MARTA Injury Claims: Suing Atlanta’s Transit Authority

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A passenger thrown to the floor when a bus brakes hard, a rider injured in the gap between a train and a platform, a pedestrian struck by a MARTA vehicle: each raises the same threshold question, because the defendant is a creature of state law, not a private carrier. The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority is a public body, and how its immunity was waived, what notice a claim demands, and whether any damages ceiling applies all depend on the specific statute that created it rather than on the general rules for state agencies. Getting that framework right matters, because a widely repeated assumption about MARTA, that it is governed by the Georgia Tort Claims Act, points to the wrong deadline and the wrong damages rule.

A Public Authority Liable Like a Private Corporation

MARTA was established by the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority Act of 1965 (Ga. L. 1965, p. 2243), and that enabling act, not the later Georgia Tort Claims Act, defines its tort exposure. Section 22 of the MARTA Act waives the Authority’s governmental immunity and provides that it shall be liable in tort as any private corporation would be. Georgia courts have read that waiver as broad: MARTA stands before a jury much as a private transit company would, which is the central distinction in a MARTA case. Because the waiver comes from the Authority’s own organic act rather than from the Tort Claims Act, the framework that governs claims against ordinary state agencies, the subject of the dedicated state-agency and municipal discussions referenced below, is not the framework that governs MARTA, even though many secondary summaries assume otherwise.

Why the Tort Claims Act Caps Do Not Fit

That distinction carries a concrete consequence. The Georgia Tort Claims Act caps recovery against the State at set per-person and per-occurrence limits under OCGA 50-21-29. Those caps are a feature of the Tort Claims Act regime, and a number of practitioner summaries reflexively apply them to MARTA. But the MARTA Act’s private-corporation waiver does not import the Tort Claims Act’s monetary ceilings, and treating MARTA as liable like a private corporation is difficult to square with a statutory damages cap that private corporations do not face. The careful position, and the one consistent with the private-corporation language of Section 22, is that the Tort Claims Act caps are not the operative limit on a MARTA claim. A claimant must still prove negligence, causation, and actual damages; the point is only that the recoverable damages are measured as against a private defendant rather than truncated by the state caps.

The Notice That Conditions the Claim

The most unforgiving feature of a MARTA case is its pre-suit notice. Georgia treats MARTA as subject to the municipal ante-litem notice statute, OCGA 36-33-5, which requires that written notice of the claim be presented within six months of the event, and provides that no action may be entertained until the claim has first been presented to the governing authority for adjustment, which then has thirty days to act before suit may proceed. This is a far shorter and earlier deadline than the Tort Claims Act’s twelve-month notice, which is one reason the GTCA-versus-MARTA-Act distinction is not academic: a claimant who relied on a twelve-month assumption could lose the claim entirely. The six-month notice is a condition precedent to suit, and missing it can bar an otherwise meritorious claim regardless of the separate two-year limitations period for the underlying injury.

The notice must state, as nearly as practicable, the time, place, and extent of the injury and the negligence claimed, along with information identifying the claimant. A simple timeline shows why the early deadline drives everything: an injury on January 10 sets a notice deadline near July 10, while the lawsuit itself, governed by the two-year personal-injury limitations period of OCGA 9-3-33, would not otherwise come due until two years later. The earlier date controls whether the door stays open. The dates illustrate the deadline mechanic only and say nothing about any claim’s value or outcome.

Feature MARTA (MARTA Act of 1965) Georgia Tort Claims Act (state agencies)
Source of immunity waiver MARTA Act, Section 22 OCGA 50-21-20 et seq.
Liability measure As a private corporation Limited statutory waiver
Pre-suit notice deadline Six months (OCGA 36-33-5) Twelve months
Damages ceiling No Tort Claims Act per-person or per-occurrence cap Statutory caps under OCGA 50-21-29

Common MARTA Injury Scenarios

Claims arise across the system. Vehicle-collision claims involve a MARTA bus striking another vehicle, a cyclist, or a pedestrian through operator negligence. In-vehicle injury claims address passengers hurt by sudden stops, starts, or a vehicle moving before riders are seated. Station-premises claims cover slip-and-falls on platforms, escalator and elevator malfunctions, dangerous platform gaps, and poor lighting, evaluated under ordinary premises principles since MARTA answers as a private property owner would. Security-failure claims address assaults on MARTA property, where the Authority is not an insurer of safety but owes reasonable measures, and prior similar incidents at a location can establish the foreseeability that anchors a security duty.

Negligent Security and the SB 68 Framework

Where a MARTA injury arises from a third party’s criminal act, such as an assault at a station, Georgia’s 2025 tort reform reshapes the analysis. Senate Bill 68 replaced the general premises rule for third-party-crime claims with a structured framework that limits an owner’s or occupier’s liability in defined circumstances, including where the wrong occurred where the owner had no legal authority to exclude the third party, and that requires fault to be apportioned among the property party, the criminal actor, and others. For a station-assault claim against MARTA, that apportionment can divide responsibility between the Authority and the assailant rather than placing the whole loss on the transit defendant. The framework is current Georgia law for claims arising on or after April 21, 2025.

Seat-Belt Admissibility and Medical-Specials on a Transit Claim

Two more SB 68 provisions touch the typical MARTA case. In a bus or vehicle collision, the statute removed Georgia’s longstanding seat-belt exclusion, so non-use of a seat belt is now admissible on negligence, comparative fault, causation, and apportionment, subject to a prejudice screen. And as in any injury claim involving medical bills, OCGA 51-12-1.1 now limits recoverable medical specials to the reasonable value of necessary care and makes both the billed charges and the amounts actually paid admissible, which can pull the recoverable medical figure toward the lower paid amount. Comparative fault still governs the outcome through Georgia’s apportionment statute and 50% bar, the canonical owner of which is referenced below rather than re-explained here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is MARTA governed by the Georgia Tort Claims Act?
The better view is no. MARTA’s tort liability flows from Section 22 of the MARTA Act of 1965, which makes it liable as a private corporation, so the Tort Claims Act’s twelve-month notice and damages caps are not the operative rules, even though some summaries apply them.

How long is there to give MARTA notice of a claim?
Georgia treats MARTA as subject to the six-month municipal ante-litem notice under OCGA 36-33-5. The notice is a condition precedent to suit, and missing it can bar the claim regardless of the two-year limitations period for the injury.

Are damages against MARTA capped at the state limits?
The private-corporation waiver in the MARTA Act is in tension with applying the Tort Claims Act caps under OCGA 50-21-29, and the more consistent reading is that those statutory ceilings do not limit a MARTA recovery. A claimant must still prove the damages actually sustained.

Does a seat belt matter in a MARTA bus collision claim?
It can. Under SB 68, non-use of a seat belt is now admissible on negligence, comparative fault, and apportionment, a change from prior Georgia law, subject to exclusion where its prejudicial effect substantially outweighs its probative value.

  • Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority Act of 1965 (Ga. L. 1965, p. 2243), Section 22 (immunity waiver; liability as a private corporation)
  • Municipal ante-litem notice applied to MARTA, OCGA 36-33-5 (six-month notice; thirty-day adjustment period); City of Atlanta v. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, 204 Ga. App. 387 (1992)
  • Personal-injury limitations period, OCGA 9-3-33
  • Georgia Tort Claims Act, OCGA 50-21-20 et seq.; caps, OCGA 50-21-29 (the regime governing state agencies, distinct from MARTA), referenced in the state-agency and municipal discussions
  • Senate Bill 68 (2025): negligent-security framework; seat-belt admissibility; OCGA 51-12-1.1 reasonable-value medical special damages (effective for claims arising on or after April 21, 2025)

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about injury claims involving MARTA under Georgia law. It is not legal advice, does not create an attorney-client relationship, and may not reflect the most recent legal developments. How these rules apply, including the precise notice obligations and the measure of damages, depends on the specific facts and on authority that continues to develop. A person dealing with a MARTA injury matter should consult a licensed Georgia attorney about their particular situation.

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