When Is a Motorist at Fault for Failing to Get Out of the Way of an Emergency Vehicle?
In this lawsuit arising from a three-vehicle collision, a motorist sued a semitruck driver and his employer for negligence, negligence per se, and negligent hiring, training, and supervision.
Coke Commuter Crashes
At 3am on July 16, 2019, a truck driver was driving a tractor-trailer as in his job with Coca-Cola on State Road 316 in Gwinnett. As he was driving, he merged into the left of two westbound lanes to pass a Kia Forte being driven by the plaintiff in the right westbound lane. While the truck driver was trying to pass the plaintiff’s car, a Gwinnett County police car approached him from behind with its lights and siren on. The police officer was responding to an emergency. The truck driver said that once he noticed the police vehicle’s emergency lights behind him, he signaled and tried to merge back into the right lane. However, he couldn’t because the plaintiff also started to slow down and was traveling next to him at a similar speed. There was no shoulder for the truck driver to merge into on the left side. The officer testified that he saw the truck driver’s brake lights as he approached, but he couldn’t recall if the truck driver turned on his right turn signal.
Soon after, the plaintiff moved her car to the right of her lane while the tractor-trailer moved to the left of his lane. The officer said that because he thought the plaintiff was going to move all the way onto the shoulder, he tried to drive between the truck and the plaintiff’s vehicle. As the officer was driving between the two vehicles, the plaintiff came back into her lane, and the police vehicle hit the other vehicles. At this point, the plaintiff momentarily lost consciousness. The tractor-trailer never made contact with the plaintiff’s car. She testified that she knew that the patrol car hit her car, but she didn’t know how the accident happened. The truck driver wasn’t cited as a result of the collision.
The plaintiff sued the officer, the county, Coca-Cola Bottling Company, and the truck driver seeking damages for injuries she sustained in the collision. She asserted claims of negligence and negligence per se against the truck driver and the officer.
Coca-Cola argued that there was no evidence the truck driver breached any applicable standard of care, or that any negligence attributable to the truck driver or Coca-Cola caused the accident. Thus, without a causal connection, the plaintiff’s claims failed. The trial court reasoned that the plaintiff’s claims were premised on imputed liability for the truck driver’s alleged negligence because he was acting within the scope of his employment at the time of the collision and denied Coca-Cola’s motion for summary judgment.
On appeal, Coca-Cola contended that it was entitled to summary judgment on the plaintiff’s claim for negligence because there was insufficient evidence showing that the truck driver’s actions breached a duty owed to the plaintiff or proximately caused the collision.
Court of Appeals Reverses
Chief Judge E. Trenton Brown, III, wrote in his opinion for the Court of Appeals that to state a cause of action for negligence in Georgia, a plaintiff must show four elements: a duty, a breach of that duty, causation and damages. Negligence can’t be presumed, but must be proved. In the absence of affirmative proof of negligence, the court must presume performance of duty and that there was no negligence. As such, the mere occurrence of an unfortunate event isn’t enough to infer negligence.
Coca-Cola argued that there was no evidence demonstrating that the truck driver breached any duty by driving in the left-hand lane or failing to yield to the police car by merging right, and thus any claims for imputed liability against it must fail. In response, the plaintiff argued that the truck driver had a duty to yield to the officer’s vehicle under O.C.G.A. § 40-6-74, which requires drivers to yield the right of way to an emergency vehicle. In relevant part, O.C.G.A. § 40-6-74(a) provides:
Upon the immediate approach of an authorized emergency vehicle … making use of an audible signal and visual signals …, the driver of every other vehicle shall yield the right of way and shall immediately drive to a position parallel to, and as close as possible to, the right-hand edge or curb of the roadway clear of any intersection and shall stop and remain in such position until the authorized emergency vehicle or law enforcement vehicle has passed.
However, the Court of Appeals has held that a driver violates § 40-6-74 only if the “fundamental element” of this statute has been met, namely, that the defendant obstructed the roadway and prevented the officer from passing him.
Here, Chief Judge Brown said that the plaintiff didn’t provide any evidence to prove that the truck driver breached a duty by violating § 40-6-74(a) when he failed to merge into an occupied right-hand lane before the collision. The truck driver cited evidence showing that it was impossible for him to move to the right-hand lane to yield to the officer’s vehicle prior to the collision and that, instead, he tried to yield to the officer by moving as far left into his lane as possible to provide space for the police vehicle to get through. The judge found that the evidence was undisputed that, as soon as the truck driver noticed the police lights and sirens behind him, he braked and signaled in an effort to merge right. However, he couldn’t merge into the right-hand lane before the collision happened because the plaintiff continued to travel at the same speed in the next lane. The plaintiff’s testimony confirmed this, and she admitted that she kept pace with the truck driver from the time she first saw the emergency lights until immediately before impact. The officer’s testimony confirmed that it wouldn’t have been possible for the truck driver to merge into the right lane without colliding with the plaintiff.
The plaintiff didn’t cite to any relevant legal authority demonstrating that a driver violates O.C.G.A. § 40-6-74 by failing to pull over into the right-hand edge of the roadway when the traffic conditions make it impossible to do so. In fact, it was the plaintiff’s failure to give way to the truck driver as the overtaking vehicle in the left lane in violation of § 40-6-42(1) and her failure to yield by merging to the right shoulder in compliance with § 40-6-74(a) that made it impossible for the truck driver to immediately yield to the patrol car behind him.
In a 2019 decision, the Court of Appeals held that for a driver to have violated O.C.G.A. § 40-6-74, he or she must have “obstructed the roadway, thereby preventing an emergency vehicle from proceeding upon its route in pursuit of a fleeing suspect or other emergency.” Thus, in that case, the Court held that a motorist who passed a patrol car with flashing lights in the far right lane of a three-lane road didn’t obstruct the patrol car in violation of § 40-6-74 because the patrol car had two empty lanes to use. Similarly, here, the evidence showed that the truck driver didn’t violate O.C.G.A. § 40-6-74 by failing to merge onto the right-hand edge of the roadway when that lane was occupied by the plaintiff. Once the truck driver saw that it would be impossible to merge to the right-hand lane or the edge of the road, he tried to move as far left as he could in his current lane to enable the officer to pass. Accordingly, the truck driver didn’t violate O.C.G.A. § 40-6-74, the Court concluded.
The Court found that the plaintiff failed to point to specific evidence creating a material issue of fact for the jury’s determination as to the truck driver’s breach of any duty of care by failing to yield to the patrol car or by otherwise driving unsafely. Indeed, the evidence was “plain, palpable, and indisputable” that the truck driver didn’t breach a duty by failing to merge into the right-hand lane that was occupied by the plaintiff. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. United, Inc. v. Lewis, 2026 Ga. App. LEXIS 360 *; 2026 LX 343868 (Ga. App. June 30, 2026).
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