Georgia Medical Malpractice Case Law: 30 Court Decisions on Doctor & Hospital Liability

A medical malpractice claim in Georgia rests on OCGA § 51-1-27, which, as the Supreme Court of Georgia quoted it in 2003, provides that a person “professing to practice surgery or the administering of medicine for compensation must bring to the exercise of his profession a reasonable degree of care and skill.” Around that rule the General Assembly and the courts have built requirements particular to these cases: an expert affidavit filed with the complaint, limits on who may testify as an expert, a gross negligence standard for emergency room care, a statute defining what must be disclosed before certain procedures, short deadlines, rules on when a hospital answers for a doctor, and a statutory cap on noneconomic damages. The 30 appellate decisions below show how Georgia courts have applied those rules.

The title of this page speaks of doctor and hospital liability, and the decisions cut both ways. By this page’s count, 17 favored the patient or the family on the question appealed, 12 favored the doctor, hospital or other provider, and one was split. Thirteen of the 17 did not end a case; they allowed a claim to go forward or ordered a new trial. Each summary reports what the court decided and links to the opinion in the Caselaw Access Project’s reporter text, on the Supreme Court of Georgia’s website, or in the court’s own PDF as archived by CourtListener.

A Note on Statutes and Later Decisions

The expert witness rule now found in OCGA § 24-7-702 (c) was numbered § 24-9-67.1 before Georgia’s new Evidence Code, and in 2013 the Supreme Court described the current section as “substantively identical” to its predecessor. The annual summaries of general statutes enacted in 2024, 2025 and 2026, published by the Georgia General Assembly’s Office of Legislative Counsel, list no amendment to §§ 9-3-71, 9-3-72, 24-7-702, 51-1-29.5 or 51-13-1; the 2025 summary lists § 31-9-6.1 among the sections revised by Senate Bill 153 (Act 371), which it describes as making “extensive editorial amendments” to correct “typographical, stylistic, capitalization, punctuation, and other errors and omissions.” The passages of §§ 51-1-27 and 51-1-29.5 (c) quoted below, and the description of § 9-3-72, match the text published by FindLaw as current on March 28, 2024. House Bill 185, which the 2026 summary lists as Act 436, effective May 11, 2026, changed the entry for dietitians in the affidavit statute’s list of covered professions to “Licensed dietitians or licensed nutritionists,” and it made the same change to the definition of “healthcare professional” in OCGA § 51-2-5.1, the hospital notice statute discussed in No. 26 below. According to the 2024 summary, House Bill 1409 (Act 568) enacted OCGA § 51-1-29.7, under which a mental health care provider is not liable on a mental health care liability claim unless gross negligence is proven, for causes of action arising on and after July 1, 2024; that description is taken from the summary. Senate Bill 68 (2025) changed several rules for tort litigation generally; those changes are not summarized here.

Filing the Case: The Expert Affidavit

OCGA § 9-11-9.1 requires a plaintiff in a professional malpractice case to file with the complaint, in the words the Supreme Court quoted in 2015, “an affidavit of an expert competent to testify, which affidavit shall set forth specifically at least one negligent act or omission claimed to exist and the factual basis for each such claim.” The three decisions below concern who is covered, what the affidavit is for, and how a defective affidavit may be cured.

1. Gillis v. Goodgame (1992)

Gillis v. Goodgame, 262 Ga. 117, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided February 27, 1992

Nancy Gillis alleged that she was injured by “unnecessary and excessive” radiation therapy and sued the physician who treated her, Robert Smith, and James Goodgame, a radiological physicist. Her expert’s affidavit addressed only Smith’s care. The trial court dismissed the claim against Goodgame for lack of an affidavit, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that he was a “professional” as a matter of law.

Goodgame was not practicing medicine, the Supreme Court held in reversing: by his own description, he calibrated the treatment machine to deliver the dose the physician chose, and he was not required to be licensed. The Court held “that the affidavit requirements of § 9-11-9.1 apply only to those professions recognized under Georgia law” in the statutes it cited. The affidavit statute now lists the professions it covers in its subsection (g).

2. Thompson v. Ezor (2000)

Thompson v. Ezor, 272 Ga. 849, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided October 2, 2000

Elisa Ezor sued Dr. Keith Thompson and two clinics over five vision correction surgeries performed within three months, supported by the affidavit of Dr. James Hayes. In his deposition, Hayes said that Thompson’s approach ran against “conventional wisdom,” that his practices might be “way ahead” of the profession, and that he was “not sure” the second surgery had harmed Ezor; a later affidavit said the second surgery violated the standard of care and caused permanent injury. The trial court disregarded the favorable testimony as self-contradictory and granted summary judgment, and the Court of Appeals reversed.

Affirming, the Supreme Court held that the rule construing a party’s self-contradictory testimony against that party does not apply to a nonparty expert who supplies a § 9-11-9.1 affidavit. The affidavit is “an initial pleading requirement” whose purpose is “to reduce the number of frivolous malpractice claims,” the Court explained, and an expert’s contradictions “go solely to the expert’s credibility, and are to be assessed by the jury.”

3. Gala v. Fisher (2015)

Gala v. Fisher, 296 Ga. 870, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 27, 2015

After Dorian Fisher was diagnosed with a suspected spinal cord tumor, neurosurgeons Vishal Gala and Regis Haid operated in July 2010 and found no tumor; Fisher alleged a misdiagnosis and unnecessary surgery. His first affidavit came from a family practice physician whose competence to testify about the neurosurgical care, it was uncontroverted, had not been shown. Within 30 days of the neurosurgeons’ motion to dismiss, Fisher amended his complaint with the affidavit of a board-certified neurosurgeon, but the trial court dismissed the case because the amendment came after the limitation period had run. The Court of Appeals reversed.

Subsection (e) of the affidavit statute, which lets a plaintiff “cure the alleged defect by amendment” within 30 days of a motion alleging a defective affidavit, permits a new affidavit from a second, competent expert, the Supreme Court agreed. Nothing in the statute limits the cure to an amended affidavit from the original expert, and quoting an earlier decision, the Court noted that the provision contains “no express limitation on the nature of the alleged defect subject to remedy.”

Professional Malpractice or Ordinary Negligence

Not every claim against a medical provider is a malpractice claim. “[M]edical malpractice exists only where the act or omission by [a] professional requires the exercise of expert medical judgment,” the Supreme Court wrote in 1992, quoting an earlier decision. The distinction decides whether an affidavit is needed and how a jury is instructed, and the three decisions below drew the line in both directions.

4. Lamb v. Candler General Hospital (1992)

Lamb v. Candler General Hospital, Inc., 262 Ga. 70, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided February 27, 1992

According to her complaint, Lamb was injured when hospital employees used another company’s disposable parts in a cataract instrument despite the manufacturer’s warnings that only its own parts should be used; the parts failed, and the instrument’s irrigation system malfunctioned and overheated, injuring her eye. Her affidavit came from an engineer employed by the instrument’s manufacturer. The Court of Appeals held that the case was one of medical malpractice requiring a physician’s affidavit.

The failure to use the correct parts raised an issue of simple negligence, the Supreme Court held in reversing. A hospital owes its patients the duty of “exercising ordinary care to furnish equipment and facilities reasonably suited to the uses intended,” the Court explained, quoting an earlier decision, and because no professional judgment was involved, no expert affidavit was required; the hospital, in supplying equipment, was also not a “professional” under Gillis v. Goodgame (No. 1 above). The Court noted that the hospital could still try to prove at trial that only medical malpractice was involved.

5. Dent v. Memorial Hospital of Adel (1998)

Dent v. Memorial Hospital of Adel, 270 Ga. 316, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided December 4, 1998

Fifteen-month-old Mark Dent stopped breathing at home, was resuscitated and was admitted to Memorial Hospital of Adel, where a physician ordered a pediatric apnea monitor. He stopped breathing again, no one discovered the problem for several minutes, and he died four days later. At trial the evidence conflicted over whether the monitor’s alarm failed, whether nurses failed to turn it on and whether the crash cart lacked essential pediatric items; the jury, told that a verdict for the parents would be “unlawful” without professional negligence, found for the hospital, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.

Some of the alleged failures sounded in ordinary negligence, and the Supreme Court reversed. “[T]he failure to operate equipment correctly or in accordance with a doctor’s instructions or to keep certain equipment on hand is only ordinary, not professional, negligence,” the Court wrote, so the instruction conflicted with the charge on ordinary negligence and was harmful. Three of the seven justices dissented, viewing each criticism of the nurses as one of professional negligence.

6. Southeastern Pain Specialists v. Brown (2018)

Southeastern Pain Specialists, P.C. v. Brown, 303 Ga. 265, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 5, 2018

During a 2008 epidural steroid injection at Dr. Dennis Doherty’s surgery center, pulse oximeters sounded alarms and read zero while Gwendolyn Brown was sedated; according to the trial evidence, Doherty told a nursing director that the oximeter was malfunctioning and completed the procedure. Brown suffered catastrophic brain damage and died in 2014. The jury, instructed on both ordinary negligence and medical malpractice, awarded nearly $22 million, and a divided Court of Appeals affirmed.

The plaintiffs’ malpractice case “was very strong,” the Supreme Court said, but “a very strong case of medical malpractice does not become a case of ordinary negligence simply due to the egregiousness of the medical malpractice.” How to respond to data from monitors during a procedure requires medical judgment, the Court held, distinguishing Dent (No. 5 above), so the ordinary negligence charge was error. Because the verdict was general, the Court reversed and ordered a full retrial as to the appealing defendants.

Who May Testify as an Expert

An expert on the standard of care in a medical malpractice case must meet OCGA § 24-7-702 (c), formerly § 24-9-67.1 (c), including recent active practice or teaching “with sufficient frequency to establish an appropriate level of knowledge, as determined by the judge,” in the procedure or treatment at issue, and generally membership in the same profession as the defendant. The four decisions below show how those requirements are applied.

7. Nathans v. Diamond (2007)

Nathans v. Diamond, 282 Ga. 804, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided November 21, 2007

After Dr. Andrew Diamond, an otolaryngologist, performed sleep apnea surgery on Increase Nathans in March 2003, Nathans suffered bleeding in the lungs and respiratory distress and lapsed into a coma. The suit alleged that Diamond had not adequately informed him of the surgery’s risks, and the plaintiffs’ expert was a pulmonologist. The trial court held the expert unqualified under the new expert statute and granted summary judgment.

An expert need not share the defendant’s specialty, the Supreme Court explained, but the statute was meant “to require a plaintiff to obtain an expert who has significant familiarity with the area of practice in which the expert opinion is to be given.” Because the pulmonologist did not say that he had performed surgeries like this one or obtained informed consent for them, the trial court did not abuse its discretion, and summary judgment was affirmed. On the only constitutional challenge preserved for review, the Court held that the statute is procedural and could be applied to this suit, filed after its effective date although the injury came earlier. Two justices concurred in part and dissented in part.

8. Hankla v. Postell (2013)

Hankla v. Postell, 293 Ga. 692, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided October 7, 2013

Anita Postell sued certified nurse midwife Vicki Hankla over a delivery complicated by shoulder dystocia, alleging that it left her son permanently unable to move or use his right arm. The defense expert, an obstetrician who had handled well over a thousand deliveries, testified that Hankla met the standard of care, and the jury found for the defense. The Court of Appeals ordered a new trial because the obstetrician was not qualified to testify about a nurse midwife.

Active practice in the treatment at issue is not enough, the Supreme Court held: the expert must also be a member of the defendant’s profession or satisfy the statute’s exception for physicians who have “supervised, taught, or instructed” such providers. The obstetrician had not supervised nurse midwives, so her testimony should not have been admitted, and the order for a new trial stood. The Court noted that § 24-7-702 is the successor to former § 24-9-67.1 and “substantively identical” to it.

9. Dubois v. Brantley (2015)

Dubois v. Brantley, 297 Ga. 575, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided July 13, 2015

During a March 2011 laparoscopic umbilical hernia repair performed by Dr. Damon Brantley, David Dubois’s pancreas was punctured, and Brantley conceded that attributing the puncture to his trocar was a reasonable hypothesis; pancreatitis, respiratory and kidney failure, and sepsis followed. The plaintiffs’ expert, a general surgeon, had performed at most one laparoscopic umbilical hernia repair in the past five years but regularly inserted primary trocars in other abdominal laparoscopic procedures. The trial court allowed his testimony, and the Court of Appeals held him unqualified as a matter of law.

An expert has “an appropriate level of knowledge . . . in performing a procedure” to the extent the expert has sufficient knowledge “to reliably give the opinions about the performance of the procedure that the expert proposes to give,” the Supreme Court held in reversing. Because the surgeon would testify only about inserting the primary trocar, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in qualifying him; the Court did not decide whether he could give other opinions.

10. Zarate-Martinez v. Echemendia (2016)

Zarate-Martinez v. Echemendia, 299 Ga. 301, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided July 5, 2016

Olga Zarate-Martinez alleged that her bowel was perforated during an open laparoscopic tubal ligation performed by Dr. Michael Echemendia. The trial court struck the testimony of two of her experts and then two affidavits from a third, Dr. Nancy Hendrix, and dismissed the case for lack of a qualified expert affidavit. Zarate-Martinez argued that § 24-7-702 (c) was unconstitutional on several grounds.

The constitutional challenges failed and the rulings on the first two experts were affirmed, but the Supreme Court vacated the striking of Hendrix’s affidavits and the dismissal. The trial court had focused on whether and how often Hendrix had performed the very procedure, rather than on whether she had “an appropriate level of knowledge” in performing it, the question Dubois v. Brantley (No. 9 above) requires, and the case was remanded for reconsideration.

Proving the Standard of Care and Causation

As the Supreme Court has explained, a plaintiff generally must present expert testimony to establish the provider’s negligence and to prove that it caused the injury. The three decisions below concern how certain an expert’s causation opinion must be, cross-examination of experts about their own practices, and a jury instruction on hindsight.

11. Zwiren v. Thompson (2003)

Zwiren v. Thompson, 276 Ga. 498, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 27, 2003

Tracee Thompson sued Dr. Jeffrey Zwiren after surgery in September 1998. The jury, told that her expert proof had to show “within a reasonable degree of medical certainty as proven by a preponderance of the evidence” that the negligence caused her injury, returned a defense verdict, and the Court of Appeals held the instruction harmful.

Georgia law “requires only that an expert state an opinion regarding proximate causation in terms stronger than that of medical possibility, i.e., reasonable medical probability or reasonable medical certainty,” the Supreme Court held. The charge, “while not a model of clarity,” was not reversible error, so the Court reversed the Court of Appeals, leaving the defense verdict in place, and suggested a uniform instruction for future cases. Three justices dissented.

12. Condra v. Atlanta Orthopaedic Group (2009)

Condra v. Atlanta Orthopaedic Group P.C., 285 Ga. 667, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 29, 2009

Daphyne Condra developed aplastic anemia after orthopedist James Chappuis prescribed Tegretol, and she alleged that he failed to monitor her blood counts. A defense expert who testified that monitoring was not required by the standard of care had said in a deposition that he usually monitored blood counts when he prescribed the drug, but the trial court barred questions about the experts’ personal practices. The jury found for the defense, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.

Overruling a 2002 decision, the Supreme Court held “that evidence regarding an expert witness’ personal practices, unless subject to exclusion on other evidentiary grounds, is admissible both as substantive evidence and to impeach the expert’s opinion regarding the applicable standard of care.” The exclusion was not harmless, and the Court reversed.

13. Smith v. Finch (2009)

Smith v. Finch, 285 Ga. 709, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 29, 2009

Physicians diagnosed Clay and Tracie Smith’s son, Justin, with a viral illness when he had Rocky Mountain spotted fever. The Smiths’ experts testified that his symptoms were “classic” for the disease and that the standard of care called for a high index of suspicion. The jury heard the pattern “hindsight” instruction, including a sentence that negligence consists of guarding against “that which is probable and likely to happen, not against that which is only remotely and slightly possible,” and returned a defense verdict, which the Court of Appeals affirmed.

That last sentence “is plainly inconsistent with the medical decision-making process” and misstates the standard for foreseeability, the Supreme Court held, and it disapproved that sentence and the one before it while leaving the first sentence intact. Because the instruction in effect told the jury to disregard the Smiths’ experts on the standard of care, the Court reversed. Two justices would have kept the second sentence.

Emergency Care

OCGA § 51-1-29.5 (c), enacted in 2005, provides that in a claim “arising out of the provision of emergency medical care in a hospital emergency department,” as the Supreme Court quoted it in 2010, no physician or health care provider is liable “unless it is proven by clear and convincing evidence that the physician or health care provider’s actions showed gross negligence.” The four decisions below concern the statute’s constitutionality, summary judgment under its standard, and when care counts as emergency care.

14. Gliemmo v. Cousineau (2010)

Gliemmo v. Cousineau, 287 Ga. 7, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 15, 2010

Carol and Robert Gliemmo sued emergency room physician Mark Cousineau, his practice and St. Francis Hospital, and they challenged the emergency care statute as unconstitutional. The trial court rejected the challenge and certified its ruling for immediate review.

The statute is a general law rather than a special law and survives equal protection review, the Supreme Court concluded, because promoting affordable liability insurance and access to health care are legitimate purposes and treating emergency room care differently is rational. The statute “raises the burden of proof in certain cases,” the Court wrote, but “does not deprive [the plaintiffs] of the right to a jury trial or any other fundamental right,” and “gross negligence” is not unconstitutionally vague. The ruling was affirmed over the dissent of three of the seven justices.

15. Johnson v. Omondi (2013)

Johnson v. Omondi, 294 Ga. 74, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided November 14, 2013

A week after knee surgery, Thelma Johnson’s 15-year-old son, Shaquille, came to the Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital emergency department with chest pain. Dr. Price Paul Omondi ordered an EKG and a chest x-ray, ruled out a pulmonary embolism, diagnosed pleurisy and discharged him; two weeks later Shaquille died of a bilateral pulmonary embolism. The trial court granted Omondi summary judgment under the emergency care statute, and a plurality of the Court of Appeals affirmed.

The heightened standard applies on summary judgment, but the question is whether a reasonable jury could find gross negligence by clear and convincing evidence, and here one could. In reversing, the Supreme Court pointed to expert testimony that the symptoms were “classical” signs of pulmonary embolism, that relying on the boy’s response to a pain medication to exclude it was “ridiculous,” and that the standard of care required a CT scan or a lung scan.

16. Abdel-Samed v. Dailey (2014)

Abdel-Samed v. Dailey, 294 Ga. 758, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 10, 2014

Shortly after midnight on December 11, 2005, Ryan Dailey came to Spalding Regional Medical Center after accidentally shooting paint thinner into his finger with a high-pressure paint sprayer. A physician assistant and Dr. Gihan Abdel-Samed agreed that he needed immediate surgery by a hand surgeon, and a hand surgeon at another hospital had told Abdel-Samed he would take him, but Dailey was not accepted for transfer until 7:33 a.m. The Daileys alleged that the delay led to amputation of the tip of his middle finger. The trial court granted summary judgment, and the Court of Appeals reversed.

The emergency care statute applied because Dailey’s condition had not stabilized, the Supreme Court held, and “bona fide emergency services” means “genuine or actual emergency services,” not services provided in good faith. Even under that heightened standard, a jury could find gross negligence by clear and convincing evidence, so summary judgment was improper, and the Court of Appeals was affirmed.

17. Nguyen v. Southwestern Emergency Physicians (2015)

Nguyen v. Southwestern Emergency Physicians, P.C., 298 Ga. 75, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided November 2, 2015

Six-month-old Keira Pech fell off a bed and hit her head, and her mother, Thu Carey Nguyen, described the swelling as the size of an “apple” or “another head.” In the emergency department, a paramedic triaged her as a non-emergency, and a physician assistant, who later described the swelling as “moderate,” sent her home; her parents alleged that the providers missed a subdural hematoma and skull fracture, which led a few days later to severe brain damage. The trial court granted the parents partial summary judgment on the ground that the emergency care statute did not apply, and the Court of Appeals reversed.

Whether care counts as emergency care is an objective question that turns on the patient’s symptoms as they appeared in the emergency room, not on the provider’s belief or on symptoms that developed later, the Supreme Court held. The mother’s description, although it “seems at the least exaggerated,” raised “a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the heightened proof standards” apply, so the parents were not entitled to summary judgment, and the Court of Appeals was affirmed. One justice concurred only in the judgment as to the Court’s reading of the statute.

Informed Consent

Georgia recognizes no general common law duty to disclose the risks of treatment; since January 1, 1989, OCGA § 31-9-6.1 has required disclosure of specified information before certain surgical and diagnostic procedures. The two decisions below concern what falls outside that statute.

18. Albany Urology Clinic v. Cleveland (2000)

Albany Urology Clinic, P.C. v. Cleveland, 272 Ga. 296, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 6, 2000

After urologist Timothy Trulock removed a lump that he suspected was penile cancer, William Cleveland developed a painful curvature; Cleveland’s expert testified that the condition was Peyronie’s disease, which might have been treated without surgery. The evidence indicated that Trulock had used cocaine during the general period of the treatment, outside work and when he was not on call. The jury found for Trulock on malpractice but for Cleveland on fraudulent concealment of the drug use; the trial court granted judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and the Court of Appeals reversed.

“[A]bsent inquiry by a patient or client, there is neither a common law nor a statutory duty on the part of either physicians or other professionals to disclose to their patients or clients unspecified life factors which might be subjectively considered to adversely affect the professional’s performance,” the Supreme Court held, and it reversed. Nondisclosure could not support separate claims for fraud or battery, although evidence of such matters may be offered in support of a malpractice claim. Three justices concurred in part and dissented in part.

19. Blotner v. Doreika (2009)

Blotner v. Doreika, 285 Ga. 481, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 8, 2009

In a suit over chiropractic treatment, the trial court refused to instruct the jury on informed consent. Relying on its 2000 decision in Ketchup v. Howard, the Court of Appeals held that Georgia recognizes a common law duty to inform patients of material risks, and it reversed.

Georgia “does not recognize a common law duty to inform patients of the material risks of a proposed treatment or procedure,” the Supreme Court held, and it overruled Ketchup as “wrongly decided.” Informed consent is “defined in Georgia exclusively by statutes and regulations,” and neither § 31-9-6.1 nor any rule of the chiropractic board required it for chiropractic treatment. Two justices concurred specially; one wrote that Georgia should recognize a broader doctrine but that the change must come from the General Assembly.

Deadlines

OCGA § 9-3-71 generally requires a malpractice action to be brought within two years after the injury or death and never more than five years after the negligent act or omission, and § 9-3-72, as the Supreme Court quoted it in 1988, allows one year after discovery when a foreign object is left in a patient’s body. The five decisions below apply those limits to a forgotten surgical clamp, an unrepresented estate, a missed diagnosis of AIDS, a missed colon cancer and a patient who was incompetent to sue.

20. Ringewald v. Crawford W. Long Memorial Hospital (1988)

Ringewald v. Crawford W. Long Memorial Hospital, 258 Ga. 302, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided May 27, 1988

A bulldog clamp was left in Dr. Robert Ringewald’s chest during quadruple bypass surgery on July 3, 1984, and was removed in a second operation the same day; he alleged that complications from the second operation followed. He sued on July 1, 1986, within two years of the surgery but more than one year after the clamp was discovered.

The foreign object statute gives a patient one year from discovery “no matter whether the date of discovery is within or beyond the limitation period provided by OCGA § 9-3-71,” the Supreme Court held, and a clamp meant to be removed at the end of an operation is a foreign object, not a fixation device. Summary judgment for the defendants was affirmed. Three justices dissented, reading the statute to extend rather than shorten the general period.

21. Simmons v. Sonyika (2005)

Simmons v. Sonyika, 279 Ga. 378, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided May 23, 2005

Trina Elliott’s estate had no representative for 344 days after her death. When the administrator, Sharon Simmons, amended a federal suit to add claims against Southside Healthcare, one of its physicians and a nurse, more than five years had passed since the alleged negligence, though fewer than five years since her appointment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit asked whether the statute that stops limitation periods from running while an estate is unrepresented also tolls the five-year statute of repose.

It does not, the Supreme Court of Georgia answered. Quoting earlier decisions, the Court explained that “[a] statute of repose stands as an unyielding barrier to a plaintiff’s right of action” and that “[b]y definition, a statute of ultimate repose cannot be ‘tolled.'”

22. Kaminer v. Canas (2007)

Kaminer v. Canas, 282 Ga. 830, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided October 29, 2007

Derek Canas received blood transfusions during and after heart surgery at two months old, and his condition, AIDS, resulted from those transfusions. His pediatric cardiologist from 1991 and his pediatrician from 1993 attributed his symptoms to his heart condition, and he was not diagnosed until April 2001; he sued in December 2001. The Court of Appeals held that the doctors’ later failures to reconsider the diagnosis as his symptoms changed could be new negligent acts.

In a misdiagnosis case the injury occurs at the misdiagnosis, so the two-year limitation period and the five-year repose period both began in 1991 and 1993, the Supreme Court held in reversing; treating each later failure as a new injury would revive the rejected continuing treatment doctrine. Quoting an earlier decision, the Court called the statute “an extremely harsh limitation in application,” but applied it. Three of the seven justices dissented.

23. Amu v. Barnes (2008)

Amu v. Barnes, 283 Ga. 549, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 2, 2008

In January 2000, Dr. Chuckwudi Bato Amu diagnosed Wilbert Barnes’s rectal bleeding as a hemorrhoid condition, and the bleeding stopped within two weeks. In 2004 his symptoms returned and a colonoscopy found metastatic colon cancer; his experts testified that proper testing in 2000 would have revealed a pre-malignant polyp or very early cancer. Barnes and his wife sued in December 2004, and the jury found for them.

The “new injury” exception survived Kaminer v. Canas (No. 22 above), and the judgment for the Barneses was affirmed. When a treatable precursor condition, left untreated because of a misdiagnosis, develops after a period without symptoms into a far more serious condition, the limitation period on that new injury runs from the date its symptoms appear, here June 2004. The exception applies only “in the most extreme circumstances,” as an earlier decision put it, and it is not a discovery rule. Two justices wrote concurrences, one stressing the need for a symptom-free period.

24. Williams v. Regency Hospital Company (2025)

Williams v. Regency Hospital Company, LLC, No. S25G0276, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided August 26, 2025

According to the complaint, Michelle Hewett, permanently disabled by a stroke, received long-term care at Regency Hospital from September 23 to October 22, 2020, where staff noted a worsening enlarged tongue; after her transfer to another hospital, her tongue was amputated. Her daughter, Andreana Williams, was appointed her conservator in August 2022 and sued in April 2023, more than two years after the care at issue. Williams argued that Hewett’s incompetency tolled the limitation period and that § 9-3-73 (b), which denies that tolling in malpractice cases, violated equal protection.

The challenge was largely controlled by a 2010 decision, Deen v. Stevens, which the Supreme Court held was correctly decided, and the affidavit requirement did not change the analysis. Williams had “not met her burden of showing that OCGA § 9-3-73(b) is not rationally related to a legitimate legislative objective,” and the dismissal was affirmed.

Hospitals and Their Staff

A hospital can be liable for its own negligence and, through employment or agency, for the negligence of others. The four decisions below concern apparent agency for emergency room physicians, the statutory notice that can limit that liability, a late claim based on a nurse’s act, and apportionment between a physician and the practice that employed him.

25. Richmond County Hospital Authority v. Brown (1987)

Richmond County Hospital Authority v. Brown, 257 Ga. 507, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided October 21, 1987

Isiah Brown was taken to University Hospital’s emergency room after a 1983 car crash and was treated there and later in the hospital by two doctors whom, he alleged, the hospital held out as its own. The trial court found that the doctors were independent contractors and granted the hospital summary judgment; the Court of Appeals held that the claim of apparent agency against the hospital remained.

The Supreme Court agreed that a hospital may be liable for an emergency room physician under the doctrine of apparent or ostensible agency. The test is objective: the hospital must have held the doctor out as its agent, and the patient must have justifiably relied on that representation to his injury, because “[i]t is not enough that plaintiff simply believe there is an agency relationship.” The Court added that the doctrine “can seldom apply” when a patient’s own doctor has him admitted to a hospital. One justice dissented.

26. Hunter v. Emory-Adventist (2013)

Hunter v. Emory-Adventist, Inc., 323 Ga. App. 537, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 16, 2013

Charles Hunter was treated in the Emory-Adventist Hospital emergency room in December 2005 by Dr. Michaele Brown, who was employed by Cobb Medical Associates rather than the hospital, and according to the complaint he died of a heart attack on January 2, 2006, after she failed to treat his heart condition properly. A hallway notice stated that “[s]ome or all of the health care professionals performing services in this hospital are independent contractors.” His widow sued the hospital.

Under OCGA § 51-2-5.1, a hospital without actual agency or employment is not liable for independent contractors if it posts the notice “in the form and manner described” by the statute, including “conspicuously in the hospital lobby or a public area of the hospital,” and the widow’s evidence did not create a fact question about where the notice was posted. Summary judgment for the hospital was affirmed, as was the refusal to add the physician’s employer after the limitation period. Two of the three judges concurred in the judgment only.

27. Tenet HealthSystem GB v. Thomas (2018)

Tenet HealthSystem GB, Inc. v. Thomas, 304 Ga. 86, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 29, 2018

According to her complaint, after a May 2012 car crash Lorrine Thomas arrived at Atlanta Medical Center’s emergency room in a cervical collar; a CT scan was read as showing no fracture, she was discharged, and hospital personnel removed the collar. While waiting for a ride she became unresponsive, and she was found to have a cervical fracture that had become dislocated, leaving her quadriplegic. Her 2014 complaint, filed shortly before the two-year limitation period ran, targeted two physicians and the hospital’s liability for them; in 2015 she added a claim that a nurse removed the collar in violation of a hospital policy reserving that act to physicians.

The new claim related back to the original complaint and was not time-barred, because both pleadings described a single “episode-in-suit” sharing a “common core of operative facts,” the Supreme Court held, and it affirmed the Court of Appeals’ reversal of the dismissal. It expressed no opinion on whether the nurse claim was really one of professional negligence requiring an expert affidavit.

28. Atlanta Women’s Specialists v. Trabue (2020)

Atlanta Women’s Specialists, LLC v. Trabue, 310 Ga. 331, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided November 2, 2020

Days after giving birth at Northside Hospital in August 2009, Shannon Trabue suffered pulmonary edema, cardiac arrest and a catastrophic brain injury. Her husband and the bank serving as her conservator sued Dr. Stanley Angus and his practice, Atlanta Women’s Specialists, but not a second physician employed by the practice, Dr. Rebecca Simonsen; the jury found that both doctors’ negligence contributed to the injury and awarded almost $46 million. After trial, Angus sought apportionment of damages between himself and the practice based on Simonsen’s fault.

The complaint adequately pleaded the practice’s vicarious liability for Simonsen without naming her, the Supreme Court held, and an employee-defendant seeking apportionment “based on the fault of a nonparty co-employee must comply with the requirements of subsection (d)” of the apportionment statute, which calls for pretrial notice of nonparty fault. The Court of Appeals was affirmed; one justice concurred only in the judgment on apportionment, and one dissented in part.

The Damages Cap

OCGA § 51-13-1, enacted in 2005, limits noneconomic damages in medical malpractice actions; subsection (b), as the Supreme Court quoted it in 2026, limits “the total amount recoverable by a claimant for noneconomic damages” in an action against health care providers to $350,000. The two decisions below concern whether that cap can be applied.

29. Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery v. Nestlehutt (2010)

Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery, P.C. v. Nestlehutt, 286 Ga. 731, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 22, 2010

After laser resurfacing and a facelift in January 2006, Betty Nestlehutt suffered complications that left her permanently disfigured. On retrial, a jury awarded $1,265,000, including $900,000 for her pain and suffering and $250,000 for her husband’s loss of consortium, and the cap would have reduced the noneconomic damages by $800,000. The trial court held the cap unconstitutional.

The caps “violate the right to a jury trial as guaranteed under the Georgia Constitution,” the Supreme Court held in affirming; “[t]he very existence of the caps, in any amount, is violative of the right to trial by jury.” The Court applied its decision retroactively, a part of the opinion that four justices did not join in full. In Clark v. Leigh (No. 30 below), the Court described Nestlehutt’s holding as covering damages for pain and suffering and loss of consortium.

30. Clark v. Leigh (2026)

Clark v. Leigh, 324 Ga. 733, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided June 16, 2026

April S. Clark’s bowel was perforated during surgery to remove an ovarian cyst in May 2019, and she died in June 2019 after complications during her post-operative care. In July 2024 a jury awarded $29,250,000 for the full value of her life, $2,500,000 for her pain and suffering and $1,715,176 for medical expenses. The trial court applied the cap and reduced the wrongful death award to $350,000.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed Nestlehutt, declined to overrule it, and held that the cap “is not capable of being applied in a case like this one, where a jury’s verdict includes noneconomic damages for a cause of action to which the right to trial by jury applies.” Because the statute combines all noneconomic damages into one capped total, applying it to only part of a verdict would require rewriting it, so the reduction was vacated and the case remanded for the trial court to decide the doctors’ claim that the wrongful death award was excessive. The Court expressly did not decide whether the cap could apply to wrongful death damages standing alone. All the justices concurred; one wrote separately to question Nestlehutt’s framework while following it.

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; the 2025 decision is cited by docket number and decision date. The summaries cover the issues discussed here and not every issue in each appeal, and facts are stated as the court described them, including allegations where a case was decided on the pleadings or on summary judgment. Statutory language is quoted as the court quoted it in the year of the decision. Where a decision on this page overruled, disapproved or reaffirmed another decision listed here, the summary says so; a full review of each decision’s later history was not performed. Research for this page was completed in September 2026.

Statutes and Legislative Summaries Cited

House Bill 185 (2026), as passed, Georgia General Assembly

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 appellate decisions 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.