When Will a Court Grant a Motion for a New Trial in a Truck Accident Case?
The defendant was driving a dump truck owned by his company when he drove into the back of a car driven by the plaintiff. She and her husband filed a lawsuit against the defendant and his company, seeking damages for her injuries and her husband’s loss of consortium.
The case went to trial, and the jury returned a defense verdict. After the trial court denied the plaintiff’s motion for a new trial, she filed this appeal.
The plaintiff argued that the defense verdict was contrary to the evidence and that the trial court erred by failing to give their requested jury instruction on the issue of causation.
Background of the truck driver admitting he caused the crash
The defendant admitted that he struck the plaintiff’s car while he was driving a fully loaded dump truck at a very low speed. The issue at trial was damages.
After the crash, the plaintiff made several trips to the emergency room and visits to health care providers, seeking treatment for pain in her lower back, legs, right side, and neck. Eventually, she sought treatment from an orthopedic surgeon, who gave her injections for pain. The injections gave temporary relief, but they didn’t correct the problem, so she opted for surgery to relieve the pain in her neck. She underwent a second surgery four months later to relieve numbness, tingling, and pain in her back. Although the surgeries helped, the plaintiff was still in pain.
The defense presented expert testimony that the plaintiff’s neck pain was unrelated to the collision and that her back surgery was unnecessary.
Court of Appeals: if the trial court exercised its discretion, the plaintiff failed to show reversible error.
Presiding Judge Christopher J. McFadden wrote that the plaintiff argued that the trial court erred in denying their motion for a new trial on the general grounds, and specifically on the ground that the verdict was strongly against the weight of the evidence. They argued that “the trial court’s disregard of … crucial and dispositive matters of evidence clearly takes this case out of the realm of discretion, and demands a new trial in accordance with the principles of justice and equity.”
On the contrary, whether to grant a new trial on the general grounds is a decision left to the sole discretion of the trial court, the judge explained. The plaintiff didn’t argue that the trial court failed to exercise its discretion under the general grounds, and the Court of Appeals lacks the authority to substitute its discretion for that of the trial court.
The record didn’t show that the trial court failed to exercise its discretion, Judge McFadden said. As a result, the plaintiff failed to show reversible error.
The plaintiff also argued that the trial court erred by refusing to give one of their requested jury charges. However, she didn’t shown substantial error that was harmful as a matter of law, as she was required to do since she didn’t object after the trial court instructed the jury.
At the charge conference, the trial court judge stated that she intended to give her own proximate cause charge. The plaintiff’s theory of the case was that the relatively minor injury the defendants admitted causing foreseeably resulted in medical malpractice (the unnecessary surgeries). So they requested that, instead, the trial court give the following charge:
A negligent actor is liable not only for the injury caused by his own acts, but is also liable for any additional harm resulting from the manner in which reasonably required medical services are rendered. … The defendants may be liable not only for damages resulting from his negligent act, but also for all damages resulting from the improper or unskillful treatment of the injuries by the physician.
The defendants also objected to the court’s proposed charge on the ground that it was incomplete. The trial court said that she would look at both parties’ proposed charges, but as of that point, she intended to give the court’s proximate cause charge.
The plaintiff raised the issue again later in the charge conference, arguing that the defendant was liable “not only for damages relative directly but also for all damages relative for the improper unskillful treatment of the injuries; which means you can say it’s unnecessary or negligent surgeries.”
The trial court noted their objection, but again declined to give their requested charge.
After the defense presented their case, the plaintiff renewed her request for the charge. But the trial court didn’t alter her decision, and ultimately instructed the jury on proximate causation as follows:
An injury or damage is proximately caused by an act or a failure to act whenever it appears from the evidence that the act or failure to act played a substantial part in bringing about or actually causing the injury or damage; and that the injury or damage was either a direct result or reasonable probable consequence of the act or omission. In order to be a proximate cause, the act or omission must be such that a person using ordinary care would have foreseen that the event or some similar event might reasonably result, therefrom. There may be more than one proximate cause of an event.
The transcript didn’t show that the plaintiff objected after the trial court finished instructing the jury.
Judge McFadden noted that an objection voiced at the charge conference doesn’t preserve for ordinary appellate review a party’s objection to the charge as subsequently given. Instead, under O.C.G.A. § 5-5-24(a), “in all civil cases, no party may complain of the giving or the failure to give an instruction to the jury unless he objects thereto before the jury returns its verdict, stating distinctly the matter to which he objects and the grounds of his objection.”
As a consequence, to preserve an objection to a jury charge for ordinary appellate review, the defendant must restate his objection after the court gives its instructions and before the jury retires to deliberate.
That said, the appellate court considers and reviews erroneous charges where there’s been a substantial error in the charge that was harmful as a matter of law, regardless of whether objection was made hereunder or not. “Instances falling within the exception contemplated in O.C.G.A. § 5-5-24(c) are very rare, and the subsection must be strictly construed so as to avoid emasculation of the provisions of subsections (a) and (b),” the judge wrote quoting an earlier case.
To warrant relief under O.C.G.A. § 5-5-24(c), the alleged error “must be a substantial one which is blatantly apparent and prejudicial. The alleged error must raise a question as to whether the appellant has been deprived of a fair trial.
In this case, given the trial court’s thorough instruction on proximate cause, the Court of Appeals said it could not agree that the failure to give the requested instruction constituted an error — if error it was — of such magnitude as to require reversal of the judgment below.
The judgment was affirmed. Castleberry v. Steib, 2026 Ga. App. LEXIS 428 *; 2026 LX 441928 (Ga. App. September 3, 2026)
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