Georgia SB 68 Tort Reform and Car Accident Claims

On April 21, 2025, Georgia enacted Senate Bill 68, the most comprehensive revision to the state’s civil-litigation framework in two decades, and it bears directly on how car accident cases are valued, litigated, and settled. For an accident occurring on or after that date, the statute governs the case; for an earlier accident, several provisions still reach a pending lawsuit retroactively. The effective-date rules are not uniform, and getting them right is essential, because the same statute applies different triggers to different provisions. This guide provides an overview of SB 68’s impact on Georgia car accident claims, summarizing each major provision, its correct citation, and its effective-date trigger, and references the related topics that treat individual provisions in depth.

What Changed and What Stayed the Same

SB 68 did not alter the personal-injury statute of limitations (still two years under OCGA 9-3-33), the modified comparative-negligence 50%-or-more bar (OCGA 51-12-33), the four elements of negligence, or the minimum-coverage requirements (OCGA 40-6-10). Those foundations remain intact. What SB 68 changed is how damages are calculated and argued, how trials may be structured, how defendants can challenge cases procedurally, and what evidence about a plaintiff’s physical condition is admissible.

Effective-Date Rules

The triggers differ by provision. The phantom-damages medical-billing reform (OCGA 51-12-1.1) applies only to causes of action arising on or after April 21, 2025, keyed to the accident date, so an accident on April 20, 2025, remains under the prior collateral-source rule for medical damages while an accident on April 22, 2025, is under the new rule. The seatbelt-evidence provision (OCGA 40-8-76.1) applies to actions commenced on or after April 21, 2025, keyed to the filing date, so a 2024 accident filed after the effective date is subject to the new seatbelt rule. The remaining provisions, the noneconomic-damages anchoring limits, the bifurcation option, the motion-to-dismiss discovery stay, the voluntary-dismissal limit, and the no-double-recovery fee rule, apply retroactively to all pending and future cases regardless of accident date.

Phantom Damages: Medical-Damage Calculations

Before SB 68, Georgia’s collateral-source rule generally kept juries from seeing what a plaintiff’s health insurance actually paid for treatment. A hospital might bill $80,000 for a surgery while the plaintiff’s insurer paid $18,000 in full satisfaction, with the $62,000 difference written off; under the prior rule the jury saw only the $80,000 figure, and the gap was what critics called phantom damages.

Under OCGA 51-12-1.1, for causes of action arising on or after April 21, 2025, a defendant may introduce evidence of the amount actually necessary to satisfy the charges, meaning what was actually paid by or on behalf of the plaintiff, and the jury determines the reasonable value of the treatment using both the billed and the paid figures. Neither number controls automatically, but the practical effect tends to be directional: seeing the paid amount tends to move awards toward it. Because noneconomic damages are sometimes argued from a base tied to medical specials, a reduced medical baseline can ripple through a valuation. The detailed mechanism, including the insured-versus-uninsured asymmetry and the impact on Letters of Protection, is addressed in the discussion of how SB 68 changed medical-damage calculations.

Limits on Noneconomic-Damages Arguments

Under the amended OCGA 9-10-184, a noneconomic-damages figure argued to a jury must be rationally related to the evidence of noneconomic damages, and references to unrelated benchmarks, such as professional-athlete earnings or the value of art or luxury goods, are restricted. A further constraint concerns consistency between opening and closing: a specific dollar amount suggested for noneconomic damages must align with what was stated earlier, so a new figure cannot be introduced for the first time in closing.

The practical consequence is that once a figure is committed early, the defense can spend the trial attacking that specific number, while hedging to avoid committing can limit the ability to argue a specific figure later. The expected effect is downward pressure on noneconomic awards. This provision applies retroactively to all pending and future cases. The anchoring limits are among the provisions facing constitutional challenge, discussed below.

Seatbelt Evidence Is Now Admissible

For decades, Georgia barred evidence of seatbelt non-use in civil cases. SB 68 superseded that rule. Under OCGA 40-8-76.1, non-use of a seatbelt is now admissible on negligence, causation, comparative fault, and apportionment, subject to a court’s discretion to exclude evidence whose probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. (Adult seatbelt admissibility is governed by OCGA 40-8-76.1; child-restraint requirements are addressed separately under OCGA 40-8-76, a distinct statute.)

The practical impact runs on two tracks. On comparative fault, the defense may argue that not wearing a seatbelt reflected a failure to exercise reasonable care, increasing the plaintiff’s fault percentage and reducing recovery proportionally. On causation, the defense may argue, often through biomechanical testimony, that injuries would have been less severe with a seatbelt. Experience from other jurisdictions suggests seatbelt non-use can add meaningful comparative fault in some cases, with reported figures varying widely; in a Georgia case near the 50% bar, even a modest allocation can be decisive. This provision applies to actions commenced on or after April 21, 2025, keyed to the filing date. The full seatbelt analysis is addressed in the discussion of the seatbelt defense in Georgia.

Bifurcation: Split Trials

Under OCGA 51-12-15, enacted by SB 68, either party in a bodily-injury or wrongful-death case may demand a bifurcated trial by written demand before the pretrial order, and the court is generally required to grant it. In the liability phase, the same jury decides who was at fault and in what percentages without hearing evidence of injury severity or the dollar amount of damages; if the defendant is found liable, the same jury then hears the compensatory-damages evidence. Where punitive damages are at issue, they are addressed in a further phase, because Georgia generally requires a compensatory award as a predicate for punitive damages.

A court may decline the bifurcation demand only in defined circumstances: where the amount in controversy is less than $150,000, or where the case involves a victim of a sexual offense who would suffer significant distress from testifying more than once. The rationale defendants offer is that separating the liability finding from emotionally powerful damages evidence, photographs of injuries, testimony about daily suffering, family testimony, tends to produce more detached fault determinations. This provision applies retroactively to all pending and future cases. The mechanics of bifurcated trials are addressed in the discussion of jury trials in Georgia.

The Discovery Stay

Under SB 68, a defendant may file a motion to dismiss in lieu of an answer, and the filing automatically stays discovery while the court considers the motion. Under the amended framework in OCGA 9-11-12, the stay continues until the court rules; if no ruling issues within 90 days, a party may move to modify or lift the stay for good cause.

The non-obvious consequence is that time-sensitive evidence keeps degrading on its natural schedule during the stay: dashcam footage is often overwritten within 24 to 72 hours, business surveillance systems typically cycle within 7 to 30 days, event-data-recorder (black box) data can be lost when a vehicle is repaired or scrapped, and witness memory fades. The practical response is to send evidence-preservation (spoliation) demand letters to all relevant parties before or simultaneously with filing, and such a demand can be sent before suit is filed because it does not depend on an active case. The mechanics of preservation are addressed in the discussion of admissible evidence in Georgia.

Voluntary-Dismissal Limit

Under prior Georgia law, a plaintiff could dismiss without prejudice at any point before the first witness was sworn, which permitted strategic repositioning, including dismissing and refiling in a different county. Under the amended OCGA 9-11-41, a plaintiff may now voluntarily dismiss without prejudice only within 60 days after the defendant files an answer; afterward, dismissal requires a stipulation by all parties or a court order, with the court weighing prejudice to the defendant, the stage of the case, and whether the plaintiff is avoiding an adverse ruling. This provision applies retroactively to all pending and future cases.

Attorney-Fee Changes

The fee changes under SB 68 are frequently misstated, so precision matters. SB 68 enacted OCGA 9-15-16, which bars recovery of the same attorney fees under more than one statutory provision in a single case (no double recovery), and it makes a contingency-fee agreement inadmissible as evidence of the reasonableness of the fees claimed.

Importantly, SB 68 did not restrict OCGA 13-6-11, the bad-faith and stubborn-litigiousness fee statute, to contract actions. OCGA 13-6-11 continues to apply in tort cases, including car accident claims, where its standards are met. Separately, the first-party bad-faith penalty under OCGA 33-4-6 (a penalty of up to 50% of the insurer’s liability plus reasonable attorney fees, available after a proper demand) remains intact and unaffected by SB 68. Any statement that SB 68 made OCGA 13-6-11 a contract-only remedy is incorrect.

Companion Legislation: SB 69 and Litigation Funding

SB 69, enacted alongside SB 68, addresses third-party litigation funding, in which outside investors finance lawsuits in exchange for a portion of any recovery. It requires litigation funders to register, limits their involvement in legal-strategy decisions, and makes funding agreements subject to discovery, with potential funder exposure where sanctions are imposed. For claimants whose treatment is financed through third-party arrangements, sometimes associated with Letters of Protection, SB 69 introduces transparency requirements that did not previously exist.

Constitutional Challenges: Current Status

As of mid-2026, SB 68 is in effect and no court has enjoined any provision, though challenges are working through the courts and the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association has been the principal organizational opponent. The anchoring limits (OCGA 9-10-184) face challenges on free-speech and jury-trial grounds; the seatbelt provision (OCGA 40-8-76.1) faces a retroactivity and due-process challenge; and the collateral-source reform (OCGA 51-12-1.1) faces an equal-protection challenge tied to the transfer of the benefit of a plaintiff’s insurance. No definitive appellate ruling on the constitutionality of these provisions appears to have issued as of this writing, and a person relying on this information for an active case should verify the current status, because a successful challenge could restore pre-SB 68 rules for an affected provision. Until a court holds otherwise, SB 68 governs.

Illustrative effective-date sorting (mechanics only, not a prediction of any outcome)

Consider a hypothetical accident on March 1, 2025, with suit filed June 1, 2025. Because the accident arose before April 21, 2025, the phantom-damages provision (OCGA 51-12-1.1, arising-date trigger) would not apply, and the prior collateral-source rule would govern medical damages. Because the action was commenced after April 21, 2025, the seatbelt provision (OCGA 40-8-76.1, filing-date trigger) would apply. The anchoring, bifurcation, discovery-stay, voluntary-dismissal, and fee provisions, all retroactive, would apply regardless. This example illustrates only how the triggers sort a single case; it predicts nothing about any actual claim.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which SB 68 provision is keyed to the accident date, and which to the filing date?
The phantom-damages medical-billing reform (OCGA 51-12-1.1) is keyed to the accident date (causes of action arising on or after April 21, 2025). The seatbelt provision (OCGA 40-8-76.1) is keyed to the filing date (actions commenced on or after April 21, 2025).

Did SB 68 limit the bad-faith fee statute to contract cases?
No. SB 68 enacted OCGA 9-15-16 (no double recovery; contingency-agreement inadmissibility) but did not restrict OCGA 13-6-11 to contract actions. OCGA 13-6-11 still applies in tort, including car accident claims.

When can a court refuse a bifurcation demand under SB 68?
Under OCGA 51-12-15, generally only where the amount in controversy is less than $150,000 or the case involves a sexual-offense victim who would suffer significant distress testifying more than once.

Does the discovery stay end automatically after 90 days?
No. The stay continues until the court rules on the motion to dismiss; if no ruling issues within 90 days, a party may move to modify or lift it for good cause (OCGA 9-11-12, as amended).

Sources and Legal Authorities

• OCGA 9-3-33 (two-year personal-injury limitation; unchanged)
• OCGA 51-12-33 (comparative negligence; 50%-or-more bar; unchanged)
• OCGA 40-6-10 (minimum liability coverage; unchanged)
• OCGA 51-12-1.1 (phantom-damages reform; arising on or after April 21, 2025)
• OCGA 9-10-184 (noneconomic-damages anchoring limits; retroactive)
• OCGA 40-8-76.1 (seatbelt admissibility; actions commenced on or after April 21, 2025); OCGA 40-8-76 (child restraint)
• OCGA 51-12-15 (bifurcation; retroactive; under-$150,000 and sexual-offense exceptions)
• OCGA 9-11-12 (motion practice; discovery stay)
• OCGA 9-11-41 (voluntary dismissal; 60-day limit)
• OCGA 9-15-16 (no double recovery of fees; contingency-agreement inadmissibility); OCGA 13-6-11 (bad-faith/stubborn-litigiousness fees; still applies in tort); OCGA 33-4-6 (first-party bad-faith penalty; unaffected)
• Senate Bill 68 and Senate Bill 69 (2025 Georgia tort reform), effective April 21, 2025

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about Georgia law. It is not legal advice, it is not a solicitation, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. It is not produced by a law firm. Statutes and their interpretation change, constitutional challenges to SB 68 may be pending, and the application of any provision depends on the specific facts and timing of a case. A person with questions about how SB 68 affects a particular Georgia auto claim should consult a licensed Georgia attorney about those specific facts.