So What Happens After Resident Defendant Gets Out?

Senate Bill 3 amended 9-10-31 to bring back a “vanishing venue” rule as follows:
(d) If all defendants who reside in the county in which an action is pending are discharged from liability before or upon the return of a verdict by the jury or the court hearing the case without a jury, a nonresident defendant may require that the case be transferred to a county and court in which venue would otherwise be proper. If venue would be proper in more than one county, the plaintiff may elect from among the counties in which venue is proper the county and the court in which the action shall proceed.
However, this does not say that a verdict obtained in the first county is a nullity, or that the case must be retried. The plaintiff’s attorney may simply move to enter judgment on that verdict in the second county. Of course, the defendant who is a resident of the second county may move for a new trial or for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and with defendants who are pillars of the community in smaller counties the potential for judicial “home cooking” by locally elected judges is obvious.

The Shigley Law Firm represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide in Georgia, and in other states subject to the multijurisdictional practice and pro hac vice rules in each state. Ken Shigley was designated as a “SuperLawyer” in Atlanta Magazine and one of the “Legal Elite” in Georgia Trend Magazine. He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, Chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Liability Institute and former chair of the Georgia Insurance Law Institute. He particularly focuses on cases arising from truck wrecks and accidents (tractor trailers truck wrecks, semi truck wrecks,18 wheeler truck wrecks, big rig truck wrecks, log truck wrecks, dump truck wrecks).