Future Medical Expenses in Georgia: Proving Lifetime Care Costs

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After a serious injury, the damages claim can include care that has not been provided yet. Georgia law answers the proof questions for that care in several statutes. The future care must be the “legal and natural result” of the injury, not an “imaginary or possible” one. The witness who projects it must meet the expert-reliability test. How long the care will be needed can be shown with mortality tables the Code makes admissible. The total may be reduced to present value at a rate the jury chooses. For claims arising on or after April 21, 2025, the amount is measured by the reasonable value of medically necessary care.

Future Care as an Element of Damages

For purposes of the statute on arguing damages, economic damages include past and future medical expenses and the costs of rehabilitation and therapy (OCGA 9-10-184(a)(1)). Medical expenses are special damages, which the plaintiff has to prove before recovering them (OCGA 51-12-2(b)). The 2025 medical expense statute reaches future care in terms, referring to future medical and healthcare expenses and to projected future expenses (OCGA 51-12-1.1(c), (f)).

How Certain the Future Care Must Be

Two statutes draw the line. “If the damage incurred by the plaintiff is only the imaginary or possible result of a tortious act or if other and contingent circumstances preponderate in causing the injury, such damage is too remote to be the basis of recovery against the wrongdoer” (OCGA 51-12-8). But “[d]amages which are the legal and natural result of the act done, though contingent to some extent, are not too remote to be recovered” (OCGA 51-12-9). Under these two sections, a projected item of future care is recoverable when it is the legal and natural result of the injury, and some contingency does not by itself make it too remote.

Who Projects the Care

The cost of future care reaches the jury through witnesses. A witness qualified as an expert through knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may give an opinion if it will help the trier of fact, rests on sufficient facts or data, comes from reliable principles and methods, and applies those methods reliably to the facts of the case (OCGA 24-7-702(b)). The opinion can rest on facts that other witnesses prove (OCGA 24-7-702(a)), so a witness projecting costs may rely on a diagnosis that someone else establishes. Stricter qualification rules apply in professional malpractice actions (OCGA 24-7-702(c)).

For How Long: Life Expectancy

Lifetime care depends on how long the injured person is expected to live. “In all civil proceedings where the life expectancy of a person shall be an issue, the American Experience Mortality Tables shall be admissible as evidence of the life expectancy of such person” (OCGA 24-14-44). In proceedings involving permanent personal injuries, the Commissioners 1958 Standard Ordinary Mortality Table and the Annuity Mortality Table for 1949, Ultimate, are also admissible “as competent evidence” for “determining the present value of future due earnings or amounts” (OCGA 24-14-45(a)).

Reducing the Total to Present Value

The trier of fact may reduce future medical expenses, living expenses, lost wages, or other economic damages to present value, using a discount rate of 5 percent or any other rate it considers appropriate (OCGA 51-12-13(a)). The reduction is permitted, not required.

For example, imagine that an expert projects a $10,000 procedure that will be needed 20 years from now. At the 5 percent rate the statute names, compounded annually, its present value is about $3,769, which is $10,000 divided by 1.05 raised to the 20th power. The statute does not state a compounding method, and a different rate chosen by the jury would give a different figure. Across a lifetime of projected care, each year’s cost is discounted over a different number of years, so the life expectancy evidence and the discount rate work together.

The 2025 Medical Expense Statute

For a cause of action arising on or after April 21, 2025, medical special damages are limited to the reasonable value of medically necessary care, treatment, or services, in an amount the trier of fact decides (OCGA 51-12-1.1(b)). If the plaintiff has public or private health insurance, including benefits under a governmental workers’ compensation program, the evidence on reasonable value includes both the amounts charged for past, present, or future care and the amounts actually needed to satisfy those charges under the insurance contract or program, whether or not the coverage has been or will be used (OCGA 51-12-1.1(c)). Either side may contest whether expenses, incurred or projected, are reasonable, and whether any treatment was medically necessary (OCGA 51-12-1.1(f)).

Frequently Asked Questions

Can the jury use an annuity table to value future amounts?
In a case of wrongful death or permanent personal injury, the jury or court, whichever is the trier of fact, may use any table it finds accurate in showing the value of annuities on single lives under the two mortality tables named in OCGA 24-14-45(a) (OCGA 24-14-45(b)).

Is the jury bound by the mortality tables?
No. The tables in OCGA 24-14-45 “shall not be the exclusive method which the jury or court is required to use in such proceedings but shall be supplementary to other lawful and allowable evidence and methods for such purpose” (OCGA 24-14-45(c)).

Does the present-value statute let the defense show what an annuity to fund the care would cost?
No. The present-value section does not open the door to evidence of what a specific private investment product, an annuity among them, would cost (OCGA 51-12-13(b)).

Must the witness who projects future care be a physician?
Not under the general rule. OCGA 24-7-702(b) lets knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education qualify an expert and does not name a profession; subsection (c) sets separate rules for professional malpractice actions.

  • OCGA 9-10-184(a)(1); OCGA 51-12-2(b)
  • OCGA 51-12-8; OCGA 51-12-9
  • OCGA 24-7-702(a), (b), (c)
  • OCGA 24-14-44; OCGA 24-14-45(a), (b), (c)
  • OCGA 51-12-13(a), (b)
  • OCGA 51-12-1.1(b), (c), (f); SB 68 (2025), as passed, Section 9(b)

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about future medical expenses under Georgia law. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. How future care is proved and valued depends on the injury, the medical evidence, and the specific facts. A person with a serious injury should consult a licensed Georgia attorney promptly about the particular situation.

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