What Does a Pretrial Order Mean in an Auto Accident Case?
After a motorist was injured in an auto accident in 2019, he and his wife filed separate suits against the other driver. The cases were consolidated for trial, and the jury awarded the plaintiffs $311,000, which the trial court later reduced based on amounts the plaintiffs had already received from insurance. The plaintiffs appealed, arguing that the trial court abused its discretion by denying their motions to amend the consolidated pre-trial order.
Background
The plaintiff was injured in a head-on collision for which the other driver was at fault. The accident shattered the plaintiff’s left ankle and damaged his knee. He required surgery and physical therapy, but later started to develop osteoarthritis in the left knee, and he never fully returned to pre-accident status. The plaintiff was self-employed and, as a result of the accident, he lost income and had to hire someone to assist him.
The plaintiff filed an action against the other driver and served his uninsured/underinsured motorist insurance carrier, State Farm, alleging negligence and seeking punitive damages. The other driver was insured with Progressive. He settled his claims against Progressive and executed a limited release, which included his punitive damages claim. Two years later, in a separate suit, the plaintiff’s wife sought loss of consortium and punitive damages. The plaintiff and his wife moved to consolidate their cases for trial.
State Farm moved for partial summary judgment as to punitive damages, and the parties entered into a consent order agreeing that there would be no recovery against State Farm for punitive damages. This consent order specifically stated: “the parties agree that there shall be no recovery by the plaintiffs of UM/UIM benefits/payments from State Farm’s available coverage as to Plaintiffs’ claims against Defendant for punitive damages and attorney’s fees and expenses of litigation”
On September 7, 2023, after the parties completed discovery, the trial court entered a consolidated pre-trial order (“PTO”), identifying the negligence claims for trial. The Order listed a claim for actual damages, but not punitive damages.
A few weeks before trial, the plaintiffs moved to amend the PTO, claiming that they needed to clarify the admission of certain evidence and witnesses. Specifically, the plaintiffs sought to add claims of willful and wanton conduct based on the following:
- Allegations that the other driver was driving under the influence;
- Evidence as to the curb weight of the two vehicles involved in the accident; and
- Evidence of the other driver’s toxicology reports to show he was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident.
They again didn’t list punitive damages in their request to amend the PTO, but they did propose a verdict form that set out damages to the plaintiff and his wife individually, and they removed any reference to the deduction for amounts previously paid. After a hearing, the trial court rejected the plaintiffs’ arguments and denied the motion.
In February 2024, the plaintiffs filed a second motion to amend the PTO. This time, they asserted that the Order should be amended to include testimony of the curb weight of the vehicles and financial testimony from the employee the plaintiff hired to handle tasks he was unable to perform during his recovery; and to reflect the plaintiff’s wife’s claim for punitive damages against the other driver, including evidence that the other driver was driving under the influence.
During a hearing on the motion, the plaintiffs asserted that only the plaintiff waived his claim for punitive damages—his wife had not. They also explained that the curb weight evidence was necessary to show the force of the impact. The trial court denied the motion, noting that punitive damages hadn’t been identified in the initial PTO. The trial court noted that the original PTO had been negotiated by the parties, and the plaintiffs hadn’t shown why the revisions could not have been presented earlier. After trial, the plaintiffs appealed.
The Court of Appeals Affirms
The plaintiffs argued that the trial court abused its discretion by denying their motions to amend the PTO because delay alone is insufficient to support a denial. The plaintiff’s wife had claimed punitive damages in her complaint, meaning there was no prejudice to the defendants to amend the PTO to include punitive damages. Finally, justice required allowing them to amend the PTO. They further argued that the trial court abused its discretion when it denied their second motion to amend the PTO because the evidence was relevant to rebut testimony of lost wages and to explain the relevance of curb weight to the jury. The Court of Appeals concluded that there was no abuse of discretion in the denial of either motion.
Under the Civil Practice Act, Judge Markle explained that the pretrial order controls the subsequent course of the action unless modified at the trial to prevent manifest injustice. Judge Markle explained that the purpose of the PTO is to limit the claims, contentions, defenses, and evidence to be presented at trial. In 1998, the Court of Appeals stated:
Once a pretrial order is entered, a party may not amend without leave of court or consent of the opposite party. In passing upon the issue of whether to allow an amendment, the trial court considers if permitting such amendment would prevent manifest injustice and in doing so it is clothed with a broad discretion with which the appellate courts are loath to interfere … In the absence of a viable claim of surprise or unfairness, a trial court’s refusal to amend a pretrial order is not an abuse of discretion. The Georgia Supreme Court has emphasized the vital role of the pretrial order in ensuring an efficient and expeditious trial, as well as the duty imposed on each party to assist the trial court in preparing a pretrial order that accurately identifies the real issues in the case … [I]f pretrial orders are to continue to serve their laudable purposes, courts and litigants must take them seriously. A final pretrial order should say what it means, and mean what it says.
If a claim or issue is omitted from the order, it’s waived.
In evaluating a motion to amend a PTO, the trial court must balance possible unfair prejudice to the nonmoving party with the movant’s reasons for delay. The Court of Appeals has held that a trial court abuses its discretion when it denies leave to amend a PTO based solely on the trial calendar. But there’s no abuse of discretion where a party seeks to add issues that are irrelevant to the pending claims or doing so would prejudice the opposing party.
In the first motion to amend the PTO, the plaintiffs sought to add claims of willful and wanton conduct related to the other driver’s alleged driving while intoxicated; to introduce evidence of the vehicles’ curb weight and the other driver’s toxicology reports; and to amend the verdict form.
Importantly, evidence related to willful and wanton conduct, such as the toxicology reports, wasn’t relevant to the issues at trial because the trial court had previously entered a consent order granting summary judgment to State Farm on the issue of punitive damages. In that order, the plaintiffs expressly agreed that there would be no recovery from State Farm as to their claims for punitive damages. Allowing the plaintiffs to change their theory of the case from negligence to wanton and willful conduct, and to pursue a claim that they failed to assert in the initial order, would have resulted in prejudice to the other driver and State Farm, Judge Markle opined. Moreover, the plaintiffs didn’t demonstrate the failure to include these claims in the original PTO was the result of surprise or unfairness. Rather, it was an error of their own making.
Nor did the trial court abuse its discretion in denying the motion to amend to correct the verdict form because there was nothing improper in the original verdict form. As a result, the trial court didn’t abuse its discretion by denying the motion to amend.
As to the second motion to amend, the plaintiffs again attempted to introduce evidence of the curb weight of the vehicles, along with testimony from the employee whom the plaintiff had hired to assist while he recovered. They also argued that the plaintiff’s wife’s claim for punitive damages against the other driver wasn’t subject to the agreement concerning punitive damages sought against State Farm. However, the Court found that the plaintiffs failed to show why they were unable to raise these claims at the time of the original PTO or even in the first motion to amend the PTO. Rather, the plaintiffs’ counsel admitted at the hearing that there was no reason the information he sought to include in the second motion could not have been raised earlier.
Moreover, the jury was able to view photographs of the cars involved and could see for themselves the difference in size. Curb weight testimony was unnecessary. The plaintiffs were also able to present evidence of the assistant the plaintiff hired, and the testimony confirmed that he was hired to handle the tasks the plaintiff was unable to do post-accident. The employee’s testimony would have been cumulative and, therefore, there was no abuse of discretion in denying a motion to amend the PTO to include this evidence.
In the PTO, the plaintiffs expressly requested that “the amounts paid [by State Farm] be deducted from any verdict obtained by [them].” There was no abuse of discretion in precluding the plaintiffs from amending the PTO. Having received precisely what they requested, they cannot now complain of error, Judge Markle wrote. The judgment was affirmed. Bryant v. Dolloff, 2026 Ga. App. LEXIS 109 *; 2026 LX 75033 (Ga. App. February 25, 2026).
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