I have tried serious injury cases for over forty years. Years ago, I saw terribly low verdicts for catastrophic harm. More recently, we have seen eight-figure verdicts that would have shocked judges when I was a puppy lawyer. What changed?

Insurance defense folks in their seminars have used phrases like “nuclear verdicts.” That makes it sound reckless or irrational. But in my experience, most juries take their job seriously. They discuss seriously the facts of the case and legal principles on which the judge instructs them.

They also bring into the jury room their experience in the world in which we live.

Here are ten reasons verdicts have grown.

1. Big Numbers Don’t Shock People Like They Used To

Inflation has reshaped expectations. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks the steady rise in consumer prices through the Consumer Price Index. Citizens who wind up on juries see that in real time every time they buy groceries, gas, or homes.

They hear news reports of tycoons and even some politicians reaping billions on wild-sounding deals in technology, crytocurrency, etc. The “b word” (billion) seems little more fanciful than the “m word” (million) did 50 years ago.

When an economist projects $6 or $8 million over a lifetime of care, it no longer sounds imaginary. It sounds expensive but credible.

2. Medicine Keeps People Alive But At a Cost

When I was growing up, the ambulance arriving at a wreck scene was often operated by the funeral home.  The after-school and weekend job of one of my high school classmates was to drive the “meat wagon.” There was no first responder training and no paramedic on the scene to stabilize a catastrophically injured person. Too often, they just went straight to the funeral home. 

Many catastrophic injuries were fatal. Today, emergency medicine and advanced trauma care and rehabilitation save lives. But survival comes at a price. Often, it requires decades of structured support. Life care planners build detailed projections based on medical research and standards published through sources like the National Institutes of Health.

Jurors understand that survival without resources can mean suffering. They award money to fund stability.

3. Corporate Trust Has Eroded

Public trust in major institutions has declined over the years since Watergate. Surveys from the Pew Research Center  egularly document this trend.

When  internal documents and emails show ignored safety complaints or cost-cutting decisions, jurors can easily connect it to a broader narrative about profit over people. That matters in the jury room with rules-oriented jurors who distrust institutions.

In planning mock jury focus groups, we have often deliberately limited the group to the most politically and socially conservative people. They have surprised us by coming up with numbers much higher than a mock jury that represented a broader cross-section of the population.

4. Safety Rules Are Clear and Public

In trucking, aviation, medicine, and manufacturing, safety standards are spelled out in black and white. For example, commercial motor carriers operate under federal rules issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which are simply explained in the Commercial Drivers License Manual. Commercial truck drivers and safety managers have no credible way to deny those are the industry standards they are supposed to follow.

Clear rules make liability feel concrete. When a company violates a clear safety rule, jurors see it not as just an accident but a deliberate and unsafe choice.

5. Social Media Changed the Background Noise

Years ago, corporate misconduct stayed local. Today, bad news travels fast. Anything that makes news anywhere seems local and immediate. Jurors have watched stories about defective products, data breaches, and regulatory failures. That background shapes how they interpret evidence. Jurors do not enter the courtroom empty-headed.

6. Trial Lawyers Tell the Story Differently Now

Modern trial strategy focuses on safety and preventability. Lawyers talk not about sympathy but about common sense safety  rules and how small decisions cascade into harm.

7. Anchoring Influences Damage Awards

When a lawyer suggests a specific figure for pain and suffering, that number becomes a reference point. Jurors may reduce it, but they rarely ignore it. Anchoring is not just  manipulation. It is human cognition at work. Psychologists have long studied how framing affects judgment. The concept of cognitive “anchoring” is well established, including in research summarized by the American Psychological Association.

The Georgia legislature in its latest “tort reform” tried to stop anchoring by enacting OCGA § 9-10-184, which provides, “ In the trial of a civil action for personal injuries, counsel shall be allowed to argue the worth or monetary value of pain and suffering to the jury; provided, however, that any such argument shall conform to the evidence or reasonable deductions from the evidence in the case.”

In legislative debate, politicians talked about stopping lawyers from analogizing to the price of paintings and race horses. However, an experienced trial lawyer has no need to talk about such crudely irrelevant distractions. A good advocate can easily suggest to jurors a way to calculate value based on the evidence and reasonable deductions. Nearly two decades ago, I gave jurors a methodology tied to the evidence and linked to reality in their rural county through which they calculated a verdict a million dollars more than I asked for.

8. Younger Jurors View Institutions Differently

Now on the senior end of the generation gap, I have seen several times how generational shifts are real. Many younger jurors grew up during the financial crisis, corporate scandals, and rising inequality. They carry student debt. They have seen layoffs. They question concentrated power more readily.

This does not mean they are anti-business. It means they may weigh accountability differently than their parents or grandparents.

9. Transparency About Corporate Wealth

Public companies disclose executive compensation and financial performance through filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We all see news reports about individuals making billions on crypto or a tech tycoon closing in on a trillion dollars net worth, it registers. Even billboards for the lottery touting jackpots over a billion dollars feeds the idea that it could happen to them. At some level, all that registers. When jurors see astronomical CEO bonuses alongside safety violations, they calibrate verdicts accordingly.

A verdict that once seemed massive may now feel proportional.

10. Preventable Harm Sparks Moral Reaction

The most significant driver of large verdicts is not sympathy but preventability.

An impaired or fatigued trucker. A manufacturer that ignored a recall warning. A hospital that brushed aside red flags. When jurors conclude, “This did not have to happen,” damages climb. Moral judgment is powerful. It always has been but now it carries a bigger price tag.

Large verdicts do not come from thin air. They usually arise from clear liability and serious, permanent harm. Venue still matters. Facts matter more. I have seen conservative rural counties return modest verdicts in serious cases and urban juries surprise plaintiffs with restraint. But I have also seen the opposite, surprisingly adequate verdicts in the most conservative venues.

Money is the only remedy our civil system offers. Jurors know that. They cannot undo a spinal cord injury or restore a dead child. They can only assign responsibility in dollars.

After decades in the courtroom, I recognize that modern verdicts reflect modern expectations about safety, accountability, and dignity. When people on a jury believe a company or individual chose risk over safety, they are not afraid to respond firmly.

Ken Shigley, senior counsel at Johnson & Ward, Atlanta’s oldest personal injury specialty law firm, is a former president of the State Bar of Georgia. He was the first Georgia lawyer to earn three board certifications from the National Board of Trial Advocacy: Truck Accident Law, Civil Trial Practice, and Civil Pretrial Practice. He was the lead author of eleven editions of Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation and Practice, and received the Traditions of Excellence Award from the State Bar of Georgia General Practice and Trial Section. B.A., Furman University; J.D., Emory University Law School; Certificates in mediation and negotiation, Harvard Law School. He began his career as an Assistant District Attorney, then worked a decade in an insurance defense law firm before entering plaintiffs’ practice.

When my children were riding a bus to elementary school every day, like most parents I trusted the school bus driver to deliver them safely to school and back to our neighborhood. Usually that is what happens as school buses are generally considered the safest means of transporting children to and from school.

But occasionally children are seriously injured or killed in the process of being transported by school buses. We have successfully handled some of those cases.

School bus injury cases are not the same as car wreck cases. Lawyers handling those need to know the legal wrinkles unique to school bus personal injury and wrongful death cases in Georgia.

The biggest wrinkle in school bus injury cases is immunity.  Sovereign immunity, or governmental immunity, is the legal doctrine that the state (“sovereign”) is immune from civil suits unless it waives that immunity.  In Georgia, public schools have sovereign immunity from most injury claims. When we get calls about kids injured at school, about 99% of the time I have to tell folks they don’t have a case. I won’t take up space here to outline the extremely narrow exceptions for injuries at school.

Similarly, official immunity protects government officials and employees from liability for discretionary acts but not ministerial acts.

A ministerial act is one that is simple, absolute, and definite, arising under conditions admitted or proved to exist, and requiring merely the execution of a specific duty. A discretionary act, however, calls for the exercise of personal deliberation and judgment, which in turn entails examining the facts, reaching reasoned conclusions, and acting on them in a way not specifically directed.

Official immunity protects public officers acting in their official capacity from suit unless they negligently perform a ministerial duty or act with actual malice or intent to cause injury while performing a discretionary duty. While a departmental policy requiring certain actions under certain situations may convert an activity from discretionary to ministerial, the decision whether specific acts are ministerial or discretionary is determined by the facts of the particular case. If the public employee must balance multiple factors and consequences, that makes the act discretionary. Standard v. Hobbs, 263 Ga.App. 873, 589 S.E.2d 634 (2003).

Sovereign immunity and official immunity are not the same thing and often must be analyzed separately. Primas v. City of Milledgeville, 296 Ga. 584, 769 S.E.2d 326 (2015)

Generally, the task of school officials “to monitor, supervise, and control students is a discretionary action protected by the doctrine of official immunity” are discretionary and thus immune from liability. That includes virtually all issues of supervision of students. See, e.g., Payne v. Twiggs County School Dist., 232 Ga.App. 175501 S.E.2d 550127 Ed. Law Rep. 448 (1998). Qualified immunity protects individual public agents from personal liability for discretionary actions taken within the scope of their official authority, and done without wilfulness, malice, or corruption. Under Georgia law, a public officer or employee may be personally liable only for ministerial acts negligently performed or acts performed with malice or an intent to injure. The rationale for this immunity is to preserve the public employee’s independence of action without fear of lawsuits and to prevent a review of his or her judgment in hindsight.

The main exception to sovereign immunity in Georgia public schools is for injuries while a child is being transported by school bus as the legislature by statute has waived immunity for negligent use of a local government motor vehicle up to a limited dollar amount. Generally, sovereign immunity is waived with regard to injuries or deaths that arise out of negligent use of a covered motor vehicle up to either $500,000 per person and $700,000 per incident, or a higher amount if the local government entity adopts by resolution or ordinance a higher waiver, and either becomes part of an interlocal risk management agency or purchases liability insurance in such higher amount.

A 1991 amendment to Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. I, Sec. II, Par. IX extending sovereign immunity “to the state and all of its departments and agencies” includes county-wide school districts.

This sovereign immunity “can only be waived by an Act of the General Assembly which specifically provides that sovereign immunity is thereby waived and the extent of such waiver.” If a student is injured in a collision with another vehicle, then sovereign immunity is waived to the limited extent provided by statute. Coffee County School District v. King, 229 Ga.App. 143, 493 S.E.2d 563 (1997),

At least three Georgia statutes are involved in this issue.

First, O.C.G.A. § 33-24-51 provides for waiver of governmental liability “for a loss arising out of claims for the negligent use of a covered motor vehicle,” but only “to the extent of the amount of insurance so purchased.”

Second, O.C.G.A. § 36-92-2 provides for waiver of “sovereign immunity of local government entities for a loss arising out of claims for the negligent use of a covered motor vehicle” up to $500,000 for injury or death of any one person in any one occurrence, or up to $700,000 aggregate for two or more people, for incidents after January 1, 2008. Paragraph (b) provides, “The sovereign immunity of local government entities for a loss arising out of claims for the negligent use of a covered motor vehicle is waived only to the extent and in the manner provided in this chapter and only with respect to actions brought in the courts of this state.” It also provides for $50,000 limit on property damage claims.

O.C.G.A. § 36-92-2(d) further provides, “(d) The waiver provided by this chapter shall be increased to the extent that: (1) The governing body of the local governmental entity by resolution or ordinance voluntarily adopts a higher waiver; (2) The local government entity becomes a member of an interlocal risk management agency created pursuant to Chapter 85 of this title to the extent that coverage obtained exceeds the amount of the waiver set forth in this Code section; or (3) The local government entity purchases commercial liability insurance in an amount in excess of the waiver set forth in this Code section.”

Third, O.C.G.A. § 20-2-1090, provides, “The various school boards of the counties, cities, and independent school systems employing school buses are authorized and required to cause policies of insurance to be issued insuring the school children riding therein to and from school against bodily injury or death at any time resulting from an accident or collision in which such buses are involved. The amount of such insurance shall be within the discretion of the respective boards.”

So what happens if a child is injured or killed in a school bus incident that does not arise out of “negligent use of a covered motor vehicle?” This has come up in cases where a child was left for hours on a parked school bus, or was injured in an assault by another student.

Last year, in a case in which a special-needs middle school student was left locked in a school bus parked in the school’s transportation-system parking lot after school for hours, the Georgia Supreme Court has held that O.C.G.A. § 20-2-1090, which authorizes school systems to purchase insurance on school buses, does not waive sovereign immunity of a school district to the extent of such insurance. Fulton County School District v. Jenkins, 347 Ga. App. 448, 820 S.E.2d 75 (2018). Any such waiver of sovereign immunity must be express rather than implied. While other statutes expressly waive sovereign immunity to limited extent, O.C.G.A. § 20-2-1090 does not.

In scenarios arising out of negligent operation of a school bus, sovereign immunity it is waived up to the amounts set forth in O.C.G.A. § 33-24-51.Tift County School Dist. v. Martinez, 331 Ga.App. 423771 S.E.2d 117 (2015).

There have been numerous appellate court decisions deciding whether immunity was waived in specific circumstances. Here are just a few illustrative cases.

Sovereign Immunity waived:

• Loading at school and the process disembarking from buses until a child reaches the curb. DeKalb County School Dist. v. Allen, 254 Ga.App. 66, 561 S.E.2d 202 (2002).
• Child was injured attempting to cross an adjacent street just moments after disembarking from the school bus as “use” of the school bus encompassed unloading the children and assuring that they reach a place of safety which might include crossing a street while bus was “standing guard” with it lights flashing and all visual signals operating.  Georgia Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Greene,174 Ga.App. 120, 329 S.E.2d 204 (1985)

Sovereign Immunity not waived:

• One student attacked by another student shortly after they exited a school bus, as no collision or accident was involved. Rawls v. Bulloch County School District, 223 Ga.App. 234477 S.E.2d 383 (1996), certiorari denied Feb. 14, 1997. “When a student riding on a school bus suffers an injury that is not proximately caused by an accident or collision in which the bus is involved, such as when the student is injured due to an attack made by a fellow student, OCGA § 20–2–1090 is inapplicable.” Payne v. Twiggs County School Dist., 269 Ga. 361, 362(1), 496 S.E.2d 690 (1998).
• Child struck while waiting at a bus stop. Brock v. Sumter County School Bd., 246 Ga.App. 815, 542 S.E.2d 547 (2000).
• Child is struck by a car when walking home from an unauthorized drop-off site on a busy road when the bus had driven two miles away, as “use” of the bus does not encompass the school district’s route planning. Roberts v. Burke County School Dist., 267 Ga. 665, 482 S.E.2d 283 (1997).
• Grandparents boards bus without authorization to try to discuss with bus driver child’s suspension due to abusive conduct and falls getting off the bus. Hancock v. Bryan County Bd. of Educ., 240 Ga.App. 622, 522 S.E.2d 661 (1992).

If a school bus driver drops off a child at an unapproved, unsafe location, there may be waiver of immunity but not if the school district’s insurance policy defines “use” of the bus so as to exclude this. Roberts v. Burke County School Dist., 267 Ga. 665, 482 S.E.2d 283 (1997).

Thus, in evaluating injury cases arising from school bus operations, a lawyer should consider the following steps:

• Investigate the incident.
  • Get the police report.
  • Immediately send open records requests to both the law enforcement agency for any photos, video and witness statements they may have. There may have been a video on the bus.
  • Interview witnesses insofar as possible.
  • Determine what security cameras may have been in the area and obtain their recordings.
  • Since the waiver of sovereign immunity is limited, investigate possible liability of other potential parties.
• Send Open Records requests to school district for:
  • Copy of each insurance policy applicable to the bus.
  • Copy of any interlocal government risk management agreement applicable to the bus.
  • Copy of each resolution, ordinance or rule adopted setting an amount for waiver of sovereign immunity.
  • Copies of all policies and procedures regarding bus operation, maintenance, and job descriptions of personnel involved in operation and maintenance.
• Request insurance coverage information from the insurer under O.C.G.A § 33-3-28, and refer to that statute in addition to the Open Records Act in the letter to the school district.
• Review Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards
  • 571.213 Standard No. 213; Child restraint systems.
  • 571.213;49 CFR § FMVSS213Outline Safe, Ride News Publications
  • 571.225 Standard No. 225; Child restraint anchorage systems
  • 571.208 Standard No. 208; Occupant crash protection.
• Obtain and review reference materials on school bus safety.
  • Georgia Department of Education School Bus Safety Materials
  • Georgia Department of Education Transportation Rules
  • Georgia School Bus Driver Training Manual (download)
  • Georgia Commercial Drivers License Manual, Chapter 10
  • School Bus Safety Handbook
  • The School Bus Challenge CD
  • CDL Exam Secrets – Passengers & School Bus Endorsements

If you have questions about a serious injury or wrongful death to a school bus passenger in Georgia, contact us at 404-253-7862.

 is a past president of the State Bar of Georgia, past chair of the State Bar’s Tort & Insurance Practice Section, past chair of the Georgia Insurance Law Institute, past chair of the American Association for Justice Motor Vehicle Collision, Highway & Premises Liability Section, and a member of the board of governors of the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys. He is lead author of Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation & Practice (Thomson Reuters West, 2010-2018). His law practice is focused on catastrophic injury and wrongful death including those arising from commercial trucking accidents and those involving brain, neck, back, spinal cord, amputation and burn injuries. He is licensed to practice law in Georgia. Representation of clients in others states, which possible, can be undertaken only in strict compliance with the multijurisdictional practice and pro hac vice rules of the other state.

Every summer there are far too many instances of children dying when left in a hot vehicle. One such tragedy involving a child care center without adequate insurance led to a claim against a city government for negligent licensing of the child care center.

Many child care centers in Georgia have no liability insurance because child care centers in Georgia are not required to carry any specific amount of liability insurance. The regulations governing Family Child Care Learning Homes require only “notification of the absence of a liability insurance policy sufficient to protect its clients,” though the amount of insurance that would be  sufficient is never defined. The Rules for Child Care Learning Centers require only that a program seeking an  exemption from licensure “shall comply with the requirements regarding notification to parents of enrolled children if the program does not carry liability insurance.” Parents are asked to sign an acknowledgment that the center “does not carry liability insurance sufficient to protect my children in the event of an injury, etc.”

When I was chairman of the board of directors of a non-profit, church-based child development center, we carried substantial liability insurance, adopted strict policies and procedures, and installed state of the art security technology. We were a rare exception.

If a child is badly injured or killed in many Georgia child care centers, the absence of liability insurance is likely to leave the family without any effective legal recourse.

In the recent case of Calloway v. City of Warner Robins, 336 Ga.App. 714, 783 S.E.2d 175 (2016), a three-year-old child died of heat stroke when left in a hot vehicle for several hours while in the care of workers a child care center. Lacking effective recourse against the child care center and its employees, the parents included as defendants the City of Warner Robins and the city clerk for negligence in issuance of a business license without following certain procedures.

The Court of Appeals (McFadden, J.), held that the city was protected by sovereign immunity because a “municipality’s act of granting or revoking a business license constitutes a governmental function,” even if the issuance of the license was negligent.  Likewise, the city clerk who was sued only in his official capacity was protected by sovereign immunity.

From time immemorial the doctrine of sovereign immunity has restricted citizens’ rights to seek legal redress against the government for its wrongdoing. Georgia has subscribed to the doctrine of sovereign immunity since 1784, when it was adopted by statute from the common law of England. The concept of sovereign immunity is a carryover from the quaint legal fiction that “the King can do no wrong,” which survived the transition from individual absolute sovereign to representative democracy. Limiting the governmental treasury’s exposure to tort liability is the more contemporary justification for the rule.

Whatever the rationale, through most of Georgia’s history, the state enjoyed almost complete immunity for the wrongs of its agents. Sovereign immunity is recognized to be “a harsh doctrine, not an equitable one.” Indeed, it is just the opposite of equity–it is the state declaring that it cannot be sued even where it would otherwise be liable.

The extent to which governmental entities receive the protections of sovereign immunity varies, depending on the type of entity involved and the type of negligence claimed. Generally speaking, the state is subject to a broader waiver of sovereign immunity than counties and municipalities, with the prevailing law being that the state waives immunity unless liability is specifically excluded by the Georgia Tort Claims Act.

The inverse is true of counties and municipalities, which require a specific statutory waiver before they can be liable. In addition to the government’s own immunity, government officials enjoy personal immunity for their allegedly wrongful acts, referred to as official, or qualified, immunity, which is not absolute, but protects them from the burdens of liability and litigation in many circumstances.

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Ken Shigley is a past president of the State Bar of Georgia, past chair of the American Association for Justice Motor Vehicle Collision, Highway and Premises Liability Section, and a board certified civil trial attorney of the National Board of Trial Advocacy. His statewide law practice is based in Atlanta.

Only a monstrous parent would intentionally leave a child in a hot car for hours to suffer and die. While that is the allegation in a pending murder case in Georgia, even if proven true it would be aberrational.

But every summer we hear of a rash of incidents in which a distracted, multitasking parents, usually functioning outside their normal routine, forgets a child sleeping in the back seat. The results are tragic — death or brain damage due to heat stroke. On average, 37 children die in this way in the US every year.

It can happen even to loving, caring, normally competent parents who thought this could never happen to them, but then become distracted.

Why has this become a common phenomenon in recent times? It is largely due to a string on unintended consequences. During the ‘90s that laws began requiring children ride in car seats, facing toward the rear, in the back seat, where they were safer but also more easily forgotten. About the same time, cell phones proliferated, providing another source of distraction for overstressed, multitasking parents.

There have been many suggestions in the media for parents to prevent such tragedies:

• Put something in the back seat –  handbag or briefcase, cellphone or employee badge.
• Keep a brightly colored stuffed animal in the car seat, and switch it to the front passenger seat when you put the child in the car seat.
• Ask someone to call you 10 minutes after your expected arrival time to make sure you didn’t forget the child.
• Always look in the back seat when you get out of the car, just in case.
• Rig up mirrors to always have the child in view.
• Development of auto or cell phone app technologies to back up parental memories.

None of these suggestions are foolproof. When I think of the times I left my cell phone or briefcase in the car, the times I intended to call my wife at a certain time, my own fallibility in remembering to look somewhere at a certain time, I realize how vulnerable busy parents are. While it has been a long time since I had small children, and they were out of child seats by about 1993 — before child seats had to be in rear-facing in the rear and before we all carried a smart phones in our pockets — I can easily imagine having a momentary but tragic lapse of mind.

So what do I suggest? Something simple, low tech, foolproof and easily made into a habit.

When you put a child in the car, take off one of your shoes, put your cell phone in that shoe, and place it next to the child seat. You will not leave the car without the shoe, and thus not without the child, and you will not be on the cell phone while driving.

Make it a habit, each and every time you put your child in the car, and while you are totally focused on the adorable child you love so much, lovingly take off one shoe. Lovingly put it on the floor or seat by the child. Lovingly put your cell phone in the shoe.

Then no matter how long the drive, how quietly the child sleeps or how distracted you may become in thoughts about the 4,736 things on your “to do” list, when you step out of the car with one shoe off and one shoe on, you will remember to get the child out of the car. Nobody is so distracted as to walk away with one shoe. On hot summer weekends, I often drive barefoot (perfectly legal in all states and safer than driving in flipflops), but I never forget my shoes when I reach my destination; if nothing else, hot asphalt reminds me.

While we still are looking forward to the possibility of grandchildren someday, we are prepared with the shoe in the back seat trick when the time comes.

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Ken Shigley, a double board certified trial lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia. He has served as president of the State Bar of Georgia, chair of the largest practice area section of the American Association for Justice (Motor Vehicle Collision, Highway & Premises Liability Section), and chair of the Institute for Continuing Legal Education in Georgia board of trustees. He is lead author ofGeorgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation & Practice (2010-2016) and a chapter author of the 2016 edition of Handling Motor Vehicle Accident Cases, both published by Thomson Reuters.    Ken Shigley is a candidate for election to the Georgia Court of Appeals in 2018.