Non-Economic Damages in Georgia Car Accident Cases: Pain, Suffering, and the 2025 Anchoring Rule

A Georgia car accident plaintiff can recover for pain, mental anguish, and impairment, and no statute caps those damages in an ordinary negligence case against a private driver. The 2025 change is about money talk at trial. Under O.C.G.A. § 9-10-184, as rewritten by Senate Bill 68, counsel may not argue a value for these damages until after the evidence closes, and the argument must be rationally tied to that evidence.

What the category includes

The 2025 statute defines economic damages first and treats the rest as noneconomic. Subsection (a)(2) lists “physical or emotional pain, discomfort, anxiety, hardship, distress, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, mental anguish, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of society and companionship, loss of consortium, injury to reputation, and in wrongful death cases, the nonpecuniary elements of the full value of life”. The list says “including, but not limited to”.

Section 51-12-2(a) adds that general damages “may be recovered without proof of any amount”. The plaintiff needs evidence of the harm. Nobody has to prove the figure. The statute’s measure is “the enlightened conscience of an impartial jury”.

What the anchoring rule prohibits and permits

Former § 9-10-184 allowed counsel to argue the worth of pain and suffering so long as the argument conformed to the evidence. The new version starts from a ban in (b): counsel “shall not argue the worth or monetary value of noneconomic damages”, and shall not, in the hearing of the jury or a prospective juror, elicit testimony or make any reference to “any specific amount or range of amounts”.

The exception is in (c)(1). Counsel may argue the value “only after the close of evidence and at the time of such party’s first opportunity to argue the issue of damages”. The argument must be “rationally related to the evidence of noneconomic damages” and must not refer to “objects or values having no rational connection to the facts proved by the evidence”. Wal-Mart v. Medders, A26A1599 (Oct. 29, 2026), applied this language to a fall case. Plaintiff’s counsel measured pain and suffering against a defense expert’s $8,000 trial-day fee, and then against hourly rates near minimum wage. The Court of Appeals held those arguments improper, reversed a $975,000 judgment, and ordered a new trial because the uncorrected argument could have affected the verdict. It also refused to read the statute as barring “unit value” or “per diem” arguments as such, because those concern how damages are calculated. So a daily or hourly method can survive, but the value it uses still has to be rationally related to the evidence of this person’s harm. The decision is recent, so check its later history.

Three other parts are easy to miss.

• Opening and closing. Under (c)(2), a lawyer with both arguments may argue value in the concluding argument only after arguing it in the opening argument, and may not argue a different value.
• Jury selection. Under (e), counsel may ask whether prospective jurors could return a verdict with no damages or one “in excess of some unspecified amount”, if the evidence supports the question.
• Consequences. Under (d), a violation means the court “shall take remedial measures” under § 9-10-185, or excuse prospective jurors. Section 9-10-185 includes rebuke, curative instructions, and a possible mistrial.

Section 9(b) of the Act limits only Sections 6 and 7 to later causes of action, and it says the other provisions apply to pending cases unless that would be unconstitutional. So this rule does not wait for a crash after April 21, 2025. It has a timing limit of a different kind. In Barker v. Grier, A26A0229 (2026), a case tried in September 2024 and still pending on post-trial motions when the act took effect, the Court of Appeals said the amendments did not apply with respect to that earlier trial. Medders shows the other side of that line: the suit was filed in 2022, the trial was in January 2026, and the revised section applied.

The evidence that carries the claim

The ban on numbers makes the underlying evidence matter more. No bill exists for pain, so the proof is built from people and records.

Source	What it adds	Weak point
The plaintiff	Daily life, pain, sleep, fear of driving	Credibility; gaps between testimony and the chart
Family, friends, coworkers	Before and after comparison	Seen as biased if they only praise
Treatment records	Complaints and pain reports over time	Long gaps in treatment
Treating physician	Diagnosis, prognosis, permanence	May not address daily life
Mental health records	Depression, anxiety, or a stress disorder	Requires treatment or evaluation to exist
Photographs and video	Scarring, activities before the crash	Can be overused

Future pain needs a basis too. Where a plaintiff says the pain will continue, a physician’s testimony on prognosis can supply that link. Impairment is a separate point from pain: a person may be able to manage pain and still be unable to lift, sit, or work the same way.

For example, imagine a plaintiff with a herniated disc who can no longer lift a small child. The medical records show the limitation. A spouse describes what changed at home. The jury can weigh that without any number being mentioned until closing.

Consortium belongs to someone else

An injured person’s spouse can claim loss of consortium. That is the spouse’s own claim, with a four-year limit under § 9-3-33, while the injured person has two years. The wrongful death version is covered on loss of consortium claims.

Reductions and limits

These damages are subject to the same fault rules as medical bills. Under § 51-12-33, a plaintiff’s share of fault reduces them, and 50 percent or more bars them. See the 50 percent bar. Fault assigned to another person also takes that share out of what a defendant owes.

A claim against the State under the Georgia Tort Claims Act has its own limit. Punitive damages are a different category with a separate cap in § 51-12-5.1(g). Damages caps has the overall picture.

Review of the jury’s number

Under § 51-12-12, a court should not interfere unless the award is “clearly so inadequate or so excessive as to be inconsistent with the preponderance of the evidence”. It may order a new trial on damages only, or condition that order on acceptance of an amount it sets. Only one new trial may be granted on this ground.

A split trial changes the order

Section 51-12-15 lets any party elect, by written demand before the pretrial order, to try fault first and damages second before the same jury. The court may reject the election on a motion only for an alleged sexual offense with a likelihood of serious distress from testifying twice, or an amount in controversy under $150,000. If fault is split off, evidence on the amount of compensation waits for the second phase. Transcontinental Carriers v. Bennett, A26A1643 (2026), still found no abuse of discretion where a plaintiff detailed his injuries and their extent in the first phase, because fault requires proof that the breach caused them. So the plaintiff must plan for two presentations.

Valuing a claim after 2025

Settlement talks do not take place in front of a jury, so the anchoring rule does not stop anyone from naming a number in a demand. It does change what either side can expect at trial. A settlement figure should be tested against one question: what could the plaintiff’s lawyer tie to the evidence in the single permitted argument?

Sources

• Transcontinental Carriers v. Bennett, A26A1643
• Official Code of Georgia Annotated, November 2022 public release: §§ 9-3-33, 9-10-185, 51-12-2, 51-12-5.1, 51-12-12, 51-12-33
• Senate Bill 68, as passed (2025): Sections 1, 8, 9(b), revising § 9-10-184 and enacting § 51-12-15
• Barker v. Grier, A26A0229
• Wal-Mart Stores East v. Medders, A26A1599

This page was last reviewed in November 2026 for general information. Laws and court decisions can change after that date. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship.