Georgia Truck Accident Case Law: 30 Court Decisions That Hold Motor Carriers Accountable

Georgia’s appellate courts have decided appeals arising from crashes involving tractor-trailers, dump trucks, fuel tankers and company-owned work trucks. The 30 decisions collected here are organized around seven questions: who can be named as a defendant, when a motor carrier answers for its driver, what a carrier’s own hiring and retention decisions mean at trial, when punitive damages are available, how safety rules and causation fit together, which jury instructions led to new trials, and what happens when logbooks or electronic data are lost.

Several of these decisions hold motor carriers accountable. Several others mark where that accountability ends: a shipper that never leased the truck, a fired driver who abandoned his route, an insurer protected by federal law. 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.

Two statutes enacted in 2024 and 2025 affect truck cases today: one narrows when a motor carrier’s insurer can be sued directly, and the other lets any party ask for a trial in phases. They come first.

What Changed in 2024 and 2025

Senate Bill 426 (2024) narrowed direct actions against insurers. The bill rewrote Georgia’s two direct action provisions, O.C.G.A. § 40-1-112(c) and § 40-2-140(d)(4). For causes of action accruing on or after July 1, 2024, a plaintiff may join a motor carrier’s insurance carrier in the same action only when one or more motor carriers related to the cause of action are insolvent or bankrupt, or when personal service under O.C.G.A. § 9-11-4(e) cannot be made on the driver or on the motor carrier after reasonable diligence. When one of those conditions exists, the insurer may be joined as a matter of right by an amended complaint, and that amended complaint relates back to the date of the original pleading. The five decisions in the next section applied earlier versions of these statutes, which permitted joining the carrier and its insurer without those conditions. In a June 2026 decision summarized below, the Court of Appeals noted that the current version of § 40-2-140 took effect on July 1, 2024, and applied the earlier version, which the parties agreed governed that case.

Senate Bill 68 (2025) added phased trials on request. Signed on April 21, 2025, the act created O.C.G.A. § 51-12-15. In an action for bodily injury or wrongful death, any party may elect, by written demand before the pretrial order is entered, to have the trial proceed in phases: first the fault of each defendant and the percentages of fault of everyone who contributed to the injury, then compensatory damages, and then, if compensatory damages are awarded, further proceedings such as punitive damages under § 51-12-5.1(d) and attorney’s fees, court costs or expenses of litigation. The court may reject the election, on a party’s motion, only if the plaintiff was injured by an alleged sexual offense and would likely suffer serious psychological or emotional distress from testifying more than once, or if the amount in controversy is less than $150,000. Section 9(b) states the General Assembly’s intention that this provision apply to causes of action pending on the act’s effective date, unless that application would be unconstitutional. In September 2026 the Court of Appeals reviewed a truck trial conducted in three phases under the new statute (No. 22 below).

Naming the Insurer in the Lawsuit

Georgia’s general rule, as the Court of Appeals restated it in National Indemnity Co. v. Lariscy, 352 Ga. App. 446 (2019), is that a party may not bring a direct action against the liability insurer of the party who allegedly caused the damage unless there is an unsatisfied judgment against the insured or a statute or policy provision specifically permits it. The motor carrier statutes are the codified exception. Older decisions applied former O.C.G.A. § 46-7-12, the predecessor of § 40-1-112. The five decisions below applied those statutes as they read before July 1, 2024.

1. Sapp v. Canal Insurance Co. (2011)

Sapp v. Canal Insurance Co., 288 Ga. 681, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided February 28, 2011

A dump truck owned by EDB Trucking struck Pamela Sapp’s car. EDB had never obtained the motor carrier permit the law then required, its policy carried no “Form F” endorsement, and the policy limited coverage to a 50-mile radius that the crash fell outside. The trial court found no coverage, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, treating the policy as a basic automobile liability policy rather than a motor carrier policy.

The Supreme Court reversed. EDB was a motor carrier of property despite the missing permit and endorsement, the Court held, and Canal, which knew from EDB’s application that EDB described itself as a common carrier hauling soil by dump truck, was subject to a direct action under the Motor Carrier Act. The 50-mile radius-of-use limitation was therefore unenforceable, and Canal was liable up to its $500,000 policy limit. In a footnote, quoting a treatise, the Court noted that an insurer in Canal’s position may have a separate claim for indemnification against its insured for breaching the policy.

2. Daily Underwriters of America v. Williams (2020)

Daily Underwriters of America v. Williams, 354 Ga. App. 551, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 13, 2020

Veronica and Marleaux Williams were injured when a tractor-trailer driven by Edward Heard, who owned and operated CC&D Trucking, struck their car. Their complaints relied on § 40-1-112(c) to sue the carrier’s insurer directly, and the insurer argued that the provision covers only intrastate carriers while CC&D was an interstate carrier.

The Court of Appeals agreed that § 40-1-112(c) “is applicable only to intrastate motor carriers,” but held that the other statute, § 40-2-140(d)(4), “which is applicable to interstate carriers, does authorize” these direct actions, and it affirmed the denial of the insurer’s summary judgment motions. A dissent reasoned that the plaintiffs could not rely on § 40-2-140 because they had not amended their complaints to plead it, and the other judge on the panel concurred in the judgments only, so the opinion is marked as physical precedent only under the Court of Appeals’ rules.

3. Reis v. OOIDA Risk Retention Group, Inc. (2018)

Reis v. OOIDA Risk Retention Group, Inc., 303 Ga. 659, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided May 7, 2018

Candice Reis and Melvin Williams were in a car that collided with a 2001 Freightliner insured by OOIDA, a risk retention group created under the federal Liability Risk Retention Act and chartered outside Georgia. They sued OOIDA directly under both direct action statutes.

The Supreme Court held that applying § 40-1-112(c) and § 40-2-140(d)(4) to OOIDA “is preempted by the LRRA,” and it affirmed summary judgment for OOIDA. The Court distinguished traditional insurers, noting that this kind of regulation “may be permissible with respect to traditional insurance carriers” but is not allowed for a foreign risk retention group.

4. Jackson v. Sluder (2002)

Jackson v. Sluder, 256 Ga. App. 812, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 11, 2002

A loaded tractor-trailer turning left on Georgia Highway 136 in Gordon County pulled into the path of Greggory Sluder’s motorcycle, and he testified that his injuries included the permanent loss of the use of his left arm. He sued the driver, the trucking company and Liberty Mutual in Fulton County. Liberty Mutual was both the company’s liability insurer and its excess insurer, and Sluder later sought recovery under the excess policy through the direct action statute.

The excess policy was outside the statute’s reach, the Court of Appeals held: “Nothing in the statute mentions any other insurance or provides authorization for suit against the excess insurer.” The court rejected the insurer’s argument that venue could lie only where the crash occurred or where the driver or his employer resided, but held that the case had to be transferred as to the driver and the trucking company.

5. Coleman v. B-H Transfer Co. (2008)

Coleman v. B-H Transfer Co., 284 Ga. 624, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided November 3, 2008

Three tractor-trailers under contract with B-H Transfer were traveling in tandem, each driven by an independent contractor, when the last truck allegedly struck the middle one and pushed it into the lead truck, which Jerry Lee Coleman owned and drove. Coleman sued the other driver, that driver’s company, B-H Transfer and B-H Transfer’s insurer. His own contract with B-H Transfer contained a release and indemnity provision covering collisions between two vehicles both under contract to B-H Transfer.

The Supreme Court held that applying that provision to Coleman’s claims against B-H Transfer and its insurer was consistent with Georgia public policy and with 49 C.F.R. § 387.15, which provides that the required insurance does not apply to the insured’s employees in the course of employment, a term the federal rules define to include independent contractors. As the owner and lessor of the truck he was driving, Coleman was not a member of the public the motor carrier rules protect. The Court added that the direct action statute was not meant to make an insurer liable where a judgment cannot be recovered against the insured carrier itself.

When a Motor Carrier Answers for the Driver

A carrier can be vicariously liable for a driver’s negligence because the driver is its employee acting within the scope of employment, or because a lease of the truck and driver makes the carrier a statutory employer under the federal motor carrier regulations. The five decisions below show both theories and where each one stops.

6. PN Express, Inc. v. Zegel (2010)

PN Express, Inc. v. Zegel, 304 Ga. App. 672, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 2, 2010

A loaded tractor-trailer owned and driven by Mile Surlina crashed into the Zegel family’s car, leaving all three occupants with severe and permanent injuries. The truck bore the logo and DOT numbers of PN Express, an Illinois motor carrier. PN Express’s manager had given Surlina the company placards, approved the logo Surlina had painted on the truck, and stayed in daily phone contact with him while he hauled the load. PN Express argued that there was no lease.

The Court of Appeals affirmed a jury verdict of more than $11.4 million. It held that the jury could find an oral lease “based on Surlina’s admission that such a lease was in effect, and on testimony that Surlina’s truck carried the PN Express logo,” and it upheld the instruction on statutory employment, which told the jury that federal regulations require a carrier using leased equipment “to have exclusive possession, control and use of the equipment for the duration of the lease.”

7. Stubbs Oil Co. v. Price (2020)

Stubbs Oil Co. v. Price, No. A20A1377, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 19, 2020

A fuel tanker driven by Christopher Hinson, an employee of Southern Oil Refinery, collided with a compact car and killed three people. Stubbs Oil had hired Southern Oil to deliver fuel to Stubbs Oil’s retail customers. The families argued that Stubbs Oil was Hinson’s statutory employer under the federal regulations and that its insurer could be sued directly.

Without a lease, there was no statutory employment. Reversing the denial of summary judgment for Stubbs Oil and its insurer, the Court of Appeals held that Stubbs Oil acted as a shipper, that, as a general rule, the federal regulations apply to motor carriers rather than to shippers that engage independent contractors to transport goods, and that “absent evidence of either a written or oral lease between Hinson or Southern Oil and Stubbs Oil, the latter simply cannot be characterized as a statutory employer.”

8. Wright v. Transus, Inc. (1993)

Wright v. Transus, Inc., 209 Ga. App. 771, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 16, 1993

Vernon Wright alleged that his vehicle was struck in a Hardee’s parking lot by a tractor-trailer operated by Cardwell, an owner-operator who had leased his rig to Transus. Early that morning Cardwell had dropped a loaded trailer at the Transus terminal in Albany and slept about eight hours in the quarters Transus provided for drivers, and Transus considered him off duty until his next dispatch. The trial court granted summary judgment to Transus.

The Court of Appeals reversed on respondeat superior. It relied on the Interstate Commerce Commission requirement, then in force, that a carrier leasing equipment have “exclusive possession, control and use of the equipment for the duration of the lease.” Cardwell, the court reasoned, was in effect on call for the next dispatch, which at least raised a material issue of fact, and “the lease of a vehicle by the carrier, as opposed to its ownership, does not control the question whether the driver was engaged in the carrier’s business.” In the court’s words: “This is an issue for the jury.” Three of the eight participating judges concurred in part and dissented in part; one of them wrote that Wright had not shown a fact question on whether Cardwell was on company business or a personal mission.

9. McLaine v. McLeod (2008)

McLaine v. McLeod, 291 Ga. App. 335, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 1, 2008

Jimmy McLaine’s pickup was struck by a tractor-trailer driven by Johnny Moody and forced into a tractor driven by Bradford Register. The collisions killed McLaine, his five-year-old daughter and Register’s two-year-old son, and critically injured Register and his five-year-old son. The families sued Container South, arguing that it acted as a motor carrier and as Moody’s de facto employer and that it negligently hired him.

Container South’s contract with Moody’s employer, Right Trucking, described Container South as a cargo broker and Right Trucking as an independent contractor that warranted its drivers were competent and licensed. Container South did not tell Moody what routes to take or supply his equipment, and it “did not own or lease the tractor-trailer or any of the equipment used by Moody, nor did it provide any insurance for Moody or the tractor-trailer.” On that record, the Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for Container South.

10. Blake v. Tribe Express, Inc. (2021)

Blake v. Tribe Express, Inc., No. A21A0672, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided August 13, 2021

Tribe Express fired its driver, Marquentin Prosser, and told him to return its tractor-trailer to one of its Gainesville locations. He drove to within 200 yards of the company’s headquarters, turned away, drove through the lowered barriers of the I-75 express lanes in Henry County, and then ran on foot into traffic. Tairan Blake alleged that this set off the multi-vehicle collision that injured him. Prosser later pleaded guilty to theft by taking of the tractor-trailer and to driving under the influence of a drug.

Summary judgment for Tribe Express was affirmed. In the Court of Appeals’ words, “the evidence is plain and undisputable that Prosser was not acting in the course and scope of his employment with Tribe when he exited the Tribe-owned tractor-trailer eighty miles away from his intended destination and ran into traffic.” The presumption that an employee driving the employer’s vehicle is acting within the scope of employment did not apply, the court explained, because the Tribe truck was not involved in the collision that injured Blake.

When the Carrier’s Own Conduct Is on Trial

Separate from vicarious liability, an injured person can claim that the company itself was negligent in hiring, retaining, supervising or entrusting a vehicle to the driver. These claims turn on what the company knew or should have known, and since 2020 an employer’s admission of vicarious liability no longer, by itself, entitles the employer to summary judgment on them.

11. Smith v. Tommy Roberts Trucking Co. (1993)

Smith v. Tommy Roberts Trucking Co., 209 Ga. App. 826, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 16, 1993

Larry Smith was first in line at a school crossing in LaGrange when a dump truck owned by Tommy Roberts Trucking hit his car and, by his account, hit it again and pushed it down the road. According to Smith, the driver said afterward that he was waiting for some tickets to drop off his record. The trial court granted summary judgment on punitive damages.

The Court of Appeals reversed, with two judges dissenting. It held that the evidence of the driver’s conduct raised a jury question on punitive damages against him, and that where an owner “has a statutory duty to check on the driver’s qualifications,” it is, in the words of a 1958 decision the court quoted, “precluded from the defense that it did not have actual knowledge of such incompetence.” The company also knew of two traffic violations the driver had committed in a company vehicle, and whether it should have known he was unsafe was for a jury to decide.

12. Western Industries, Inc. v. Poole (2006)

Western Industries, Inc. v. Poole, 280 Ga. App. 378, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided July 10, 2006

A service technician for Western Industries, an extermination company, injured Jerry Lee Poole while driving a company truck. Western’s branch manager testified to a policy that no one could be hired without a drug screen and a motor vehicle record. The technician had answered no when his application asked about recent violations and license suspensions, although he had a hit-and-run conviction and an eight-month suspension, and the motor vehicle record the policy required was not found in his employment file. Poole added claims for negligent hiring and retention, negligent entrustment and punitive damages.

The Court of Appeals divided the claims. It held that the trial court “should have granted Western’s motion on the negligent entrustment and punitive damages claims, but did not err when it denied summary judgment on the negligent hiring and retention claim.” Punitive damages against an employer on a hiring theory, the court explained, require facts showing “an entire want of care” that raises a presumption of conscious indifference, and “[m]ere negligence, although gross, will not alone authorize the recovery of punitive damages.”

13. Onsite Communication Services, LLC v. Gooch (2026)

Onsite Communication Services, LLC v. Gooch, No. A26A0424, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 24, 2026 (with Parris v. Gooch, No. A26A0423)

Tammy and Jeffery Gooch were in a head-on collision with a truck owned by Onsite Communication Services and driven by its employee, Jimmy Parris. Under company policy, Parris took a drug test the day after the collision, and it was positive for methamphetamine. The driver, the company and its insurer each moved for full or partial summary judgment, and the trial court denied all three motions.

The Court of Appeals affirmed. It found a genuine issue as to whether Parris was impaired, and “a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Onsite had actual or constructive knowledge of Parris’s drug use and his multiple speeding tickets while driving Onsite trucks and yet took no action.” It held that this evidence could support compensatory and punitive damages and attorney fees under O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11. The court also held that the complaint encompassed Georgia’s adoption of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations for intrastate commerce (Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 515-16-4-.01, as it read in 2021), and that Onsite was a “motor carrier” under the 2021 version of § 40-2-140(d)(4), which authorized the direct action against its insurer; that statute, the court explained, is not limited to for-hire carriers.

14. Quynn v. Hulsey (2020)

Quynn v. Hulsey, 310 Ga. 473, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided November 2, 2020

A truck driven by Riley Hulsey and owned by his employer, TriEst Ag Group, struck and killed Brandon Lanier as he was trying to cross a street in Tifton. The trial court granted TriEst summary judgment on punitive damages and, because TriEst admitted respondeat superior, on the estate’s claims of negligent entrustment, hiring, training and supervision. At trial the jury found the driver and employer 50 percent at fault and Lanier 50 percent at fault, which under the apportionment statute as the Court quoted it barred the estate from recovering damages.

The Supreme Court reversed. It held that O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33, the apportionment statute, “has abrogated” the rule the Court of Appeals had applied, under which an employer that concedes respondeat superior liability is entitled to summary judgment on negligent entrustment, hiring and retention claims when no punitive damages claim remains against the employer. “Adherence to the Respondeat Superior Rule would preclude the jury from apportioning fault to the employer for negligent entrustment, hiring, training, supervision, and retention,” the Court wrote, and the allocation of fault “could differ if one person’s fault was excluded from consideration.” One justice concurred in the judgment only, and one dissented.

Punitive Damages Against Drivers and Carriers

Punitive damages require clear and convincing evidence of “willful misconduct, malice, fraud, wantonness, oppression, or that entire want of care which would raise the presumption of conscious indifference to consequences,” as the Court of Appeals repeated in Bartja. The first three decisions below concern punitive claims against drivers and employers; the fourth concerns a crash in another state.

15. Bartja v. National Union Fire Insurance Co. (1995)

Bartja v. National Union Fire Insurance Co., 218 Ga. App. 815, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 25, 1995

Bartja was riding in a van when a tractor-trailer owned by Ready Trucking and driven by Kevin McConico collided with its rear; the van overturned, and he was thrown from it. He joined Ready’s insurer under the direct action statute then in effect and sought punitive damages based on the driver’s conduct and on the company’s entrustment, hiring, retention and supervision of the driver.

The Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment on punitive damages. The driver’s record did not show the required culpability, and “[n]othing in the record indicates that Ready knew or should have known that McConico had a tendency to fall asleep at the wheel.” The court also affirmed summary judgment on the entrustment, hiring, retention and supervision claims under the rule, later abrogated in Quynn v. Hulsey (2020), that an employer’s admission of respondeat superior makes its liability on those claims identical to its vicarious liability when no punitive damages remain.

16. MasTec North America, Inc. v. Wilson (2014)

MasTec North America, Inc. v. Wilson, 325 Ga. App. 863, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 28, 2014

Gilda Wilson alleged that Gregory Piccione, driving a commercial pickup truck owned by MasTec, ran a red light and struck her car; Piccione contended that she ran the light. MasTec’s 2008 background check had shown three speeding convictions and a conviction for failing to obey a stop sign, all received while Piccione was driving his personal vehicle.

“In cases involving automobile collisions,” the court explained, quoting an earlier decision, “punitive damages are authorized when the accident results from a pattern or policy of dangerous driving, such as excessive speeding or driving while intoxicated, but not when a driver simply violates a rule of the road.” Applying that standard, the Court of Appeals reversed the denial of summary judgment on punitive damages. It also reversed on the negligent hiring, retention, supervision and entrustment claims, applying the rule that such claims fail without a valid punitive damages claim when the employer concedes respondeat superior liability. In Quynn v. Hulsey (2020), the Supreme Court quoted MasTec’s statement of that rule and held the rule abrogated by the apportionment statute.

17. American Material Services, Inc. v. Giddens (2009)

American Material Services, Inc. v. Giddens, 296 Ga. App. 643, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 16, 2009

An 18-wheel tractor-trailer driven by Charles Chambers, an employee of American Material Services, struck Jolene Giddens’s vehicle on a Cochran roadway. A breath test after the crash detected alcohol, and Chambers had three DUI convictions from more than twelve years earlier. The jury found that Chambers had acted under the influence of alcohol but awarded $50,000 in punitive damages only against the company, and the trial court then granted judgment notwithstanding the verdict to add the driver to that award.

The Court of Appeals reversed and directed the trial court to vacate the punitive damages judgments against both the driver and the company. Adding the driver after the verdict was error. As for the company, Giddens had withdrawn her request to charge on negligent entrustment and submitted no charges on negligent hiring or retention, so “the only theory of recovery available to the jury was American’s vicarious liability for Chambers’ negligence.” Even if the jury had assessed punitive damages against Chambers, the court added, OCGA § 51-12-5.1(f) would have barred an award against the company, because when a defendant acts under the influence of alcohol, punitive damages may be imposed only on the active tortfeasor.

18. United Parcel Service of America, Inc. v. Whitlock (2023)

United Parcel Service of America, Inc. v. Whitlock, No. A22A1231, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided January 26, 2023

On Interstate 85 in South Carolina, a tractor-trailer leased to UPS and driven by Brian Reynolds, an employee of TeamOne, struck vehicles involved in an earlier collision, and Jeff Whitlock and Jarett Whitlock died. According to the court’s account of the record, witnesses, including other tractor-trailer drivers, and a dash camera recording from one of their trucks showed Reynolds driving erratically for miles beforehand. The families sued in Georgia.

Applying lex loci delicti, the Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s ruling that South Carolina law governed punitive damages and the apportionment of fault. The court identified two main differences: South Carolina allows punitive damages in a wrongful death action while Georgia does not, and South Carolina allows larger punitive awards without a specific intent to cause harm, while “Georgia caps such punitive damages at $250,000.” Neither difference made South Carolina law “radically dissimilar” enough to invoke Georgia’s public policy exception. The court also vacated the trial court’s spoliation rulings, which concerned lost text messages and had been made without an evidentiary hearing, and remanded them for reconsideration under the proper standard.

Safety Rules and Causation

Parker shows that a claimed safety-rule violation still has to be tied to the crash. The four decisions below address that link, a jury’s role in deciding whether a regulation applied, a second crash hours after the first, and how injury and causation evidence is handled in the first phase of a trial split under SB 68.

19. Parker v. R & L Carriers, Inc. (2002)

Parker v. R & L Carriers, Inc., 253 Ga. App. 628, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 11, 2002

Sherry Parker died in a collision between her pickup truck and an R & L Carriers tractor at the intersection of Georgia 300 and State Road 38 when one of the two drivers ran a red light, and the truck driver was the only surviving witness. Her husband argued that the driver had violated federal rules on logging, hours of service and driving while fatigued, and at the charge conference he kept only his request for a specific instruction on 49 C.F.R. § 392.3, the fatigue rule.

The jury returned a defense verdict, and the Court of Appeals affirmed: “Since the alleged violation of the regulation was not the proximate cause of the accident, we discern no error and affirm.” The dispositive question was which driver ran the red light; if the light was green for the truck driver, his fatigue did not matter, and if it was red, he had to stop whether fatigued or not. The trial court had given general instructions on negligence per se, spoliation of evidence and proximate cause.

20. Collins v. Mitchell (2006)

Collins v. Mitchell, 282 Ga. App. 860, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided December 13, 2006

Jewell Collins drove into the back of a Home Depot tractor-trailer that its driver had left in the right lane of a five-lane road in Lee County to make a residential delivery. The road had no shoulder suitable for parking, and no warning devices were placed behind the trailer. Collins had seen the trailer from half a mile away, the trailer had been there for less than ten minutes, and hospital records admitted at trial reported that she said she had passed out.

The jury found for the driver and Home Depot, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The trial court had charged a Georgia Department of Motor Vehicle Safety regulation requiring triangular warning devices within 10 minutes, along with its exception for business or residential districts of a municipality, and there was testimony that the collision occurred in a municipality. The court held that “it was for the jury to decide the applicability of the regulation to the collision at issue on the basis of the evidence placed before it by the parties.”

21. Smith v. Commercial Transportation, Inc. (1996)

Smith v. Commercial Transportation, Inc., 220 Ga. App. 866, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 6, 1996

At 4:30 one morning, a tractor-trailer full of produce driven by Michal Szaflarski overturned through his negligence and blocked all three northbound lanes of I-75. Almost six hours later, with traffic backed up for two miles, a 16-year-old driver approached with his cruise control set at 65 mph, failed to notice the slowing traffic and struck the rear of another tractor-trailer. His sister Shelby was killed and another sister was injured.

The trial court granted summary judgment to all defendants, treating the teenager’s negligence as the sole proximate cause. The Court of Appeals reversed as to the truck driver, his employer and its insurer, quoting earlier precedent that one who negligently blocks a roadway “is not relieved of the injurious consequences inflicted by the negligence of another motorist encountering the obstruction.” It affirmed summary judgment for the Department of Transportation and rejected the insurer’s argument that hauling produce made the carrier’s operation exempt.

22. Transcontinental Carriers, Inc. v. Bennett (2026)

Transcontinental Carriers, Inc. v. Bennett, No. A26A1643, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided September 9, 2026

On I-75 in Houston County in July 2020, a Transcontinental Carriers tractor-trailer overtook Lewis Bennett’s tractor-trailer, failed to maintain its lane and forced Bennett across the emergency lane into a guardrail. The Transcontinental driver kept going for several miles until police boxed him in; the investigating officer observed signs of intoxication, and a blood sugar test the driver took at the officer’s instruction indicated a diabetic emergency. The record showed that the driver had a long history of neglecting insulin treatment for Type 1 diabetes, and Transcontinental had not investigated its drivers beyond requiring a medical examiner’s certificate. Transcontinental admitted respondeat superior liability. At the June 2025 trial, which was split into three phases under the newly enacted O.C.G.A. § 51-12-15, the jury found the driver 30 percent and Transcontinental 70 percent at fault and awarded $7 million in damages and $1,546,500 in attorney fees.

The Court of Appeals affirmed. It held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing evidence of the extent and persistence of Bennett’s injuries in the first phase, because proving fault requires proof that the defendant’s breach proximately caused the plaintiff’s specific injuries; what the first phase kept from the jury was any evidence of the extent of compensatory damages. The court also rejected the argument that Transcontinental should answer for only its 70 percent share, explaining that under respondeat superior “the principal is entirely responsible for the agent’s negligence, and fault cannot be apportioned between the principal and the agent/tortfeasor.”

Jury Instructions and New Trials

Each of the four appeals below ended with a new trial because of errors in the jury instructions.

23. Sawyer v. Marjon Enterprises, Inc. (2011)

Sawyer v. Marjon Enterprises, Inc., 312 Ga. App. 619, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 16, 2011

It had been raining on I-85 near Newnan when a tractor-trailer driven by Dan Crumpacker for Marjon Enterprises lost control and collided with the Mercedes carrying the plaintiffs. The jury, instructed on sudden emergency, returned a defense verdict.

The Court of Appeals held that the charge was given in error and reversed. Quoting an earlier decision, it explained that the sudden emergency defense “applies only to those acts that occur immediately after the apprehension of the danger or crisis,” and that it requires the person facing the emergency to have the opportunity to choose among reasonable alternative courses of action. There was no evidence that the driver saw the standing water before he reached it, or that anything he did after he began to hydroplane could have prevented the collision.

24. Jimenez v. Morgan Drive Away, Inc. (1999)

Jimenez v. Morgan Drive Away, Inc., 238 Ga. App. 638, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 23, 1999

When the clutch failed on Leonardo Jimenez’s pickup on I-285, he steered it onto the paved emergency shoulder near the Bouldercrest Road exit. Three to five minutes later, a tractor-trailer pulling an oversize load struck the disabled truck. The jury found for the defendants.

The assumption of risk charge “should not have been given,” the Court of Appeals held. By steering out of the travel lanes, Jimenez “was attempting to prevent a collision,” and there was “no evidence that Jimenez voluntarily exposed himself to the danger of being struck while on the emergency shoulder.” The court reversed the judgment. It also held that some evidence supported the sudden emergency charge.

25. Beringause v. Fogleman Truck Lines, Inc. (1991)

Beringause v. Fogleman Truck Lines, Inc., 200 Ga. App. 822, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 15, 1991

A truck owned by Fogleman Truck Lines struck and killed a police officer in his patrol car, which was part of a convoy using flashing emergency lights. The truck driver had pleaded guilty to second-degree homicide by vehicle, but at the civil trial he explained that plea, and there was evidence that, immediately before the collision, the car ahead of him, which had only one working brake light, had slowed. The jury found for the defense.

The sudden emergency charge held up on appeal, because the evidence created a jury question on it; the assumption of risk charge did not. The officer’s participation in the convoy “might demonstrate his contributory negligence, but it would not evidence his assumption of the risk of being hit in his own lane of traffic by a swerving truck.” The Court of Appeals reversed and ordered a new trial. Three of the nine judges dissented.

26. Fouts v. Builders Transport, Inc. (1996)

Fouts v. Builders Transport, Inc., 222 Ga. App. 568, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided August 21, 1996

Gracie Fouts was stopped at a red light at Dietz Road and State Route 2. When her light turned green she began to move into the intersection, and her minivan collided with a Builders Transport tractor-trailer that had approached as the light turned yellow and had not stopped for the red. The truck left 150 feet of skid marks before impact, and an eyewitness saw its brake lights come on when the light turned yellow. The jury awarded Gracie Fouts $37,779 and found for the defendants on her husband’s loss of consortium claim.

The Court of Appeals ordered a new trial. The charge on last clear chance was harmful because the doctrine could not apply to Gracie Fouts, who never saw or heard the truck, and it may have misled the jury about comparative negligence. A charge that a driver has no absolute duty to keep a vehicle under control to avoid a collision was also error, because the truck driver had an absolute duty to stop at the red light. The court added that the jury was authorized to find the truck’s brakes were working, and that a lay witness may give an opinion on stopping distance based on her own observations.

Logbooks, Electronic Data and Spoliation

Spoliation is the destruction of, or failure to preserve, evidence relevant to contemplated or pending litigation, and it “may create the rebuttable presumption that the evidence would have been harmful to the spoliator,” as the Court of Appeals stated in Whitlock (No. 18 above), quoting earlier precedent. The four decisions below involve driver logs, engine control module data, GPS tracking data and employment files.

27. Howard v. Alegria (2013)

Howard v. Alegria, 321 Ga. App. 178, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 13, 2013

Six days after a collision, the claims manager of AAA Cooper Transportation emailed company employees “in anticipation of a law suit,” directing that the tractor-trailer be grounded and asking for personnel records, driver logs and maintenance records. A few days later the company received the plaintiff’s preservation letter, which asked it to keep the truck’s post-collision condition and any downloadable computer data. The manager later testified that many of the requested documents had never existed or had been destroyed under a six-month record retention policy.

The trial court struck the defendants’ answer and counterclaim as a sanction for intentionally destroying material evidence, committing fraud on the court and the plaintiff, and intentionally filing false discovery responses. It found, among other things, that the company had falsely denied that the truck had on-board computer modules and that it carried excess insurance, and it did not believe the company’s later claim that some documents had just been found in a desk drawer. The Court of Appeals affirmed; as the defendants conceded, striking their answer established their liability, leaving only damages to be tried.

28. Sentry Select Insurance Co. v. Treadwell (2012)

Sentry Select Insurance Co. v. Treadwell, 318 Ga. App. 844, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 28, 2012

On Interstate 16, a tractor-trailer driven by Tony Martin for Premier Transportation ran into a car that Martin Treadwell Jr. was towing behind his pickup truck, in which his wife, Essie Treadwell, was a passenger. She moved to strike the defendants’ answer for spoliation of the driver’s logbooks, data from a GeoLogic system and data from the truck’s engine control module, and the trial court struck the answer.

The defendants knew soon after the collision that litigation was contemplated, and “[t]here was spoliation,” the Court of Appeals wrote, of the logbooks and GeoLogic data. But the findings that ECM data and investigation results had been destroyed were not supported by the record, and the trial court had relied in significant part on those findings “to impose the most extreme sanction.” The court reversed the order striking the answer and sent the case back for the trial court to decide what sanction, if any, fit its supported findings.

29. Kelley v. Blue Line Carriers, LLC (2009)

Kelley v. Blue Line Carriers, LLC, 300 Ga. App. 577, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 23, 2009

Laverne Kelley had slowed on Highway 44 to let a vehicle ahead of her turn when a Blue Line tractor-trailer struck her car from behind; by her account it left 40 to 50 feet of skid marks and jackknifed. One month after the collision she sent a spoliation letter about the driver’s employment records and other documents, and she later argued that Blue Line had allowed those records to be destroyed, entitling her to a presumption that they supported her negligent hiring claim.

The record “may in fact support a finding that Blue Line spoliated” the records, the Court of Appeals noted, and it listed the available remedies: a jury charge creating a rebuttable presumption that the evidence would have been harmful to the spoliator, dismissal of the case, or exclusion of testimony about the evidence. Kelley, however, had not moved for sanctions or obtained a ruling on spoliation, and the court said she “should have properly raised the issue below and elicited a ruling by the trial court.” Partial summary judgment for Blue Line on negligent hiring was affirmed, also under the rule, later abrogated in Quynn v. Hulsey (No. 14 above), that an employer’s admission of respondeat superior defeats such claims when no valid punitive damages claim remains.

30. Cowan Systems, LLC v. Collier (2021)

Cowan Systems, LLC v. Collier, No. A21A1697, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 3, 2021

Early one morning in July 2017, Larry Collier struck a deer, and a Cowan Systems truck traveling behind him hit the left rear of his car, which landed in a ditch. The truck driver was cited for following too closely. Four days after the crash, Collier’s attorney sent Cowan a preservation letter for data from the truck’s OmniTRAC GPS system, which recorded speed and location at certain points during a trip, depending on when the tracker pinged. Cowan could not produce the data.

The trial court found spoliation and decided to instruct the jury that the driver had been speeding and violating hours of service rules at the time of the crash, that he had a pattern of doing so, and that Cowan knew. The Court of Appeals held that “although the trial court properly found that a spoliation sanction was warranted, it erred in the sanction it imposed,” because the instruction went beyond an adverse inference, and it vacated the sanction and remanded the case. The trial court had expressly found that Cowan did not destroy the data intentionally or in bad faith.

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 earlier versions of statutes that have since been amended, and the later amendments noted above were checked against the bill text published by the Georgia General Assembly. Research for this page was completed in September 2026.

Georgia Firms With Published Truck Accident Pages

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

Brodie Law Group publishes a Macon truck accident page describing its work for people hurt in truck crashes throughout Macon and Bibb County. The page lists black box data, driver logs and inspection records among the evidence that may matter in these claims.

Reynolds, Horne & Survant maintains a truck accident page for its Macon practice that discusses Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations and topics such as improper loading and inadequate pre-trip inspection.

Adams, Jordan & Herrington, P.C., a Macon firm, describes on its truck accident page representing crash victims and their families throughout Macon, Warner Robins, Milledgeville, Albany and the surrounding Middle Georgia counties. The page notes that a commercial truck crash can involve the driver, the carrier, a freight broker, a maintenance contractor and a cargo shipper.

Prine Law Group states on its truck accident page that it represents people hurt by commercial trucks across Macon and Middle Georgia, and the page describes the motor carrier, broker, shipper and maintenance shop that can stand behind a driver.

Gautreaux Law states on its Macon truck accident page that it handles truck accident cases in Macon, Warner Robins and throughout Georgia, and the page discusses federal motor carrier regulations and insurance requirements.

Statutes Cited

• Senate Bill 426 (2024), amending O.C.G.A. § 40-1-112(c) and § 40-2-140(d)(4), Georgia General Assembly
• Senate Bill 68 (2025), including new O.C.G.A. § 51-12-15, 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.