Georgia’s 50% Bar Rule: How Comparative Negligence Affects Your Claim

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Georgia’s 50 percent bar decides whether an injured person’s award shrinks or disappears. If the trier of fact finds the injured person less than 50 percent responsible, the judge reduces the damages in proportion to that percentage; at 50 percent or more, the injured person recovers nothing (OCGA 51-12-33(a), (g)).

The Statute in Two Steps

Subsection (a) of OCGA 51-12-33 applies where “the plaintiff is to some degree responsible for the injury or damages claimed.” In that situation the trier of fact must “determine the percentage of fault of the plaintiff,” and the judge “shall reduce the amount of damages otherwise awarded to the plaintiff in proportion to his or her percentage of fault.” Subsection (b) then applies to the award that remains: the trier of fact must “apportion its award of damages among the person or persons who are liable according to the percentage of fault of each person.” Damages apportioned that way “shall be the liability of each person against whom they are awarded, shall not be a joint liability among the persons liable, and shall not be subject to any right of contribution.”

The 50 Percent Line

Subsection (g) sets the bar: “the plaintiff shall not be entitled to receive any damages if the plaintiff is 50 percent or more responsible for the injury or damages claimed.” A finding of exactly 50 percent therefore ends the claim; the bar does not wait for the plaintiff’s share to exceed anyone else’s. In Couch v. Red Roof Inns, Inc., 291 Ga. 359 (2012), the Supreme Court of Georgia wrote that the common law of comparative negligence “barred any recovery by a plaintiff who was equally or more at fault than the defendant(s) for the damages at issue,” and explained that without subsection (g) “a plaintiff who was 50% or more at fault would still be able to recover.” In Reed v. Carolina Casualty Insurance Co., 327 Ga. App. 130 (2014), the Court of Appeals added that “[t]he addition of OCGA § 51-12-33 (g) did not represent a change in the law regarding contributory negligence.”

For example, imagine a jury that finds an injured person’s total damages to be $200,000 and assigns that person 30 percent of the fault. Under subsection (a), the award is reduced in proportion to that percentage: 30 percent of $200,000 is $60,000, so the recovery is $140,000. If the jury instead assigns 49 percent, the reduction is $98,000 and the recovery is $102,000. At 50 percent, subsection (g) applies and the recovery is zero. One percentage point separates $102,000 from nothing.

Who Assigns the Percentage

The percentage is a finding of fact, but a court can take the question from the jury in a plain case. In Reed, the records, construed in the plaintiffs’ favor, showed that a driver named Reed, with a postmortem blood alcohol content of 0.095, entered a highway curve too fast for the wet conditions, lost control, and struck a tractor-trailer that Labeika, another driver, had parked in the emergency lane; a fire followed and Reed died. The trial court granted summary judgment to the defendants on the ground that the undisputed facts showed Reed was at least 50 percent responsible for the death.

The Court of Appeals reversed. It found “nothing in the statute that abrogates a trial court’s authority under OCGA § 9-11-56 to grant summary judgment in an appropriate case, i.e., in a plain and indisputable case,” but concluded that there were “issues of fact relative to the degree to which Reed’s and Labeika’s negligence caused Reed’s death, including whether Reed was 50 percent or more at fault.” Both drivers had violated traffic laws, and the court left the comparison to the jury.

Apportionment When the Plaintiff Bears No Fault

The reduction in subsection (a) and the division in subsection (b) are separate steps, and the second does not depend on the first. In McReynolds v. Krebs, 290 Ga. 850 (2012), Krebs was a passenger in a General Motors vehicle when McReynolds’s car struck it. McReynolds cross-claimed against General Motors for contribution and set-off. After Krebs settled with General Motors, the trial court dismissed the cross-claims. McReynolds argued that the statute’s apportionment applies only when the plaintiff is partly at fault. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed and held that the trier of fact must apportion the award among the persons who are liable according to each person’s percentage of fault “even if the plaintiff is not at fault for the injury or damages claimed.”

The Court found no error in the dismissal of the cross-claims, because apportioned damages are not a joint liability and are not subject to contribution. McReynolds’s separate argument that General Motors should carry a share of fault as a nonparty failed for lack of evidence: McReynolds had conceded at the beginning of the trial that there was no evidence of the company’s fault beyond the allegations in Krebs’s complaint, and the Court held that the lack of evidence defeated the request for apportionment under subsections (c) and (d).

Fault of People Who Are Not in the Lawsuit

Subsection (c) tells the trier of fact to “consider the fault of all persons or entities who contributed to the alleged injury or damages, regardless of whether the person or entity was, or could have been, named as a party to the suit.” Under subsection (d)(1), the fault of a nonparty is considered “if the plaintiff entered into a settlement agreement with the nonparty or if a defending party gives notice not later than 120 days prior to the date of trial that a nonparty was wholly or partially at fault.”

In Couch, a federal court asked the Supreme Court of Georgia whether a jury may apportion damages between a hotel owner and a criminal assailant who abducted, robbed, and assaulted a guest. The Court answered yes. It reasoned that the statute’s word “fault” reaches intentional wrongdoing, and it rejected the argument that the injury is indivisible: “While the injury may be singular, the damages flowing from that injury may be apportioned by statute among the tortfeasors responsible for causing it.”

Zaldivar v. Prickett, 297 Ga. 589 (2015), set the limit on whose fault counts. The defendant in a collision case gave notice of an intent to ask the jury to assign fault to the plaintiff’s employer, a nonparty that had entrusted the plaintiff with a company truck. The Supreme Court of Georgia held that subsection (c) reaches “all persons or entities who have breached a legal duty in tort that is owed with respect to the plaintiff, the breach of which is a proximate cause of the injury sustained by the plaintiff,” which includes “every other tortfeasor whose commission of a tort as against the plaintiff was a proximate cause of his injury, regardless of whether such tortfeasor would have actual liability in tort to the plaintiff.” A nonparty’s fault is therefore considered only when the nonparty is shown to have committed such a tort. The Court added that the statute “codifies the doctrine of comparative negligence,” and that negligent entrustment can be a proximate cause of an injury to the person entrusted.

One Defendant or Several

Subsection (b) now begins “Where an action is brought against one or more persons for injury to person or property” (OCGA 51-12-33(b)). The version quoted in McReynolds, as amended by the Tort Reform Act of 2005, read “Where an action is brought against more than one person for injury to person or property.” House Bill 961 made that revision in order “to authorize apportionment of damages in single-defendant lawsuits,” and it provides that it “shall apply to all cases filed after the effective date of this Act,” which it sets as the date of the Governor’s approval or of its becoming law without that approval.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a plaintiff under 50 percent at fault still recover nothing?
Yes, under a separate rule. A plaintiff who, by ordinary care, could have avoided the consequences of the defendant’s negligence is not entitled to recover, although in other cases a plaintiff’s contribution to the injury does not relieve the defendant (OCGA 51-11-7).

Can failing to wear a seat belt count against the plaintiff?
It can. As revised by SB 68 in 2025, OCGA 40-8-76.1(d)(1) allows a vehicle occupant’s failure to wear a seat belt to be considered as evidence on negligence, comparative negligence, causation, assumption of risk, or apportionment of fault, and to be used to diminish recovery, while leaving the court’s power to decide admissibility under OCGA 24-4-403 or any other rule of evidence. The Act makes that revision applicable to causes of action pending on its effective date unless that would be unconstitutional (SB 68, Section 9(b)).

How does a defendant put a nonparty’s fault before the jury, and does the nonparty then owe damages?
The notice must be given by a pleading that names the nonparty and its last known address, or the best identification possible, and briefly states why the nonparty is believed to be at fault (OCGA 51-12-33(d)(2)). A finding of fault against a nonparty is used only to determine the fault of the named parties and does not subject the nonparty to liability in any action or serve as evidence of liability in any action (OCGA 51-12-33(f)).

Does the apportionment statute apply in a negligent security case?
Yes. For an action for negligent security, OCGA 51-3-56(1) directs the trier of fact to make the apportionment under OCGA 51-12-33.

  • OCGA 51-12-33(a), (b), (c), (d)(1), (d)(2), (f), (g)
  • Couch v. Red Roof Inns, Inc., 291 Ga. 359 (2012)
  • Reed v. Carolina Casualty Insurance Co., 327 Ga. App. 130 (2014)
  • McReynolds v. Krebs, 290 Ga. 850 (2012)
  • Zaldivar v. Prickett, 297 Ga. 589 (2015)
  • House Bill 961 (LC 44 1842)
  • OCGA 51-11-7
  • OCGA 40-8-76.1(d)(1); SB 68 (2025), Section 9(b)
  • OCGA 51-3-56(1)

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about comparative negligence and apportionment of fault under Georgia law. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. How a jury assigns fault depends on the evidence in a particular case. A person injured in an accident should consult a licensed Georgia attorney promptly about the particular situation.

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