Although product liability claims are typically subject to a 10-year statute of repose in Georgia, this deadline doesn’t apply to negligence claims “arising out of conduct which manifests a willful, reckless, or wanton disregard for life or property.” The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia recently asked the Georgia Supreme Court to determine how “reckless” conduct is defined in O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(c).
Under that statute, the meaning closely resembles the Restatement (First) of Torts’ definition of “Reckless Disregard of Safety.” Specifically, an actor’s “conduct … manifests a … reckless … disregard for life or property,” under that Georgia statute if the actor
intentionally does an act or fails to do an act which it is his duty to the other to do, knowing or having reason to know of facts which would lead a reasonable [person] to realize that the actor’s conduct not only creates an unreasonable risk of [harm to another’s life or property] but also involves a high degree of probability that substantial harm will result to [the other’s life or property].
Background
This case arises out of a rollover accident that happened in December 2015 in Haralson County. During the accident, the roof structure (passenger side) in the crash-involved Ford Explorer intruded into the occupant compartment. The accident victim was the front seat passenger who suffered severe cervical spinal (C6/C7) fractures with spinal cord trauma. After months of rehabilitation, he was discharged to his home where he succumbed to his injuries by pneumonia. An autopsy concluded that the cause of death was acute right lung pneumonia resulting from the cervical spine trauma/quadriplegia sustained in the accident.
The plaintiffs asserted four negligence claims — negligent design, negligent manufacture, negligent sale, and negligent failure to recall. They also sought attorneys’ fees, general damages, special damages, punitive damages, and recovery for wrongful death. Ford argued that Georgia’s statute of repose barred the plaintiffs’ negligent design claims because the automaker didn’t act willfully or wantonly as a matter of law.
The federal district court held that Georgia’s statute of repose didn’t bar the plaintiffs’ negligent design claims because a jury could find that Ford’s actions were at least reckless. The federal district court noted:
The federal district court found that the plaintiffs’ evidence could support a finding that Ford acted recklessly, willfully, or wantonly when designing the subject Explorer’s roof. With respect to the plaintiffs’ other negligent design claims (stability and restraint), the [district court] found that Ford acted recklessly at most.
To reach this finding, the court applied the interpretation of § 51-1-11(c) found in the 2016 decision of Chrysler Grp., LLC v. Walden. The district court applied this Georgia Court of Appeals case because it found that the Supreme Court of Georgia hadn’t addressed whether “recklessness” was an independent exception to Georgia’s statute of repose. However, Ford asked the Supreme Court for a definition of the term in the statute.
What is “Reckless Disregard for Life or Property”
Georgia Supreme Court Justice Verda M. Colvin acknowledged in her opinion for the Court that the word “reckless” can have different meanings in different contexts. As explained in her opinion, when O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(c) was enacted, Georgia law didn’t clearly define “reckless” as that term was used in civil cases.
Justice Colvin opined that while Georgia law had not clearly defined “reckless” as that term was used in civil cases prior to O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(c)’s enactment, the Court’s precedent leading up to the statute’s enactment, together with the canons of construction, provided guidance for how to understand the word “reckless” in the statute. Georgia precedent leading up to the enactment of O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(c) indicated that the word “willful” was generally understood to refer to conduct involving an “intention to inflict [an] injury,” whereas “wanton” was understood to refer to conduct that “was so reckless or so charged with indifference to the consequences” that it was “equivalent in spirit to actual intent.”
Further, Georgia case law leading up to the statute’s enactment suggested that the word “reckless” in the statute refers to conduct that is more culpable than negligence and that is likely to cause harm. O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(c) includes the word “reckless” in a list with “willful” and “wanton,” suggesting that the three words are related, and pre-1987 Georgia precedent makes the nature of that relationship clear. Case law frequently used these three terms together when describing conduct that was more culpable than negligence and that involved a high risk of harm.
Justice Colvin explained that the Court’s historical definitions of the terms “willful” and “wanton” further suggest that the three terms — “willful,” “wanton,” and “reckless” — fall on a spectrum of culpable conduct, with willful conduct being the most culpable and reckless conduct being the least culpable. As such, the language of § 51-1-11(c) indicated that “reckless” conduct is less culpable than “willful” and “wanton” conduct, but like “willful” and “wanton” conduct, is both more culpable than “negligent” conduct and likely to cause harm.
Justice Colvin went on to explain that the broader legal context in which O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(c) was enacted supplied the remaining broad contours of a definition of “reckless” as used in the statute. Particularly relevant to the Court’s consideration of the broader legal context is the Restatement of Torts, which synthesizes legal principles commonly applied across U.S. jurisdictions.
The Restatements are not Georgia law, but when O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(c) was enacted in 1987, relying on the First and Second Restatements of Torts for relevant context in interpreting and applying Georgia law was a well-established practice in this state. The Restatement (First) of Torts provides a definition of “Reckless Disregard of Safety” that is largely consistent with how the term “reckless” had been used in Georgia civil cases leading up to O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(c)’s enactment. The Restatement defines “Reckless Disregard for Safety” as follows:
The actor’s conduct is in reckless disregard of the safety of another if he intentionally does an act or fails to do an act which it is his duty to the other to do, knowing or having reason to know of facts which would lead a reasonable man to realize that the actor’s conduct not only creates an unreasonable risk of bodily harm to the other but also involves a high degree of probability that substantial harm will result to him.
The Restatement explains that “reckless” conduct is more culpable than “negligent” conduct and involves a high risk of harm. Specifically, the Restatement states that recklessness differs from negligence in that recklessness “requires a conscious choice of a course of action either with knowledge of the serious danger to others involved in it or with knowledge of facts which would disclose this danger to any reasonable man”; and that reckless conduct “must contain a risk of harm to others in excess of that necessary to make the conduct unreasonable and therefore negligent.”
According to the Restatement, conduct can be “reckless” provided the actor “realizes or, from facts which he knows, should realize that there is a strong probability that harm may result,” and the Restatement further clarifies that “a strong probability is a different thing from the substantial certainty without which [an actor] cannot be said to intend the harm in which his act results.”
Given that the Restatement’s definition of “Reckless Disregard of Safety” describes “reckless” conduct as being more culpable than “negligent” conduct, as being less culpable than conduct deemed “intentional,” and as involving a high risk of harm, the definition is consistent with how the word “reckless” was used in Georgia civil cases leading up to O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(c) ‘s enactment.
But Justice Colvin observed that one aspect of the Restatement’s definition doesn’t fit well with § 51-1-11(c). The Restatement focuses solely on reckless disregard for safety, whereas the statute concerns “conduct which manifests a … reckless … disregard for life or property.” To give effect to the specific language of the statute, then, the legal principles underlying the Restatement’s definition of “Reckless Disregard of Safety” must be tailored to fit with the statutory phrase “life or property.” Accordingly, the Supreme Court held that an actor’s “conduct … manifests a … reckless … disregard for life or property,” under O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(c) , if the actor intentionally does an act or fails to do an act which it is his duty to the other to do, knowing or having reason to know of facts which would lead a reasonable person to realize that the actor’s conduct not only creates an unreasonable risk of harm to another’s life or property but also involves a high degree of probability that substantial harm will result to the other’s life or property.
In Walden, the Georgia Court of Appeals indirectly relied on the Restatement (First) of Torts in providing the following definition of “reckless” conduct under OCGA § 51-1-11(c):
[A] reckless act [is] an act that is “intended by the actor, [although] the actor does not intend to cause the harm which results from it. It is enough that he realize or, from facts which he knows, should realize that there is a strong probability that harm may result, even though he hopes or even expects that his conduct may prove harmless.”
Justice Colvin said that Walden’s definition of “reckless” conduct was incomplete and failed to acknowledge several important features of the definition of “reckless” we have provided above. Among other things, that definition didn’t incorporate the reasonable person standard and failed to acknowledge that recklessness involves the creation of an unreasonable and substantial risk of harm. Accordingly, Walden was disapproved to the extent that it conflicts with the definition the Supreme Court provided in this case. Ford Motor Co. v. Cosper, 317 Ga. 356, 893 S.E.2d 106 (Ga. September 19, 2023).
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