Articles Posted in Recent Tort Cases

Ante litem (before suit) notice is a trapdoor through which many tort claims against government fall to their doom. In Shelnutt v. DOT, decided 3/10/05, it happened again. The plaintiffs, represented by out of state counsel, sent ante litem notice under the State Tort Claims Act to the Commissioner of the Department of Administrative Services…

Affirming a ruling by the late Judge Rowland Barnes, who was murdered in his courtroom a few weeks ago, the Court of Appeals has held that the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) is not subject to punitive damages. Ironically, the case arose from a brutal assault at the Lindbergh MARTA station, for which the…

In Marrale v. Gwinnett Place Ford, the Court of Appeals helped to clear up some earlier case law that had treated used car sales at dealerships as “private transactions” outside the scope of the Fair Business Practices Act FBPA). Consumers and their lawyers who seek to use the FBPA should carefully review this case, and…

Two cases decided in November 2004 help to clarify the often befuddling concept legal doctrine of “proximate cause” in Georgia jury instructions. In John Crane Inc. v. Jones, 278 Ga. 747, 604 S.E.2d 822 (2004), the Supreme Court of Georgia held that it is error to charge that each of multiple defendants must have been…