Are Traffic Violations Evidence of Bad Faith in an Auto Accident Case?
The Georgia Supreme Court recently heard the appeal of the Court of Appeals’ determination that evidence of a party’s violations of traffic laws was enough to create a jury question as to whether that party acted in bad faith for purposes of authorizing an award of expenses of litigation under O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11.
Background
Early in the morning of November 13, 2019, two vehicles were traveling in stop-and-go traffic on I-20 in DeKalb County. The plaintiff was driving his 2011 Chevrolet Silverado truck, and the defendant followed closely behind him in a 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe. As they drove along I-20, traffic slowed ahead, and the plaintiff hit his brakes and stopped his vehicle, but the defendant rammed the plaintiff from behind.
Just prior to impact, the plaintiff looked in his rearview mirror and saw that the defendant would be unable to stop. Although he couldn’t see the defendant inside his vehicle (and so he couldn’t tell what the defendant was doing right before the accident), he believed he was distracted because he was “coming pretty fast” when other vehicles had already stopped. Moreover, there was evidence that in the 20 minutes the defendant spent driving that morning, he continuously made and received phone calls on his cellphone.
The plaintiff’s truck was damaged, and he sustained injuries to his back and knee which required a hospital visit and subsequent medical care. The defendant was cited by police for following too closely and later pleaded guilty to that offense. In the aftermath, the plaintiff sought compensatory and punitive damages and expenses of litigation under O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11, which provides:
The expenses of litigation generally shall not be allowed as a part of the damages; but where the plaintiff has specially pleaded and has made prayer therefor and where the defendant has acted in bad faith, has been stubbornly litigious, or has caused the plaintiff unnecessary trouble and expense, the jury may allow them.
The defendant moved for partial summary judgment on the O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11 claim, arguing that there was no evidence that he acted in bad faith. However, the trial court denied his motion, ruling that there was evidence sufficient to create a jury question as to bad faith. That evidence, according to the trial court, consisted of the defendant’s cell phone records that purported to show that he was using his cell phone during or right before the collision, along with the plaintiff’s testimony that the defendant “looked distracted right before the collision.” This was despite the fact that the trial court also noted that the defendant testified that his vehicle was equipped with Bluetooth, a hands-free technology for talking on a cell phone.
The defendant testified that his truck was equipped with Bluetooth, that his cell phone was in a “phone mount” and was connected to Bluetooth at the time of the collision. He thus filed a motion to strike his cell phone records and certain documents that the plaintiff said showed that the defendant’s vehicle wasn’t equipped with hands-free technology. The trial court denied the defendant’s motion as to the cell phone records but granted it as to the documents. He didn’t appeal the ruling denying his motion to strike the cell phone records, and the plaintiff didn’t appeal the ruling granting the motion to strike the documents.
The trial court also denied the defendant’s motion for partial summary judgment on the claims that he was driving too fast for conditions, driving while distracted, driving recklessly, and failing to exercise due care. However, the trial court didn’t rely on the facts supporting those claims in finding a genuine issue of material fact as to bad faith.
The defendant appealed the trial court’s ruling denying his motion as to whether there was evidence that he acted in bad faith sufficient to support a claim for expenses of litigation under O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11. In affirming, the Court of Appeals stated that “indicative of whether a party acts in good or bad faith in a given transaction is ‘his abiding by or failing to comply with a public law made for the benefit of the opposite party, or enacted for the protection of the latter’s legal rights.’” The Court of Appeals opined that the trial court had concluded that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the defendant was using hands-free technology or whether he violated Georgia’s hands-free law, by failing to do so. However, that court didn’t address whether the trial court erred in that determination. Instead, the Court of Appeals relied on the fact that the defendant pleaded guilty to following too closely and noted the plaintiff’s argument at trial and on appeal “that there is evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact on multiple potential violations of Georgia traffic laws.”
The Supreme Court Reverses
Chief Justice Michael P. Boggs of the Georgia Supreme Court wrote that the only issue in this appeal was the Court of Appeals’ ruling that there was evidence sufficient to support a claim for litigation expenses under O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11 based on the defendant’s bad faith.
The term “bad faith” isn’t defined in O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11 or elsewhere in that title of the Georgia Statutes. Nevertheless, the justice explained that the language used in § 13-6-11, or language virtually identical to it, has been a part of Georgia law since the Code of 1860. There is a wealth of case law interpreting the phrase “bad faith” in O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11 and its statutory predecessors, the justice wrote, although the Court hadn’t previously provided a precise definition of that phrase. But Justice Boogs stated that the court need not provide a precise definition here because a review of cases applying this provision provided sufficient and consistent parameters as to the scope of conduct that has been held to demonstrate “bad faith” or that has been excluded from that definition.
Applying that caselaw, the Justice said that the type of conduct in the underlying transaction that will support a claim for “bad faith” expenses of litigation in a tort action requires conduct that is generally indicative of intentional wrongdoing or of a reckless disregard of known harmful consequences and must be more than mere negligence.
Georgia cases have consistently described the type of conduct that is sufficient to support a claim for bad-faith expenses of litigation as intentional, wanton, reckless, or at least indicative of a conscious indifference to the consequences. While at one end of the spectrum, intentional or egregious misconduct will often be enough to support a claim for expenses of litigation based on bad faith—at the other end, courts have rejected the idea that mere negligence constitutes bad faith for purposes of awarding attorney fees. Bad faith isn’t demonstrated by mere negligence, the Justice opined, and the Court of Appeals has similarly held that mere negligence or bad judgment is insufficient to show bad faith for purposes of O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11.
Justice Boggs and the Supreme Court then considered whether the Court of Appeals’ reasoning was consistent with court precedent. Again, the Court of Appeals held that a way to show bad faith would be to demonstrate a party’s “failing to comply with a public law made for the benefit of the opposite party, or enacted for the protection of the latter’s legal rights,” and that violations of traffic laws would meet this standard.
Is Following Too Closely Evidence of Bad Faith?
Justice Boggs found that the plaintiff pointed to no evidence in the record that showed the defendant’s conduct in following too closely, to which he pleaded guilty, or his potential violations of other strict liability traffic laws was accompanied by an intent to injure, or done in a manner indicative of the sort of consciousness of wrongdoing or a similar culpable state of mind that has been held previously to support a claim for bad faith under O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11. Instead, the evidence showed that the defendant was driving approximately 25 to 30 mph—well below the speed limit on the interstate highway, in stop-and-go traffic at rush hour, and that he applied his brakes before colliding with the plaintiff, who’d stopped ahead of him.
Additionally, under the plaintiff’s theory that the defendant was distracted because he was talking on his cell phone, Justice Boggs opined that every automobile accident case involving cell phone use would present a jury question as to bad faith simply because the driver could have been distracted by a phone call. Such a scenario generally, he reasoned, would raise, at most, an issue of negligence. Furthermore, an interpretation of O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11 that permits the award of litigation expenses in all negligence cases would conflict with the language of the statute that “[t]he expenses of litigation generally shall not be allowed as a part of the damages.”
Given this unambiguous prefatory statement, an interpretation of “bad faith” that would routinely allow the award of such damages based on merely negligent conduct would not be consistent with the statutory language, and in fact would contradict it. Thus, the Supreme Court rejected any interpretation of “bad faith” that would allow expenses of litigation to be awarded in routine negligence cases.
The Supreme Court concluded that the analysis of the Court of Appeals was inconsistent with the proper interpretation of “bad faith” under O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11 and that applying the correct standard, there was insufficient evidence of bad faith to submit the issue to the jury. As a result, the decision of the Court of Appeals was reversed. Love v. McKnight, 2025 Ga. LEXIS 48, 2025 WL 676631(Ga. March 4, 2025).
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