ATLANTA (Legal Newsline) – The resolution of confusion in the wording of a Georgia tort reform law means lone defendants won’t be able to argue they weren’t wholly at fault for a plaintiff’s alleged injuries.
Justice Nels Peterson and the state Supreme Court ruled on Aug. 10 that the legislature intended to leave out single-defendant cases from parts of its 2005 Tort Reform Act.
At issue is an apportionment statute that lets defendants pay only the percentage of a verdict they are found liable for. But defendant Alston & Bird, a law firm facing a seven-figure malpractice verdict, said the statute applied even when there is only one defendant.
Subsection (a) of the law applies the apportionment statute “where an action is brought against one or more persons for injury,” damages will be reduced in proportion to the plaintiff’s fault.
Subsection (b), rather than applying “against one or more,” says damages will be apportioned among the persons liable in an action “brought against more than one person.”
A nonparty to the lawsuit against A&B was found 60% at fault for a $2.1 million verdict. A&B only had to pay 32% of the verdict, but the state Court of Appeals later ruled there should be no reduction because it is a single-defendant case.
The appeals court found only subsection (a) applied, leaving the only applicable reduction the 8% of fault assessed to the plaintiff. There would be no reduction for the role of a nonparty, as subsection (b) would have allowed.
“Subsection (b) does not apply in this case,” Justice Peterson wrote.
“By its plain language, the phrase at the outset of subsection (b) — ‘[w]here an action is brought against more than one person’ — limits the application of subsection (b) to an action brought against at least two defendants. The only defendant in this case is A&B.
“The General Assembly chose to exclude single-defendant cases from apportionment among non-parties. A&B does not argue that such a choice was beyond the legislative power the Georgia Constitution vests in the General Assembly. And the judicial power we exercise today does not permit us to make a different choice.”