Georgia Pedestrian Accident Case Law: 30 Court Decisions That Protect the Vulnerable

A pedestrian struck by a vehicle in Georgia has to show that the driver was negligent and that the negligence caused the injury, and the pedestrian’s own care for his or her safety is weighed as well. The 30 appellate decisions below show how Georgia courts have handled those questions: who had the right of way at a crosswalk or along the road, what a driver should have seen, what care is owed to children, when a property owner or a government is responsible, and how jury instructions, defenses and insurance terms shaped the outcome.

The title of this page speaks of protecting the vulnerable. By this page’s count, 12 of the decisions favored the pedestrian on the question appealed, including rulings that a driver owes a duty to discover a person in the road and that disputed evidence about a pedestrian’s location belongs to a jury. Seventeen favored the driver or another defendant, for reasons that included a lack of evidence that the driver could have seen the pedestrian in time, the pedestrian’s own conduct, and the limits on the liability of property owners and governments, and one was split. Each summary reports what the court decided and links to the opinion in the Caselaw Access Project’s reporter text or in the court’s own PDF as archived by CourtListener.

A Note on the Statutes and Dates

The pedestrian statutes quoted below are quoted as the courts quoted them in the year of each decision. Those passages of OCGA §§ 40-6-91, 40-6-92, 40-6-93 and 40-6-96 were compared with the text published by FindLaw as current on March 28, 2024, and they match it, except for a 2025 description of § 40-6-93 noted below; 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 those sections. Those summaries do list 2024 changes to the penalties for passing a stopped school bus (House Bill 409, “Addy’s Law”) and 2026 changes affecting personal delivery devices on sidewalks and crosswalks (House Bill 986); none of the decisions below applies them. Evidence and statutory rulings in the older decisions applied the law in force when each case was decided.

Right of Way at Crossings and Along the Road

In 1997 the Court of Appeals quoted OCGA § 40-6-91 (b), the “dart out” statute, as providing that “[n]o pedestrian shall suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle which is so close that it is impractical for the driver to yield,” and § 40-6-92 (a) as requiring a pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection to “yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway unless he has already, and under safe conditions, entered the roadway.” The six decisions below apply these and related rules; three favored the pedestrian and three the driver.

1. Gaffron v. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (1997)

Gaffron v. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, 229 Ga. App. 426, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 6, 1997

Audrey Gaffron waited for the “WALK” signal at 15th and West Peachtree Streets in Atlanta and stepped into the crosswalk, and a MARTA bus turning onto West Peachtree struck her. Witnesses disagreed about whether she was still in the crosswalk at the moment of impact. A jury awarded her $20,000, and she appealed, arguing that errors by the trial court had produced a low verdict.

The verdict was set aside. Gaffron had the right of way, the Court of Appeals held, but that did not relieve her of the duty to use ordinary care for her own safety, and those questions were for the jury. Instructing the jury on the “dart out” statute, on § 40-6-92 (a) and on assumption of the risk was reversible error, however, because the evidence was undisputed that she entered the crosswalk in accordance with the signal and there was no evidence that she darted out. An instruction on “magnified or exaggerated” injuries, which had been expressly disapproved, was “harmful as a matter of law.”

2. Sampson v. Jones (1999)

Sampson v. Jones, 236 Ga. App. 57, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided January 19, 1999

Sampson was crossing a multi-lane street in a crosswalk at a signalized intersection when a car making a right turn on red struck him. He testified that he entered the crosswalk after traffic had stopped; the driver’s evidence was that he “jetted out” into the car’s path, and his own testimony suggested that he entered while the signal showed only a green arrow. The jury found for the driver.

The verdict stood, and the denial of a new trial was affirmed. The evidence could be viewed “as failing to show negligence on the part of defendant or as showing plaintiff’s own lack of due care for his safety as the proximate cause of his injuries,” so the verdict was authorized.

3. Silvers v. Kimbell (1995)

Silvers v. Kimbell, 219 Ga. App. 482, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided December 15, 1995

Bessie Lee Mansfield was struck by a car while crossing Main Street in Cartersville and died within two weeks. She was crossing between an intersection controlled by a traffic signal and an intersection controlled only by a stop sign. The trial court instructed the jury that “between adjacent intersections at which traffic control signals are in operation, pedestrians shall not cross at any place except in a marked crosswalk,” and the jury found for the driver.

That instruction did not fit the evidence, and the Court of Appeals reversed. Because the Noble Street intersection, controlled only by a stop sign, lay between the signalized intersection at Erwin Street and the next intersection to the west, Mansfield was not crossing between adjacent intersections that both had traffic signals, and the charge could have led the jury to treat her crossing outside a crosswalk as negligence in itself.

4. Field v. Lowery (2009)

Field v. Lowery, 300 Ga. App. 812, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 6, 2009

Mark Field testified that he was walking with the flow of traffic about two feet outside the white fog line of four-lane Old Dixie Highway at 10:00 p.m. when Mary Lowery’s car crossed the line and struck him from behind, breaking his leg; Lowery testified that she never saw him, and her expert believed Field was crossing the road. The trial court granted Lowery partial summary judgment, ruling that Field was not on the “shoulder” and should have been walking on the other side of the road.

The record did not establish as a matter of law that Field was off the shoulder, the Court of Appeals held in reversing: even Lowery’s expert, and a Department of Transportation engineer, treated the area between the white line and the curb as part of the shoulder. And OCGA § 40-6-96 (d), which directs pedestrians to walk on the left side where neither a sidewalk nor a shoulder is available, applies by its plain terms to two-lane roads, while this incident occurred on a four-lane road with a shoulder.

5. Weathers v. Foote & Davies Transport Co. (1988)

Weathers v. Foote & Davies Transport Co., 189 Ga. App. 134, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 17, 1988

Arah Weathers was killed when a tractor-trailer pulled out of a private driveway to turn right onto a public street as she and two companions walked in front of it. The driver had looked left for about three minutes while waiting and did not see the pedestrians, apparently because of a blind spot in front of the cab. One companion testified that the driver waved them across; the defendants contended the pedestrians were not in the unmarked crosswalk but passed so close to the tractor that they were in its blind spot. The jury found for the defendants.

A properly instructed jury had resolved conflicting evidence against the plaintiffs, and the Court of Appeals affirmed; the trial court’s charge also substantially covered the requested instruction on a pedestrian’s right to assume a driver will obey the law. Charging the jury on the “dart out” statute was not error even though the truck was not moving when the pedestrians started across.

6. Torres v. Tandy Corp. (2003)

Torres v. Tandy Corp., 264 Ga. App. 686, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 24, 2003

Leah Raffield, a Radio Shack employee driving to work in the far right lane of a six-lane Athens road, saw vehicles stopped in the two lanes to her left at a green light; they had stopped to let Valentina Torres, who was halfway across when the light changed, finish crossing. Raffield first saw Torres when Torres stepped from in front of one of the stopped vehicles, and although Raffield braked, she could not stop and struck Torres in the crosswalk. The jury returned a defense verdict for Radio Shack and the Department of Transportation.

Passing a vehicle stopped at a crosswalk violated OCGA § 40-6-91 (d), and Raffield “was negligent per se,” the Court of Appeals held. But, quoting an earlier decision, the court noted that “[n]egligence per se is not liability per se,” and, citing Sampson (No. 2 above), it held that evidence that Torres left a place of temporary safety without looking and against the signal could show that her own lack of care was the proximate cause. It was also undisputed that Raffield was not acting within the scope of her employment, so Radio Shack could not be liable for her conduct. The jury should not have been charged on sudden emergency, because Raffield helped create the emergency by passing the stopped cars, but that error was harmless as to Radio Shack, and the verdict was affirmed.

What the Driver Could Have Seen

A 1986 decision below quotes OCGA § 40-6-93 as providing that “every driver of a vehicle shall exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian upon any roadway, shall give warning by sounding his horn when necessary, and shall exercise proper precautions upon observing any child or any obviously confused, incapacitated, or intoxicated person,” and the text published by FindLaw as current in March 2024 contains the same words. A 2025 decision below described the statute as requiring drivers to “exercise due care to discover and avoid colliding with any pedestrian upon any roadway”; the words “discover and” do not appear in that published text. The ten decisions below turned on whether there was evidence that the driver could and should have seen the pedestrian in time, or on whether the driver’s conduct caused the injury.

7. Fountain v. Thompson (1984)

Fountain v. Thompson, 252 Ga. 256, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 1, 1984

Ned Thompson, driving at about 50 miles per hour at night on a flat stretch of Georgia Highway 227, noticed a pickup truck in the ditch and then struck and killed Ronnie Fountain, who was lying near the center of the road with a blood alcohol level of .37 grams percent. A jury awarded Fountain’s widow $60,000, and the Court of Appeals reversed.

The Supreme Court of Georgia reversed the Court of Appeals. A person lying drunk in the road “is owed a duty of care where he is lying in the open on a flat road, even though undiscovered,” the Court held; on a straight, clear, unobstructed highway Thompson “could have seen the deceased well beforehand and certainly in time to stop or evade him if he had been more observant,” so the jury could consider whether he was negligent in failing to discover him. Two justices dissented.

8. Johnson v. Ellis (1986)

Johnson v. Ellis, 179 Ga. App. 343, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 10, 1986

After an evening of drinking, Johnson began crossing four-lane U. S. 280 on foot at an interchange in Cordele at about 11:15 p.m. and collided with the side of Ellis’s car, which was traveling within the speed limit with its headlights on; she did not see him until he rolled over the windshield. The trial court directed a verdict for Ellis.

A directed verdict was proper, the Court of Appeals held. Unlike the man in Fountain, Johnson was not lying in the road but walking into the side of a moving car, and there was “no evidence whatsoever that defendant could have, or should have, seen him walking into a collision path with her car.”

9. Young v. Kitchens (1997)

Young v. Kitchens, 228 Ga. App. 870, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 21, 1997

After his car broke down on a dark night, Dennis Young walked along a two-lane frontage road near Interstate 20, at times on the shoulder and at times in the roadway, and was struck and killed by a car driven by Wendell Kitchens. Another driver testified that he had to swerve to avoid a man walking in the road and saw him only because of his white tennis shoes. The trial court granted Kitchens summary judgment.

Reversing, the Court of Appeals relied on Fountain for the rule that “motorists on the highways must exercise ordinary care to discover and avoid persons in the roadway.” The evidence, though “far from compelling,” allowed more than one inference, and drawing inferences was the jury’s function.

10. Mayo v. Old Dominion Freight Line (2009)

Mayo v. Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc., 302 Ga. App. 19, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided December 4, 2009

At about 1:00 a.m. on a clear night on two-lane Highway 112, a car swerved to avoid Arthur James Mayo, who, according to a passenger in the car, was standing in the middle of its lane, and the Old Dominion tractor-trailer behind it struck and killed him. The passenger testified that the truck had been following them “too closely,” ten to fifteen feet behind; the truck driver testified that he saw the decedent only when the car swerved and that the decedent was on the right shoulder, and he gave inconsistent answers about whether he had time to react. The trial court granted Old Dominion summary judgment on his parents’ wrongful death claim.

Summary judgment was reversed. Where the decedent was standing and what the driver could see were disputed, and, reasoning from Fountain (No. 7 above), the Court of Appeals held that the duty owed to a person lying in the road “also inures to one standing in the middle of the street under the circumstances in the instant case.” Unlike Johnson v. Ellis (No. 8 above) and Tucker v. Love (No. 19 below), “the evidence does not demand the conclusion that [the driver] could not or should not have seen the decedent so as to avoid the collision.”

11. Hunsucker v. Belford (2010)

Hunsucker v. Belford, 304 Ga. App. 200, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 14, 2010

Driving three children home on a dark February evening in misting rain, Jamie Ray Hunsucker crested a hill at 45 mph, which the plaintiff alleged was the speed limit, and “caught a glimpse” of Randy Belford stepping into his lane from the middle of the road; the car struck and killed Belford. The trial court denied Hunsucker summary judgment on the wrongful death claim and denied his mother, Marie Hunsucker, whose car he was driving, summary judgment on negligent entrustment.

Both denials were reversed. Hunsucker’s uncontroverted testimony was that he had no time to react, and his accident reconstruction expert put the time available at .576 seconds, not enough for evasive action. Belford’s surviving spouse “offered no evidence affording a reasonable basis to conclude that negligent driving caused the collision,” and because the entrustment claim depended on the driver’s negligence, it failed as well.

12. Redmon v. Daniel (2015)

Redmon v. Daniel, No. A15A1454, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 20, 2015

At about 5:00 a.m., Danny Daniel, dressed in dark clothing, was walking in or next to the roadway of an unlit exit ramp from Georgia Highway 316, a controlled-access highway on which pedestrians are not allowed, when a Tahoe struck him and threw him onto the pavement. A garbage truck following about 200 feet behind swerved and its rear tires ran over his head. The medical examiner could not say whether he was alive when the truck reached him, and the jury apportioned 42 percent of the liability to the truck driver and his employer.

The judgment against them was reversed. The plaintiff’s theory was that the truck was following too closely, but unrebutted testimony showed that its low-beam headlights lit at most 200 feet of the dark ramp, so a longer following distance would not have let the driver avoid Danny. Because “it was more likely than not that the accident between Redmon and Danny would have occurred even in the absence of any negligence by Redmon,” the truck driver’s conduct could not, as a matter of law, be a cause of that accident.

13. Politzer v. Xiaoyan (2017)

Politzer v. Xiaoyan, 342 Ga. App. 224, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 2, 2017

Eva Politzer, walking at about 7:30 p.m. after dark in black clothing, decided to cross four-lane Hammond Drive outside the crosswalk and intersection she had used a few minutes earlier, believing the intersection unsafe because, among other things, drivers “tend to fly through” it. She saw Huang Xiaoyan’s car approaching before she started and again from the painted median, kept walking without looking again, and was struck a few steps from the other side. The trial court granted summary judgment to the driver and to Politzer’s underinsured motorist carrier.

Summary judgment was affirmed. There was no evidence that Xiaoyan was speeding, was violating any rule of the road or saw her before the impact, and, applying the reasoning of an earlier decision, the Court of Appeals held that Politzer’s suggestion that the driver must have failed to use due diligence to avoid her was not supported by evidence. The court did not reach assumption of the risk or Politzer’s own care for her safety.

14. Spires v. Thomas (2021)

Spires v. Thomas, 362 Ga. App. 344, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided December 6, 2021

Jess Spires was walking to work before dawn on State Road 87 near Eastman when Raven Thomas’s car struck him, throwing him 20 feet into a ditch and causing severe injuries. Thomas never saw him, and the crash report said he was walking in the roadway and that a deputy described him as intoxicated, although no alcohol test was given; Spires testified that the last thing he remembered was walking on the grass off the pavement. The trial court granted Thomas summary judgment.

Where Spires was walking was disputed, and summary judgment was reversed. Quoting Mayo (No. 10 above), the Court of Appeals held that the evidence was “not plain, palpable, and undisputed” and that “the very question of where [Spires] was [walking] when the accident occurred is disputed.” It added that an expert’s affidavit created a question of fact about whether Thomas could have seen and avoided him even if he was in the road. One of the three judges concurred in the judgment only.

15. Hart v. Phung (2022)

Hart v. Phung, 364 Ga. App. 399, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 21, 2022; certiorari denied, Phung v. Hart, 316 Ga. 361, Supreme Court of Georgia, May 2, 2023

Shortly after 2:00 a.m., Ashley Hart, who had been drinking and was wearing a black shirt, was struck while crossing a four-lane highway away from any crosswalk by a car driven by Thanh Tan Phung, an Uber driver on his way to a fare. Phung testified that he never saw her, but also said at one point that he “saw them” while in the right lane and that he could have stopped in time to avoid hitting a man in that lane. The trial court granted summary judgment to Phung and the Uber companies.

The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Phung’s self-contradictory testimony, left unexplained, had to be construed against him and created a question of fact whether he saw Hart and could have stopped. The Supreme Court of Georgia denied review in 2023; Justice Bethel, joined by three other justices, wrote in a concurrence that in context Phung’s words referred to a second pedestrian waving in the lane, that the Court of Appeals’ reading “appears to be clearly erroneous,” but that its opinion did not misstate the law.

16. Glover v. Moore (2025)

Glover v. Moore, No. A24A1698, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 26, 2025

At 8:30 p.m., Corey Moore, delivering for a pizza restaurant on two-lane Georgia Highway 7, saw a man standing still near the middle of the northbound lane about a car length ahead and, because the man did not appear to be trying to cross into the southbound lane, returned his attention to the road. Within seconds the man, Carlton Jones, entered Moore’s southbound lane, and Moore could not stop before striking him; Jones died, at least in part, from his injuries. The trial court granted Moore and the restaurant summary judgment on the wrongful death claims.

No evidence tied any specific negligent act or omission by Moore to the collision, the Court of Appeals held in affirming, relying on Politzer and Hunsucker (Nos. 13 and 11 above): nothing showed that Jones was about to step into the southbound lane, and Moore testified, without contradiction, that he was not looking at the phone mounted on his dashboard. Even if violating § 40-6-93 could be negligence per se, the plaintiffs still had to prove proximate cause.

Children

The five decisions below concern children struck by vehicles: two jury verdicts for the driver were affirmed, one judgment against a motorist was affirmed over objections to the jury instructions, one verdict against an apartment complex’s owner and manager was affirmed, and one city was not liable.

17. Hieber v. Watt (1969)

Hieber v. Watt, 119 Ga. App. 5, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided January 7, 1969

A child went suddenly into the street when the defendant’s car was eight or ten feet from where he stood at the curb, and the jury returned a verdict for the driver. The child’s appeal challenged the trial court’s refusal to instruct the jury that a motorist approaching children “must consider their tenderness of age and the probability of their making sudden and erratic movements peculiar to such age as factors calling for greater caution than would be necessary on the discovery of adults in the same situation.”

The defense verdict stood. Whether the child’s sudden entry created an emergency for the driver, and whether her efforts to stop and avoid him amounted to ordinary care, “were jury questions.” The requested charge was “not a correct statement of the law”: the duty owed to a child, as to an adult, was ordinary care in the circumstances, and whether a prudent motorist had to weigh a child’s age and sudden movements was for the jury to decide. Eight judges joined the decision and one dissented.

18. Kennedy v. Banks (1969)

Kennedy v. Banks, 119 Ga. App. 831, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 19, 1969

The defendant motorist appealed after a trial in which the jury was instructed that “one would not be justified in assuming that a child would exercise the same degree of care for his safety as an adult,” that one is not justified “in presuming that a child near the highway will remain in a place of safety,” and that “motorists owe very young children a greater duty than they owe to normal adults.” The court had also told the jury that whether the defendant used the required care was for the jury to decide.

Read as a whole, the charge was not reversible error, the Court of Appeals held, because it defined the legally required care and left its application to the jury. The motorist relied on Hieber (No. 17 above), but the court explained that Hieber reviewed the refusal of a requested charge, while a charge actually given is read in context. The issue of liability was for the jury, and the denial of the motorist’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict was affirmed.

19. Tucker v. Love (1991)

Tucker v. Love, 200 Ga. App. 408, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 11, 1991

In very heavy rain, as a MARTA bus pulled away from a stop after discharging a passenger, a girl standing on the opposite side of the street ran diagonally across toward it with a coat over her head and was struck and killed. Witnesses testified that she did not look and did not hear her companions’ warnings; the driver testified that he braked and blew his horn when he saw her, and other witnesses said he could have done nothing to avoid her. The jury found for the driver, and the trial court entered judgment for the driver and MARTA.

Relying on Fountain, the parents argued that the jury should have been told that a driver must discover pedestrians in the roadway. The Court of Appeals found the case “readily distinguishable” from Fountain and closer to Johnson v. Ellis (No. 8 above): the girl was not lying in the road but running across it after the bus began to move, and she entered to the side of the bus rather than in front of it. The judgment was affirmed.

20. Bacon v. Mayor of Savannah (1999)

Bacon v. Mayor of Savannah, 241 Ga. App. 211, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 9, 1999

Six-year-old Vernada Boyd ran from a relative’s porch toward the street to show her father a school paper and ran into the side of a passing car. Her mother sued the City of Savannah, contending that a large tree beside the street blocked the driver’s and the child’s views.

Summary judgment for the city was affirmed. It was undisputed that the tree did not encroach on the roadway and that Vernada did not stop or look for traffic, and the only eyewitnesses agreed there was room between the tree and the road for a pedestrian to stand and look. Without deciding whether there were fact questions about the city’s negligence or a nuisance, the Court of Appeals held that the tree “had no causal relationship to the accident”; her running into the street without stopping or looking was the proximate cause.

21. Atlanta Affordable Housing Fund v. Brown (2002)

Atlanta Affordable Housing Fund Ltd. Partnership v. Brown, 253 Ga. App. 286, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided January 15, 2002

Nine-year-old Shaatia Brown, taking out trash for an after-school program sponsored by the owner and manager of her apartment complex, ran from behind a van parked in a no-parking zone into the path of a truck. A jury found for her against the complex’s owner and manager.

The verdict was affirmed. The claims rested on supervision and on the condition of the premises, and “an owner/occupier may be held to a higher standard of care toward a child than toward an adult”; the defendants had admitted they knew parked vehicles alongside the leasing office were improper. With evidence in dispute, the Court of Appeals held, the trial court properly denied a directed verdict and judgment notwithstanding the verdict. No charge on assumption of the risk was required, because there was no evidence that the child saw or knew of the truck that hit her. The court distinguished Bacon (No. 20 above), a claim about a static condition, because the negligence alleged here was in acts of commission.

Parking Lots and Property Owners

The three decisions below concern claims against the owners or operators of the property where a pedestrian was struck; one of the claims survived summary judgment.

22. White v. Kroger Co. (1989)

White v. Kroger Co., 190 Ga. App. 348, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 16, 1989

While the Whites’ car sat with a dead battery in a Newnan shopping center, their four-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter walked to the Kroger entrance to get a free religious tract, and the boy was struck by a car in the roadway in front of the store. The boy’s father sued Kroger, claiming that the lack of a marked crosswalk and two four-foot signs at the parcel pick-up area contributed to the accident.

Summary judgment for Kroger was affirmed. The boy did not use the ramp or the roadway in front of it, so the absence of a crosswalk was “a wholly neutral factor,” and the collision occurred outside the parcel pick-up zone, in the open roadway. Kroger, as one of the proprietors in the shopping center, “is not the insurer of the safety of invitees on the premises of the center against all negligent acts of co-invitees.”

23. Travis v. QuikTrip Corp. (2016)

Travis v. QuikTrip Corp., 339 Ga. App. 551, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 17, 2016

Harold Travis, a tanker driver delivering gasoline to a QuikTrip station, was on his hands and knees in the parking spaces in front of the store, reaching for a tank cap he had dropped, when a driver, Jose Leon, backed into him. QuikTrip required drivers to measure the tanks by hand both before and after delivery, and the tank access points were in the active parking area; drivers had reported “close calls” with cars at such stations. The trial court granted QuikTrip and the station’s manager summary judgment on the ground that Travis had equal or superior knowledge of the hazard.

Travis had at least equal knowledge of the danger, the Court of Appeals found, but exposure to a known risk bars recovery only if it is voluntary. The evidence indicated that he was in the tank area only because QuikTrip’s policy required him to be there and that he could lose his job for not following it, so whether he voluntarily assumed the risk was a question of fact, and summary judgment was reversed. The court also rejected QuikTrip’s reliance on an exception for work that changes the safety of the place where it is done, because the manual measurement requirement and the placement of the tank access “were created by QT and are not conditions inherent in the work of delivering gasoline.”

24. Cherokee Main Street v. Ragan (2018)

Cherokee Main Street, LLC v. Ragan, No. A17A1819, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 20, 2018 (with TJX Companies v. Ragan, No. A18A0025)

Pamela Ragan walked down a ramp from the sidewalk of a shopping center into the parking lot, where there was no crosswalk, stopped, and saw a car coming from her left two to three car lengths away. She stepped into its lane because her “mindset was that it would stop,” and it struck her. She sued the shopping center’s owner and the TJ Maxx tenant for failing to provide a crosswalk or warnings.

Reversing the denial of summary judgment, the Court of Appeals held that Ragan knew there was no crosswalk or warning sign and actually saw the car coming, so she had “superior knowledge of the immediate risk posed by that car,” a risk she could have avoided by waiting; her claims were barred as a matter of law. The court contrasted Travis (No. 23 above), where the plaintiff’s job required him to be in the path of cars.

Governments and Public Employees

The three decisions below concern a county employee directing pedestrians after a ballgame, a city’s alleged failure to install enough crosswalks, and a city’s duty to maintain a sidewalk.

25. Siegrist v. Herhold (2022)

Siegrist v. Herhold, No. A22A0650, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 28, 2022

Daniel Herhold was hit by a vehicle while crossing nine lanes of Cobb Parkway outside the designated crosswalks after a Braves game, and he sued Zachary Siegrist, a Cobb County fire inspector who was directing pedestrian traffic under a police safety plan, in his individual capacity. Siegrist moved to dismiss on the ground of official immunity, and the trial court denied the motion.

The denial was affirmed. Siegrist’s response to Herhold’s crossing was discretionary, the Court of Appeals held, but “on the present record” it was not clear that pedestrian traffic management fell within the scope of Siegrist’s authority as a fire and life safety inspector, so immunity could not be decided in his favor at that stage. The court made no statement on the merits of Herhold’s claim.

26. Ryles v. City of Atlanta (2025)

Ryles v. City of Atlanta, No. A25A0485, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 18, 2025

According to the complaint, Tavarius Ridgeway was killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing four-lane Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway on foot with no pedestrian crossing nearby, and the City of Atlanta knew the road was dangerous for pedestrians but failed to include enough crosswalks and other safety devices. The trial court dismissed the claims against the city.

Both claims failed. Sovereign immunity barred the negligence claim: deciding whether to install traffic control devices is a governmental function, and the alleged failure to install “a sufficient number of signalized pedestrian crossings” was not a defect in the road under OCGA § 32-4-93(a), a question the court had not addressed before. The nuisance claim failed because existing precedent does not extend nuisance liability to a city’s non-action; this was “not a case where the City installed pedestrian crosswalks and failed to maintain them.”

27. City of Vidalia v. Johnson (2025)

City of Vidalia v. Johnson, 375 Ga. App. 601, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 3, 2025; certiorari denied, Johnson v. City of Vidalia, No. S25C1294, Supreme Court of Georgia, May 5, 2026

Amy Johnson was running on a city sidewalk when she tripped over an uneven section she had not seen, shattering her shoulder; her friend, running ahead, noticed it and avoided it. She sued the city for negligence and nuisance, and the trial court denied the city summary judgment.

The Court of Appeals reversed. A city has a duty to keep its sidewalks reasonably safe, but Johnson offered no evidence of how long the defect had existed, so she could not show the constructive notice required under OCGA § 32-4-93(a). The nuisance claim failed as well, because there was no evidence of more than mere negligence or of anything other than an isolated incident. The court also said it had “never held that a passive failure to maintain a sidewalk would be a basis for liability.” The Supreme Court of Georgia denied review in 2026. Justice Pinson, joined by the Court’s other eight justices, agreed with the denial because the notice ruling independently supported the result, but wrote that on the “passive failure” point the Court of Appeals was “mistaken”: a city may be liable for failing to mitigate a sidewalk hazard of which it had actual or constructive notice.

Defenses, Jury Instructions and Insurance

The last three decisions concern the defenses a jury may consider, punitive damages and an act-of-God defense, and a pedestrian’s claim under his own uninsured motorist coverage.

28. Norman v. Williams (1996)

Norman v. Williams, 220 Ga. App. 367, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 16, 1996

Jimmy Norman, a Georgia Department of Transportation employee waiting with a disabled vehicle near the foot of an Interstate 20 exit ramp, crossed the ramp and was struck and killed by a truck driven by David Williams, an employee of Pepsi Bottlers, as he crossed back. The jury found for Williams and his employer.

The evidence authorized instructions on assumption of the risk, comparative negligence and avoidance of the consequences of another’s negligence, and the verdict was affirmed. Norman was a 12-year DOT employee with knowledge of highway hazards, cones and flashing lights marked the area around the disabled truck, and there was evidence that he left that area and tried to re-cross the ramp from a culvert or ditch without stopping to check for traffic. The court was deciding only whether “some evidence” supported an assumption-of-the-risk charge, not whether he assumed the risk as a matter of law. It also held that the trial court properly refused a requested charge on a driver’s duty to keep a lookout for pedestrians, distinguishing Fountain (No. 7 above) and relying on Tucker v. Love (No. 19 above).

29. Head v. De Souse (2019)

Head v. De Souse, No. A19A2284, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 18, 2019

Sixteen-year-old Katherine Head, turning right into a Costco parking lot, struck Jadilson Silva de Souse and his dog as they walked across the entrance, and she was cited for failure to yield to a pedestrian. She said sunlight and trees along the road obscured her view. The trial court denied her summary judgment on punitive damages and granted de Souse summary judgment on her act-of-God defense.

The Court of Appeals reversed on punitive damages and affirmed on act of God. Her calling and texting earlier in the drive did not support punitive damages: her uncontradicted testimony was that she was not using the phone at the time of the collision, so that conduct was not its proximate cause, and there was no evidence of a pattern of dangerous driving. Quoting an earlier decision, the court noted that punitive damages are not authorized “when a driver simply violates a rule of the road.” Bright sunlight was not an act of God, because she had driven the route in sunny weather before, it had been “sunny the entire drive,” and the sun had been bothering her before the collision.

30. Patterson v. United Services Automobile Association (2025)

Patterson v. United Services Automobile Association, No. A25A0259, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 20, 2025

Dennis Patterson alleged that a car ran a stop sign and hit him as he walked across Laurel Springs Parkway in Forsyth in May 2019. In March 2021, about 21 months after the collision, his attorney sent the police report to his own insurer, USAA, and the driver’s insurer tendered its $25,000 limit three days later. Patterson sought uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage from USAA, saying he had not known that coverage applied to him until he consulted his attorneys. The trial court granted USAA’s motion to dismiss for failure to give prompt notice; because the trial court had considered the policy and other evidence, the Court of Appeals reviewed the ruling under the summary judgment standard.

The ruling was affirmed. An insured has an obligation to read his policy, and ignorance of its terms, without fraud or overreaching by the insurer, does not justify the delay; Patterson’s delay was “unreasonable as a matter of law.” One judge, concurring specially, would have held that the policy unambiguously covered an insured pedestrian.

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 seen in the opinion or a later court’s text; other recent Court of Appeals decisions are cited by docket number and decision date. Several summaries note where one decision on this page discussed another, or where a Supreme Court order commented on a decision listed here; a full review of each decision’s later history was not performed. The summaries cover the issues discussed here and not every issue in each appeal. Research for this page was completed in September 2026.

Legislative Summaries Consulted

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.