Part of being a skilled attorney is staying abreast of new rulings and interpretations of existing law. In the personal injury field, the law is constantly changing, and an attorney educated on the latest changes can be the key to reaching a substantial settlement.
Alston & Bird, LLP v. Hatcher Management Holdings, LLC.
On August 10, 2021, the Supreme Court of Georgia released its anticipated ruling in Alston & Bird, LLP v. Hatcher Management Holdings, LLC. In doing so, the Court addressed the meaning and interpretation of Georgia’s apportionment statute – OCGA § 51-12-33. The issue – whether a jury could apportion fault to nonparties in suits against a single defendant.
In relevant part, OCGA § 51-12-33(b) states that “[w]here an action is brought against more than one person for injury to person or property, the trier of fact, in its determination of the total amount of damages to be awarded, if any, shall after a reduction of damages pursuant to subsection (a) of this Code section, if any, apportion its award of damages among persons who are liable according to the percentage of fault of each person.”
What Is Apportionment?
As previously explained on the blog, a jury can assign fault to any of the drivers involved in an accident. Fault can be given in percentages, meaning that even if the injured party is partially to blame, the other party may still have to pay for part of their injuries. Georgia calls this process apportionment.
Previous Interpretation
Before Hatcher, and for the last 15 years, practitioners and judges across Georgia had interpreted OCGA § 51-12-33(b) to allow for the apportionment of damages to nonparties in cases with a single defendant. A single defendant would routinely file a notice of apportionment, and the jury would reduce the sole defendant’s damages based on the liability of others. In Hatcher, though, the Supreme Court of Georgia challenged that interpretation of OCGA § 51-12-33. Justice Peterson, writing for the Court, noted that “when we interpret unambiguous statutory text that appears not to serve the purpose we imagine the statute to have, we must follow the path of the text, not the apparently different path of the ‘purpose.'”
Here, the Court pointed to the plain language at the outset of subsection (b) – “[w]here an action is brought against more than one person” – and observed that the language limited the apportionment of damages to nonparties only in cases where there were two or more defendants.
What Changes
Given that the Court’s decision terminates such a widely accepted interpretation of Georgia’s apportionment statute, the Georgia legal community can expect the Georgia Legislature to amend the language contained in OCGA § 51-12-33(b) to be more consistent with the original purpose of the 2005 Tort Reform Bill.
However, until then, those injured and their attorneys should consider filing suit against single defendants to eliminate the possibility of reduced damages through apportionment to nonparties.
