuring his lower back and both legs, and his injury was accepted as catastrophic. Years later he sought treatment for conditions of his thoracic and cervical spine, which Padco said were unrelated. The Board found the thoracic condition compensable but not the cervical one, noting that “evidence of a pronounced cervical condition did not appear in the medical record until early 2016, nearly eight years after the . . . compensable injury date,” and the superior court reversed as to the neck.

The superior court had reweighed the evidence, which it may not do. Under the “any-evidence standard of review,” the Board’s findings stand if some evidence supports them, and an independent medical examiner’s opinion that the neck complaints were “more consistent with . . . aging” and “completely unrelated to the work injury,” along with years of records without neck complaints, was enough. The reversal on the neck condition was itself reversed.

25. Express Employment Professionals v. Barker (2021)

Express Employment Professionals v. Barker, No. A21A0912, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided August 26, 2021

Terry Barker, placed by a temporary employment agency at a seafood processing plant, fell onto his left hip, buttocks and wrist on August 14, 2018, while trying to move a bin of fish parts, and received total disability benefits for a lumbar strain. On October 26, 2018, his physician found him at maximum medical improvement and released him to full duty, and benefits were suspended. In April 2019 he slipped on a wet surface at home and landed on the same side. The Board found that his work injury had resolved and that the fall at home broke the chain of causation, and the superior court reversed.

The superior court was reversed on both points. Some evidence supported the Board’s conclusion that the work injury had resolved, and under § 34-9-204 (a), as the court quoted it, no compensation is payable for disability “aggravated, caused, or continued by a subsequent nonwork related injury which breaks the chain of causation”; the fall at home was such an injury. The two findings were not inconsistent.

26. Lilienthal v. JLK, Inc. (2023)

Lilienthal v. JLK, Inc., No. A23A0290, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 24, 2023

Linda Lilienthal, a preschool teacher for JLK, Inc., slipped on a child’s blanket in her classroom on July 15, 2019, injuring her left shoulder and both knees. The employer’s list of physicians, the “panel” from which an injured worker chooses, was posted inside a locked art supply closet whose lights were kept off when it was unoccupied; the only key was kept in a metal box in a closed drawer of a desk used by the school’s administration. When she sought to switch to a knee specialist who was not on the panel, the administrative law judge ruled the posting sufficient because the closet was accessible, and the Board and the superior court upheld the denial of her motion.

Accessibility is not the test. Section 34-9-201 (c) requires the panel to be posted “in prominent places upon the business premises,” meaning places that are readily noticeable or conspicuous, and “the ALJ erred by conflating the concept of accessibility with prominence.” When an employer does not follow the panel requirements, the employee may choose a physician at the employer’s expense. The case was sent back to the Board.

27. City of Atlanta v. Sebastian (2023)

City of Atlanta v. Sebastian, No. A23A1185, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 27, 2023

Atlanta police officer Justin Sebastian was injured in a work-related vehicle collision in December 2017. After a change of physician, his authorized treating physician referred him to a spine specialist and later released him only to light duty. In February 2021 the specialist concluded that he could return to regular duty, and citing that release the city suspended his benefits on its own. An administrative law judge found the suspension improper, reinstated the benefits and awarded $2,600 in attorney fees, and the Board and the superior court affirmed.

The Board rule that lets an employer suspend benefits after a release to unrestricted work requires a report from the employee’s authorized treating physician, and a referred specialist is not that physician. The city’s “unilateral suspension of benefits based on a work release from a referred physician violated the workers’ compensation rules and contravened the Act,” and because its defense lacked reasonable grounds, the fee award was supported. The judgment was affirmed.

Deadlines and Death Benefits

A claim for benefits generally must be filed within one year of the injury under § 34-9-82 (a), and a request to change a prior award, including a request to resume income benefits, within two years of the last income benefit payment under § 34-9-104 (b). The three decisions below apply those limits and the cap on death benefits for a surviving spouse who is the only dependent.

28. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority v. Reid (2014)

Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority v. Reid, 295 Ga. 863, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided September 22, 2014

A MARTA employee injured in October 1999 received 32 payments of temporary total disability benefits, 12 of them late. He returned to work in June 2002, and nearly eight years later he demanded the statutory penalties for the late payments. An administrative law judge held the demand time-barred as a change in condition claim, the Board and the superior court agreed, and the Court of Appeals held that no limitation period applied.

The demand was barred. The penalties were themselves income benefits that should have been paid with the late payments, so the two-year limit of the change in condition statute applied: “Because employee waited more than two years to seek a decision with regard to these additional income benefits, his claim was barred by the limitation period set forth in the change in condition statute.” “[T]here must be closure and finality,” the Court added.

29. Roseburg Forest Products Co. v. Barnes (2016)

Roseburg Forest Products Co. v. Barnes, 299 Ga. 167, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 6, 2016

Willie Barnes lost his left leg below the knee in an accident at a Georgia-Pacific wood processing plant on August 13, 1993, and the injury was accepted as catastrophic. He returned to lighter work with a prosthesis, his total disability benefits stopped on January 30, 1994, and permanent partial disability benefits ended in May 1998. After the plant was sold to Roseburg Forest Products and he was laid off in 2009, he filed claims in 2012 to resume total disability benefits for the 1993 injury and for a new injury dated to his layoff. The Court of Appeals held that neither claim was barred.

Both were. “[O]nce an employer ends the payment of TTD benefits to an employee, that employee must file a claim for any additional TTD benefits within two years of that cessation date; otherwise, the claim is time barred,” and the Court applied that rule to his catastrophic injury, holding that the claim came “sixteen years too late.” The separate claim for a new injury was governed by the one-year limit of § 34-9-82 (a), which treatment within that period could extend, but later treatment could not revive a claim that had already expired.

30. Baxter v. Tracie McCormick, Inc. (2021)

Baxter v. Tracie McCormick, Inc., No. A21A0012, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 1, 2021

Royce Hutchens died in August 2012 after an accident while driving a truck for his employer. His widow, Sheila Baxter, was the only claimant and received full death benefits until September 2018, when payments reached $150,000, the cap in effect at the time of the accident for a surviving spouse who is the sole dependent. She argued that the cap did not apply because Hutchens’s mother, who died in 2017 without ever filing a claim, had been partly dependent on him.

The cap applied. As the surviving spouse, Baxter was presumed wholly dependent, and because no claim was made for the mother until after her death, she “was never entitled to receive benefits as a dependent,” so Baxter was the “sole dependent at the time of death” within § 34-9-265 (d). The court noted that the statutory amount has increased since the accident.

Selection and Sources

The decisions are from the Supreme Court of Georgia and the Court of Appeals of Georgia. Court of Appeals decisions that are physical precedent only, in whole or in the part relevant here, were not selected. Most of the decisions review an award of the State Board of Workers’ Compensation, and each summary distinguishes between what the Board found and what the court held. Facts are stated as the court described them; where a case was decided on summary judgment or on the pleadings, they are the evidence viewed for the party opposing the motion or the allegations. A Georgia Reports or Georgia Appeals Reports citation is given only if it was seen in the reporter text or cited in a published opinion; the other entries carry a docket number. Overrulings and limitations are noted where they appear in a decision on this page or in one read for it, but each decision’s later history was not fully traced. Research for this page was completed in September 2026.

Legislative Summaries Cited

Summary of General Statutes Enacted at the 2nd Session of the 157th General Assembly (2024), Georgia Office of Legislative Counsel

Summary of General Statutes Enacted at the 1st Session of the 158th General Assembly (2025), Georgia Office of Legislative Counsel

Summary of General Statutes Enacted at the 2nd Session of the 158th General Assembly (2026), Georgia Office of Legislative Counsel

About This Page

This page summarizes published decisions of Georgia’s appellate courts for general information. It is not legal advice and does not address whether any particular injury is covered or what benefits may be owed. Workers’ compensation claims are decided on their own facts by the State Board of Workers’ Compensation under the version of the Act that applies to them, and the rules described here may since have been changed by the General Assembly or by later decisions.