Georgia Car Accident Case Law: 30 Court Decisions That Exposed What Drivers Cannot Deny

Georgia’s appellate courts decide car accident appeals on questions that seem simple until a jury has to answer them: who was careless, whose carelessness caused the injury, how fault is divided, when punishment is allowed, which insurer pays when the other driver cannot, and how long an injured person has to get the case properly started. The 30 decisions below are grouped around those questions.

Some of these decisions exposed conduct a driver could not explain away, such as driving drunk and leaving the scene. Others show what a driver was allowed to deny: that a rear-end collision proves negligence by itself, that a sudden and unforeseeable blackout was careless, or that admitting fault for a collision proves every injury claimed. Each summary reports what the court decided and links to the opinion on the Supreme Court of Georgia’s website, in the Caselaw Access Project’s reporter text, or in the court’s own PDF as archived by CourtListener.

What Changed in 2025

Senate Bill 68, signed on April 21, 2025, changed three rules that matter in car accident trials. Each has its own reach.

Seat belt evidence. Before 2025, O.C.G.A. § 40-8-76.1(d) barred evidence that an occupant was not wearing a seat belt from being considered on negligence, causation or liability or used to diminish any recovery, and the Supreme Court of Georgia held in 2022 that the bar applied even to a vehicle manufacturer’s defense (No. 25 below). Section 5 of SB 68 rewrote the subsection. As enacted, the failure to wear a seat belt “may be considered in any civil action as evidence admissible on the issues of negligence, comparative negligence, causation, assumption of risk, or apportionment of fault or for any other purpose,” and the court still determines its admissibility under O.C.G.A. § 24-4-403 or any other statutory or common law rule of evidence. A new paragraph keeps the rule that non-use cannot be a basis for canceling insurance coverage or raising rates. The act states the General Assembly’s intention that this change apply to causes of action pending on its effective date, unless that application would be unconstitutional.

Arguing a number for pain and suffering. Section 1 revised O.C.G.A. § 9-10-184 to control when and how counsel may argue a monetary value for noneconomic damages. In June 2026 the Court of Appeals held that the revision did not reach a trial that had ended before April 21, 2025, even though post-trial motions were still pending (No. 26 below).

Medical expenses and letters of protection. Section 7 added O.C.G.A. § 51-12-1.1, which limits medical expense damages to the reasonable value of medically necessary care and, where treatment was provided under a letter of protection or similar arrangement, makes the letter, the itemized charges and any sale of the receivables relevant and discoverable. That section applies only to causes of action arising on or after April 21, 2025, a limit the Court of Appeals applied in September 2025 to a crash from January 2022 (No. 27 below).

Proving Fault: Rear-End Crashes, Sudden Stops and Stop Signs

A rear-end crash, a sudden stop or a missed stop sign can look like the end of the fault question. In each case below, the court required proof or left the question to a jury.

1. Davis v. Sykes (2004)

Davis v. Sykes, 265 Ga. App. 375, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided January 15, 2004

Lisa Davis testified that she was stopped in a turning lane on Highway 54, waiting at a red light, when she felt a sudden impact; she did not know what had happened until she saw Vickie Sykes’s car behind her van in the mirror. Davis and her treating physician were the only witnesses at trial, and when Davis rested, the trial court directed a verdict for Sykes.

“Even in rear-end collisions, negligence is not to be presumed, but is a matter for affirmative proof,” the Court of Appeals wrote in affirming, quoting an earlier decision. The mere fact that Sykes struck Davis from behind, the court added, did not create a presumption that Sykes was negligent; Davis offered no evidence of the weather, visibility, speed or anything else about how the collision happened, and for all the record showed, another vehicle could have pushed Sykes’s car into the van.

2. Hambrick v. Makuch (1997)

Hambrick v. Makuch, 228 Ga. App. 1, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 21, 1997

Emily Makuch struck Michelle Hambrick’s Ford Explorer from behind in Augusta while Hambrick was stopped before merging into traffic, and Makuch admitted that she negligently caused the collision. At trial, the defense presented evidence that Makuch’s car had “rolled” or “bumped” into the Explorer at low speed, and Hambrick acknowledged telling Makuch and a police officer after the collision that she and her child were “fine.” The jury found for Makuch.

An admission of fault for the collision did not settle whether the collision caused the injuries claimed; that remained a question for the jury. Because it was impossible to tell which element the defense verdict rested on, however, the Court of Appeals ordered a new trial limited to whether the collision caused the vehicle damage and injuries and, if so, the amount of damages.

3. Harrison v. Jenkins (1998)

Harrison v. Jenkins, 235 Ga. App. 665, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided December 4, 1998

On a straight stretch of Highway 17 in Glynn County, the Harrisons saw the car ahead of them, driven by Jenkins, slow down and come to a complete stop with no brake lights, emergency lights or turn signal, according to their account. They stopped about a car length behind, and a third driver, Debbie Shaw, struck their pickup from behind and pushed it into Jenkins’s car. The trial court directed a verdict for Jenkins.

Proximate cause, the Court of Appeals explained, is a jury question except in plain and undisputed cases, and this was not one. There was evidence that Jenkins violated the statutes against impeding traffic and stopping without a signal, which protect following drivers, and a jury could find her partially at fault, so the directed verdict was reversed. The court also disapproved two earlier decisions to the extent they held that the chain of causation breaks merely because the first driver’s negligence had become “complete and static.” One of the nine participating judges concurred in the judgment only.

4. Hayes v. Crawford (2012)

Hayes v. Crawford, 317 Ga. App. 75, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 27, 2012

Terry Crawford and Luther Sisson were each driving bobtail tractors south on Highway 61 in Paulding County, Sisson about 100 feet behind, when Crawford stopped behind a car waiting to turn left. Crawford admitted seeing the car’s turn signal about 30 seconds earlier but said he assumed it was moving, and Sisson testified that Crawford said at the scene he had been on the phone. Sisson crossed the center line and struck the plaintiffs’ father’s vehicle, killing him. Sisson pleaded guilty to second-degree vehicular homicide, following too closely and failure to maintain lane, and the trial court granted summary judgment to Crawford.

A jury could find that Crawford “made an unnecessarily sudden stop without warning” and was a concurring proximate cause, the Court of Appeals held, relying in part on Harrison v. Jenkins (No. 3 above), and it reversed. The court noted that the same record would also support a finding that Sisson’s negligence was the sole proximate cause, which is why the question belonged to a jury.

5. Williams v. Calhoun (1985)

Williams v. Calhoun, 175 Ga. App. 332, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 8, 1985

Mildred Calhoun had the right-of-way on Paulsen Street in Savannah and was turning left onto 60th Street, where Henry Williams faced a stop sign. By failing to answer her requests for admission, Williams admitted that he did not stop at the sign and that he pleaded guilty to failure to yield; in response to her summary judgment motion, he filed an affidavit saying the street was wet and his car skidded when he braked. The trial court granted Calhoun partial summary judgment on liability.

That was enough to require a trial. The admitted violation was negligence per se, but it did not bar Williams from raising, through his affidavit, the defense that the collision was an unavoidable accident. “Even where the plaintiff relies for recovery on grounds of negligence per se it is ordinarily a jury question as to whether or not such negligence was the proximate cause of the injury,” the Court of Appeals wrote, quoting a 1970 Supreme Court decision, and it reversed the partial summary judgment.

Losing Control: Ice and Sudden Illness

When a driver loses control, the question is whether the loss of control was negligent. Ice left that question for a jury in the first case below; a sudden medical event answered it for the driver in the other two.

6. Vaughan v. Glymph (1999)

Vaughan v. Glymph, 241 Ga. App. 346, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 24, 1999

It was snowing and the road was icy on the morning of February 3, 1996, according to Clarence Glymph’s deposition, when the rear of his truck fishtailed partly into the left lane as he slowed to turn from South Hairston Road in DeKalb County. Gary Dulin, driving behind him, tried to go around, crossed the median and collided head-on with Sherry and Glenn Vaughan’s car. The Vaughans denied that there was ice on the road. The trial court granted summary judgment to Glymph.

The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that “jury issues exist both as to whether Glymph was negligent and whether such negligence was a proximate cause of the collision.” A jury could infer from Glymph’s own account that he was driving too fast for the conditions as he approached the intersection.

7. Lewis v. Smith (1999)

Lewis v. Smith, 238 Ga. App. 6, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 6, 1999

Don Smith lost control of his car, crossed into oncoming traffic and struck Deborah Lewis’s car. He testified that he felt a sudden rush to his head, everything turned white, and he remembered nothing until the ambulance. Lewis argued that his loss of consciousness was foreseeable because he was taking a prescription drug whose warning mentioned dizziness and faintness. The doctor who prescribed the drug testified that it probably did not contribute, and Smith had never lost consciousness before.

The court treated a sudden and unforeseeable loss of consciousness as “a complete defense” to a claim that the driver negligently lost control, but an affirmative defense on which the driver carries the burden of proof. The defense is not complete if the blackout was foreseeable or came on in a way that gave a reasonable driver time to act. Smith’s testimony made a prima facie showing, Lewis offered nothing specific in rebuttal, and summary judgment for Smith was affirmed.

8. Eatmon v. Weeks (2013)

Eatmon v. Weeks, 323 Ga. App. 578, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 16, 2013

Princess Eatmon was driving toward Albany on Dawson Road when a pickup driven by Flaval Weeks veered across the turning lane and struck her car, breaking her leg. Weeks was diagnosed with a stroke that day and died a few weeks later. Eatmon sued his estate, the estate counterclaimed, and the trial court denied both sides summary judgment.

Weeks’s doctor testified that Weeks had no prior warning that he might experience a stroke. Eatmon’s point that Weeks had felt “hot” the day before, after working all day on a construction site, did not create a question of fact about foreseeability. Applying Lewis v. Smith (No. 7 above) and finding no evidence that either driver was responsible for the accident, the Court of Appeals reversed the denial of summary judgment in both cases. One of the three judges concurred in the judgment only.

Georgia’s apportionment statute, O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33, as the decisions below quote it, divides fault among those who contributed to an injury and bars recovery by a plaintiff found 50 percent or more responsible. In the text published by FindLaw as current in March 2024, subsection (b) applies where an action is brought “against one or more persons”; the 2012 decision below quoted it as applying where an action is brought “against more than one person.” The decisions below test that bar, the statute’s reach when the plaintiff is blameless, and fault assigned to someone who is not a party.

9. Reed v. Carolina Casualty Insurance Co. (2014)

Reed v. Carolina Casualty Insurance Co., 327 Ga. App. 130, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 25, 2014

At about 2 a.m., Rimantas Labeika parked his tractor-trailer in the emergency lane of I-285 near the I-75 ramp because he was tired and had reached his maximum hours, and he went to sleep. About an hour later, on a wet night, Thomas Reed II, who had a blood alcohol content of 0.095, took the curve onto I-285 too fast, lost control, struck the guardrail and hit the parked trailer. The Explorer caught fire, and Reed and his passenger died. Labeika was cited for improper parking.

The trial court ruled that Reed was at least 50 percent responsible as a matter of law. The Court of Appeals disagreed: construing the records in the plaintiffs’ favor, “there are issues of fact relative to the degree to which Reed’s and Labeika’s negligence caused Reed’s death, including whether Reed was 50 percent or more at fault.” It reversed the summary judgment.

10. McReynolds v. Krebs (2012)

McReynolds v. Krebs, 290 Ga. 850, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 23, 2012

Lisa Krebs was a passenger in a General Motors vehicle that Carmen McReynolds’s car struck. Krebs sued both McReynolds and GM, settled with GM, and won a verdict of $1,246,000.42 against McReynolds, who had sought contribution and a set-off from GM. The trial court dismissed those cross-claims.

McReynolds argued that apportionment applies only when the plaintiff shares some fault. The Supreme Court rejected that reading, holding that O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33, as amended in 2005, requires the trier of fact to apportion damages among defendants even when the plaintiff is not at fault, which left no room for contribution; the set-off claim also failed because McReynolds conceded she had no evidence of GM’s fault. The judgment was affirmed.

11. Zaldivar v. Prickett (2015)

Zaldivar v. Prickett, 297 Ga. 589, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided July 6, 2015

Daniel Prickett was driving a truck his employer, Overhead Door Company, had provided him when he collided with Imelda Zaldivar, and each driver blamed the other. Zaldivar gave notice that she would ask the jury to assign fault to Overhead Door, which was not a party, for negligently entrusting Prickett with the truck. The trial court ruled that no fault could be assigned to the employer, and the Court of Appeals affirmed in a split decision.

The Supreme Court reversed. It agreed with the Court of Appeals that the statute counts a nonparty’s fault only when the nonparty committed a tort against the plaintiff that was a proximate cause of the injury, but it held that negligent entrustment can be a proximate cause of injury to the person entrusted, disapproving an earlier decision, Ridgeway v. Whisman, “to the extent that it suggests that negligent entrustment never can be a proximate cause of an injury to the person entrusted.” The apportionment statute permits consideration, “generally speaking,” of a tortfeasor’s fault even when that tortfeasor has a defense or immunity against liability to the plaintiff, the Court explained. One justice dissented.

Alcohol, Flight and Punitive Damages

Driving under the influence so as to injure another person is an aggravating circumstance that can support punitive damages, as the Supreme Court held in the first case below. The decisions that follow deal with prior pleas, a truck allegedly left on a highway by an intoxicated driver and a driver who fled.

12. Moore v. Thompson (1985)

Moore v. Thompson, 255 Ga. 236, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided November 27, 1985

Thompson was jogging when Moore’s car crossed the road and struck him. Moore pleaded guilty to driving under the influence, and he had pleaded guilty to DUI twice before and twice after the collision. The trial court admitted all four pleas and then declared a mistrial because of their prejudicial effect.

Evidence of the defendant’s DUI guilty pleas “before and after the incident in issue is admissible on the question of punitive damages,” the Supreme Court held. Because that evidence could prejudice the jury on liability, it held that the trial judge should exercise the discretion under O.C.G.A. § 9-11-42(b) to try punitive damages “separately in a bifurcated procedure or in a separate trial.” Three justices dissented. Since April 21, 2025, O.C.G.A. § 51-12-15, added by Section 8 of Senate Bill 68, has also allowed any party in an action for bodily injury or wrongful death to elect, by written demand before the pretrial order is entered, a trial in phases: fault first, compensatory damages second, and then further proceedings such as punitive damages; the court may reject the election only in the limited circumstances the statute lists.

13. Holt v. Grinnell (1994)

Holt v. Grinnell, 212 Ga. App. 520, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 2, 1994

Holt admitted he was at fault in the collision and pleaded guilty to DUI for it. Before that, he had twice entered pleas of nolo contendere to DUI charges. The trial court ruled that evidence of the two earlier incidents, including the pleas, could be used in the phase of trial deciding the amount of punitive damages.

The pleas themselves were off limits. Under O.C.G.A. § 17-7-95(c), a nolo contendere plea “shall not be used against the defendant in any other court or proceedings as an admission of guilt or otherwise or for any purpose,” and the Court of Appeals reversed that part of the ruling. Applying Moore v. Thompson (No. 12 above), it upheld the use of other evidence about the two prior DUI incidents in deciding the amount of punitive damages, so long as neither the pleas nor the criminal disposition of those charges was mentioned.

14. Cheevers v. Clark (1994)

Cheevers v. Clark, 214 Ga. App. 866, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 6, 1994

Frederick Clark rounded a curve on Highway 256 and crashed into the rear of Tracy Cheevers’s truck, which, according to the complaint, was parked improperly on the highway while Cheevers was under the influence of alcohol. Clark also alleged that Cheevers left the scene before an officer arrived. In a bifurcated trial, the jury awarded compensatory damages and then $60,000 in punitive damages.

Quoting Moore v. Thompson (No. 12 above) that “[d]riving under the influence of alcohol so as to cause personal injuries to another is an aggravating circumstance,” the Court of Appeals rejected Cheevers’s challenges, including his objection to the charge on the statutory presumptions of intoxication at various blood-alcohol levels, and affirmed. Evidence of a later DUI arrest was properly admitted in the punitive damages phase, even though that criminal case was still pending, because Cheevers was allowed to present the penalties for a second DUI in mitigation.

15. Langlois v. Wolford (2000)

Langlois v. Wolford, 246 Ga. App. 209, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided September 19, 2000

Jeffery Langlois, under the influence of alcohol, sideswiped Shawn Wolford’s vehicle, injuring him, and fled the scene. The trial court admitted evidence that Langlois had been drinking after the collision, was intoxicated at another location soon afterward, and had a long history of drinking, DUI and moving violations. With medical expenses of $643, the jury awarded $3,500 in compensatory damages and $300,000 in punitive damages.

The Court of Appeals affirmed. It explained that the public policy behind the hit-and-run statutes “mandates that a party to an accident must stop and render aid to those involved in the collision, no matter who caused the collision,” and it held that leaving the scene alone was enough to let the jury consider punitive damages and that the evidence was relevant to punitive damages and their amount.

Who Else Can Answer: Vehicle Owners, Other Drivers, Product Makers and Police

Liability does not always stop with the driver who made contact. The claims below were aimed at a vehicle owner’s family, drivers said to be racing with the one who crashed, an app maker and a city whose officer gave chase.

16. Doby v. Bivins (2017)

Doby v. Bivins, 341 Ga. App. 757, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 14, 2017

After a January 2014 collision, the other driver left without giving Sunkeeya Doby his insurance information, but she recorded his tag number, and the accident report listed the vehicle as registered to Treneika Bivins. Doby sued Treneika’s mother, Lillian Bivins, instead. Lillian moved for summary judgment, saying she neither drove nor owned the vehicle, and Doby sought to add Treneika.

The court described Georgia’s family purpose doctrine as a two-part test beginning with four preconditions, the first being that the owner gave a family member permission to drive. Summary judgment for Lillian was affirmed. Because Doby “conceivably could have a claim under the family purpose doctrine” against Treneika if the unknown driver was a family member, the court reversed the ruling that treated the motion to add her as moot and sent it back for decision on the merits.

17. Kilpatrick v. Foster (1987)

Kilpatrick v. Foster, 185 Ga. App. 453, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided December 4, 1987

Ted McAdams’s Corvette crossed the center line of Holly Springs Road in Cobb County and struck the plaintiff head-on. Thomas Foster was driving a turbocharged Datsun 280 ZX just ahead of McAdams, and James Weber was driving another Corvette just behind. The plaintiff sued Foster and Weber, contending they had been racing with McAdams or otherwise engaged with him in concerted activity. The jury found for Foster and Weber.

The plaintiff had asked for an instruction on negligent concerted activity generally, but the charge given would not have allowed a verdict against Foster or Weber for any joint conduct with McAdams “other than racing.” That limitation was error. Relying on a 1987 decision holding that a “common enterprise” to drive cars in tandem at excessive speeds and in a reckless manner is as much an unlawful joint enterprise as racing, the court held that evidence the three friends were driving home from a bar in close formation at more than 70 miles per hour warranted the broader charge, and it reversed.

18. Maynard v. Snapchat, Inc. (2022)

Maynard v. Snapchat, Inc., 313 Ga. 533, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 15, 2022

According to the complaint, Christal McGee was driving 107 miles per hour and using Snapchat’s “Speed Filter,” which recorded her real-time speed on a photo or video, when she rear-ended Wentworth Maynard’s car and severely injured him. The Maynards sued Snap, Inc. for negligent design. The trial court dismissed that claim, and a divided Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that Snap owed no design duty to people injured by a third party’s intentional and tortious misuse of its product.

The Supreme Court reversed. A manufacturer has a duty to use reasonable care in choosing among alternative designs to reduce reasonably foreseeable risks of harm, and how and by whom a product was being used bear on foreseeability, but “our decisional law does not recognize a blanket exception to a manufacturer’s design duty in all cases of intentional or tortious third-party use.” The Court held that the Maynards had adequately alleged that Snap could foresee the particular risk and remanded. Three justices concurred specially in part, and two dissented.

19. City of Winder v. McDougald (2003)

City of Winder v. McDougald, 276 Ga. 866, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided July 11, 2003

Fourteen-year-old Ashley McDougald took her father’s car without permission and drove through Winder at 4:40 a.m. without headlights. When a city officer turned on his blue lights and then his siren, she sped away, lost control and hit a utility pole, and she was killed. Her parents sued the city, and the Court of Appeals held that the city could be liable if the officer acted in reckless disregard of proper police procedures.

The Supreme Court reversed. The reckless disregard standard in O.C.G.A. § 40-6-6(d)(2) was enacted to limit liability when a fleeing suspect injures an innocent person, and the Court held that it “does not govern the claim of the fleeing suspect.” A fleeing suspect may still recover if an officer acts with an actual intent to cause injury, the Court noted, but there was no such evidence here. Three justices dissented.

Uninsured and Hit-and-Run Drivers

Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage under O.C.G.A. § 33-7-11 can be a source of payment when the at-fault driver has no insurance or cannot be identified. The questions below are who is covered, who must prove what, and how a claim against an unknown driver proceeds.

20. Gordon v. Atlanta Casualty Co. (2005)

Gordon v. Atlanta Casualty Co., 279 Ga. 148, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 28, 2005

James O’Neal Jr., who was living with his mother because his parents were separated, was killed when he was struck by an uninsured motorist, and his parents sued the driver and owner for wrongful death. His father’s policy with Atlanta Casualty provided UM coverage for injury “sustained by a covered person,” and the insurer argued that the son did not meet the policy’s definition of that term.

The statute controlled over the policy definition. It requires the insurer to pay “all sums” the insured is legally entitled to recover from an uninsured motorist, and the father was entitled to recover damages for his son’s death. “We hold that the uninsured motorist statute does require an insurer to pay damages under these circumstances,” the Supreme Court wrote, reversing the Court of Appeals. One justice dissented.

21. Travelers Home & Marine Insurance Co. v. Castellanos (2015)

Travelers Home & Marine Insurance Co. v. Castellanos, 297 Ga. 174, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 1, 2015

After a 2009 car accident, Luis Castellanos won a judgment against Jose Santiago, whose liability insurer later denied coverage on the ground that Santiago had not cooperated in his defense. Castellanos then sought payment from his own UM carrier, Travelers, whose policy treated a vehicle as uninsured if its liability insurer “[l]egally denies coverage.” Travelers never responded to his demand.

The dispute was whether Santiago’s vehicle was “uninsured” under the policy, which depended on whether his insurer had legally denied coverage. The Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeals “erred in placing the burden of proof on the UM carrier in this instance,” and reversed. The insured must show that the liability insurer’s denial of coverage was legally sustainable, which here required evidence that the insurer reasonably asked Santiago to cooperate and that he wilfully refused; Castellanos had none, so Travelers was entitled to summary judgment.

22. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Yancey (1988)

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Yancey, 188 Ga. App. 8, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 6, 1988

James Yancey was driving a tractor-trailer when another vehicle suddenly stopped in front of him and he was forced off the road; the other vehicle left immediately. He sued the unknown motorist and served his own insurer, State Farm, as a UM carrier. After judgment on the pleadings on liability, a jury awarded $250,000 at a damages trial of which State Farm was not notified, and judgment was entered against State Farm for its $45,000 in coverage limits. State Farm argued that the verdict lacked the corroborating eyewitness that O.C.G.A. § 33-7-11(b)(2) required for claims involving an unknown driver.

A witness had testified that she saw Yancey swerve into her lane to avoid “an object big enough to be a car,” and the Court of Appeals held that this “sufficiently corroborated” his account. The appeal was affirmed in part and dismissed in part.

23. Dawkins v. Doe (2003)

Dawkins v. Doe, 263 Ga. App. 737, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 22, 2003

Caesar Dawkins’s body was found beside I-85 North in Coweta County one December morning, and his car was found out of gas on the southbound shoulder. His father sued an unknown “John Doe” driver for wrongful death, alleging that the driver struck his son, and State Farm defended as the UM carrier of the decedent’s mother.

A UM claim still requires proof of the unknown driver’s negligence. Because the father “produced neither evidence showing that the John Doe driver was negligent nor evidence showing that such driver was the proximate cause of the decedent’s death,” the Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment. It also upheld the trial court’s finding that the decedent’s own negligence was the sole proximate cause of his death; the investigating trooper testified that he had been walking in a travel lane.

24. Carpenter v. McMann (2018)

Carpenter v. McMann, 304 Ga. 209, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided August 2, 2018

In June 2015, on I-75 in Bibb County, an unknown driver allegedly swerved into the lane of the car carrying Sherinna McMann and Childrona Holton, the driver braked hard, and Eric Carpenter, allegedly following too closely, rear-ended them. The unknown driver fled. The passengers sued the unknown driver and Carpenter in Bibb County under the UM statute, which presumes that a “John Doe” defendant resides in the county where the accident occurred or where the plaintiff lives, at the plaintiff’s election. Carpenter, who lives in Crawford County, moved to transfer.

The Supreme Court held that the venue provision of O.C.G.A. § 33-7-11(d)(1) applies in a suit against a known Georgia resident and an unknown defendant sued as joint tortfeasors, and it affirmed the denial of the transfer.

Evidence, Damages and Litigation Expenses at Trial

What a jury may hear and award is the subject here: seat belt evidence under the old rule, the reach of the 2025 limits on arguing damages and on medical billing evidence, and expenses of litigation.

25. Domingue v. Ford Motor Co. (2022)

Domingue v. Ford Motor Co., 314 Ga. 59, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 22, 2022

A Jeep Wrangler struck the Ford Super Duty pickup Casey Domingue was driving, the passenger airbag did not deploy, and his wife Kristen’s head struck the windshield. The Domingues sued Ford in federal court for defective design of the restraint system, and the federal court asked the Supreme Court of Georgia how the seat belt statute, O.C.G.A. § 40-8-76.1(d), applied.

Under the statute as it then read, the Court answered that a manufacturer defending a restraint-system claim could offer evidence that the vehicle had seat belts and evidence about their design and compliance with federal safety standards, but that an occupant’s failure to wear a seat belt could not be considered for the purposes the subsection listed, “even as part of a defendant-manufacturer’s defense.” Senate Bill 68 rewrote that subsection in 2025, as described above.

26. Barker v. Grier (2026)

Barker v. Grier, No. A26A0229, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 22, 2026

Owauniss Grier was injured in a December 2021 collision caused by Marquiz Barker. At trial she testified about a bulging disc, a permanently bent thumb, 19 injections and the limits the injuries placed on her work and family life, without medical bills or expert testimony, and the jury awarded $450,000. Barker sought a new trial, arguing among other things that the 2025 amendments to O.C.G.A. § 9-10-184 governing arguments about noneconomic damages applied because his post-trial motions were still pending on April 21, 2025.

The General Assembly intended the amendments to apply to pending cases, the Court of Appeals acknowledged, but the activity they regulate is the trial or its closing arguments, and “[b]ecause the trial here had concluded more than seven months before the effective date of the 2025 amendments to OCGA § 9-10-184, the 2025 amendments do not apply with respect to the trial.” It also held that objections to closing argument not raised at trial were waived and, quoting an earlier decision, that pain and suffering damages are measured by “the enlightened conscience of impartial jurors,” and it affirmed.

27. Omni Healthcare, LLC v. Stacy Young Excavation, Inc. (2025)

Omni Healthcare, LLC v. Stacy Young Excavation, Inc., No. A25A1411, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided September 30, 2025

Two men injured in the same January 2022 automobile accident sued Stacy Young Excavation and its employee. Some of their treating providers had sold the accounts receivable for their care to Omni Healthcare, a medical factoring company, and the defendants sought Omni’s records, including what it paid for those receivables.

The new discovery rule for letters of protection and sold medical receivables, O.C.G.A. § 51-12-1.1(d), “shall apply only with respect to causes of action arising on or after the effective date” of SB 68, the court noted, so the 2022 crash was governed by the general discovery rules. Applying those rules, the Court of Appeals affirmed most of the trial court’s orders compelling production, but it reversed to the extent the orders could be read to let the defendants use Omni’s pricing information in other lawsuits, and it vacated one order for a more specific direction.

28. Love v. McKnight (2025)

Love v. McKnight, 321 Ga. 196, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 4, 2025

In stop-and-go traffic on I-20 in DeKalb County, Anthony Love’s Tahoe struck John McKnight’s stopped pickup from behind. There was evidence that Love had continuously made and received phone calls during the 20 minutes he had been driving, and he pleaded guilty to following too closely. McKnight sought expenses of litigation under O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11, and the Court of Appeals held that the evidence of traffic violations was enough to create a jury question on bad faith.

Bad faith under that statute requires more than negligence or bad judgment; as the Court quoted earlier precedent, it “imports a dishonest purpose or some moral obliquity.” Applying that standard, the Supreme Court held that “there was insufficient evidence of bad faith to submit the issue to the jury,” and reversed.

Deadlines and Service

With rare exceptions, as the Court of Appeals put it in Mote, an injury claim must be filed within the two-year period of O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33, and filing is not the end of the obligation. In both cases below, a suit filed shortly before the deadline was dismissed because service was not diligent.

29. Lipscomb v. Davis (2016)

Lipscomb v. Davis, 335 Ga. App. 880, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 1, 2016

Ericka Lipscomb sued Kenneth Davis over an August 15, 2012 accident three days before the two-year limitation period expired. The sheriff and a private process server could not find Davis at the addresses tried. After Davis appeared specially and raised lack of service in December 2014, only one further attempt at service was made.

The trial court dismissed the case, finding that Lipscomb had not shown “the greatest possible diligence” in serving Davis once he raised the defense. The Court of Appeals found no abuse of discretion and affirmed.

30. Mote v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. (2025)

Mote v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., No. A25A0651, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 13, 2025

Cynthia Mote filed suit about three weeks before the two-year limitation period expired on her March 22, 2022 accident claim, naming the other driver and her own UM carrier, State Farm. She mailed State Farm’s service packet to the sheriff, who received it the day before the deadline, and State Farm was served six days after the deadline. Apart from one unsuccessful attempt to reach the sheriff’s office the day before the deadline, the plaintiffs made no follow-up inquiries during the six to seven weeks before the return of service arrived.

The trial court found laches in failing to exercise due diligence in perfecting service and dismissed the complaint against State Farm. The Court of Appeals observed “no abuse of discretion in that determination” and affirmed.

How These Decisions Were Selected and Checked

Each summary was written from the text of the opinion itself rather than from secondary descriptions. Citations use the Georgia Reports or Georgia Appeals Reports where the reporter citation was available; more recent Court of Appeals decisions are cited by docket number and decision date. The summaries cover the issues discussed here and not every issue in each appeal. Several decisions applied statutes that have since been amended, and the 2025 amendments described above were checked against the bill text published by the Georgia General Assembly. Research for this page was completed in September 2026.

Middle Georgia Firms With Published Car Accident Pages

The following Macon-area firms publish practice pages on car accident claims. The descriptions below are limited to what each firm’s own page states.

Brodie Law Group describes on its Macon car accident page helping people injured in Macon with insurance claims, medical bills, lost income and the legal process after a crash.

Reynolds, Horne & Survant maintains a car accident page for its Macon practice that explains the types of car insurance that can come into play after a collision.

Adams, Jordan & Herrington, P.C. states on its car accident page that it represents car accident victims across Macon, Warner Robins, Milledgeville, Albany and Middle Georgia.

Prine Law Group discusses Macon roads, including the Vineville corridor, the Pio Nono merge lane and Sardis Church Road, on its car accident page.

Gautreaux Law states on its Macon car accident page that it obtains the Georgia DOT-523 crash report and engages accident reconstruction experts when facts are contested or a crash is severe.

Statute Cited

Senate Bill 68 (2025), including Sections 1, 5, 7 and 8, Georgia General Assembly

About This Page

This page summarizes published appellate decisions and statutes for general information. It is not legal advice and does not describe how the law applies to any particular claim. Court decisions can be limited, distinguished or overruled, and statutes change; the outcome of a case depends on its facts and on the version of the law that applies to it.