Georgia Supreme Court Hears High Profile Cases That Could Change The Law

The Georgia Supreme Court this week heard several cases, including two that could affect how cities design roadways and who gets to sell cars and another involving child custody with an unmarried couple.

The roadway safety case stems from the death of a 21-year-old who crashed a car into a concrete planter while home from college in 2016. The planter had been placed a half dozen feet off the side of a road in Milton before 2006 when the city was established.

A jury awarded the parents of Joshua Chang more than $30 million. The city lost on appeal and then petitioned the Supreme Court to consider the case.

Milton is arguing that it was not responsible for keeping the shoulder of the road unobstructed. Shoulders commonly accommodate fire hydrants, telephone poles, utility boxes and decorations, the city’s lawyers argued.

Georgia cities enjoy what’s known as “sovereign immunity,” meaning they are shielded from civil liability with some exceptions. The state waives that immunity when a city has insurance that covers the injury. It also waives immunity when cities fail to perform their “ministerial” duty, meaning an injury resulted from neglect to follow procedures.

But cities only have a duty to maintain roads for the safe passage of vehicles in the “ordinary course of travel,” Harold Melton, a lawyer for Milton, said at the Supreme Court hearing in the case Tuesday.

“When you have to make an evasive maneuver, by definition, now you’re doing something that’s unordinary,” he said, referring to the way Chang’s vehicle left the roadway and collided with the planter. He said Milton should not have to maintain the shoulder of a road for moving vehicles.

But an expert had testified at the earlier trial that no highway transportation official would agree that a planter should be that close to a road. And a Milton official had testified that the city erred by leaving the planter in place in the decade after incorporation, saying a “ball was dropped” and that the city had had ample time to remove the obstruction.

Milton had insurance, but the damages exceeded the $2 million in coverage. So the question about whether Milton had a ministerial duty to keep the shoulder of the road safe for cars is a key one for the Supreme Court.

The answer could affect cities across the state.

Naveen Ramachandrappa, a lawyer for the parents, argued that cities should anticipate that cars must occasionally use shoulders for evasive maneuvers.

“The ministerial duty is the duty to maintain the road,” he said, “and the road includes the shoulder, it includes all parts of the right of way that are in intended for use.”

The high court also heard an appeal Thursday by electric vehicle maker Lucid, which failed to convince a trial court that the state prohibition on direct sales of vehicles by manufacturers violates the state constitution.

A point made by Lucid lawyer Andrew Grossman was that Tesla was unaffected by a 2015 state law against direct sales.

“The statute is riddled with exceptions for direct sales, but then it prohibits companies like Lucid from selling directly,” he said.

The high court also heard a case about child custody rights in a situation involving an unmarried couple’s pregnancy through a sperm donor. In this case, the birth mother wants the Supreme Court to reverse a trial court order granting her former partner caregiver status for the child.

This article is available through a partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Association’s nonprofit, tax-exempt Educational Foundation.