The four elements of a Georgia medical malpractice case

A Georgia malpractice plaintiff has to prove a professional relationship, a departure from the standard of care, causation, and damages. O.C.G.A. § 51-1-27 supplies the core duty: a person practicing medicine “must bring to the exercise of his profession a reasonable degree of care and skill”, and an injury from a want of that care is a tort. A bad result alone proves none of these. The second and third elements are where expert testimony comes in.

Element one: the relationship

Duty comes from a provider and patient relationship. The chart can show it. It gets harder where a provider never met the patient, such as a consultant who only reviewed a chart, or a physician giving informal advice. Those situations are fact questions. Who was responsible at each point in the care is the fact to establish from the record.

Element two: breach of the standard

The test is care and skill, measured against what the profession requires. Section 51-1-27 does not use the phrase “ordinary skill” or a specialty label, so expert testimony supplies the practical content. The rules on who can provide that testimony are in standard of care expert witnesses, and a complaint also has to meet the filing rule in the expert affidavit requirement.

Three limits apply to this element:

• Choosing among accepted options is not breach. See the respectable minority rule.
• Time matters. The expert’s own qualifications are measured at the date of the act under § 24-7-702(c), and the medical knowledge at that time is what the defendant is judged against.
• Some settings raise the bar. Emergency care under § 51-1-29.5 requires gross negligence by clear and convincing evidence, and mental health care claims arising on or after July 1, 2024 have a gross negligence standard under § 51-1-29.7, according to the Legislative Counsel’s summary.

A consent claim is a separate route. O.C.G.A. § 31-9-6.1 covers listed procedures and has its own elements, and it is not a general breach theory for every procedure.

Element three: causation

Zwiren v. Thompson, 276 Ga. 498 (2003), sets the required strength of the opinion. The expert must state it “in terms stronger than that of medical possibility, i.e., reasonable medical probability or reasonable medical certainty”. The patient may already have been sick or hurt, so the question is what difference proper care would have made. Causation challenges and pre-existing conditions as a defense cover the way those arguments go.

Element four: damages

A departure with no harm has no claim. The categories are medical expense, lost income, noneconomic loss, and, where the conduct qualifies, punitive damages.

Category	Current point to check
Medical expense	For causes of action arising on or after April 21, 2025, § 51-12-1.1 limits recovery to the reasonable value of medically necessary care
Lost income and capacity	Reduction to present value is allowed under § 51-12-13
Noneconomic	§ 51-13-1's limit has been rejected in Nestlehutt and Clark v. Leigh
Punitive	§ 51-12-5.1(b) and its limit in (g)
Death	Full value of the life, § 51-4-2, or § 19-7-1 for a child

Fault can be spread

A jury may divide fault among those responsible, including certain non-parties, under § 51-12-33, and a patient’s own conduct can be considered too. That is why a plaintiff has to think about all the possible providers, not just the one who made the most visible mistake. The same statute applies in car cases and is explained on the fault among multiple defendants page and the non-party fault page.

How to test a possible claim

Ask four questions in this order, each tied to a document. Who owed the duty, from the chart? What would an expert say should have been done, and on what date? What would have happened if it had been done, and can an expert say so as a probability? What did the difference cost? A “no” at any stage ends the claim, and the two-year and five-year periods in the limitation article run the whole time.

Sources

• Official Code of Georgia Annotated, November 2022 public release: §§ 19-7-1, 24-7-702, 31-9-6.1, 51-1-27, 51-1-29.5, 51-4-2, 51-12-5.1, 51-12-13, 51-12-33, 51-13-1
• Zwiren v. Thompson, 276 Ga. 498
• Senate Bill 68, as passed (2025): Section 7, Section 9(b)
• Legislative Counsel, Summary of General Statutes Enacted, 2024: House Bill 1409

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.