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Under Florida Statute Section 768.18, eligible survivors in a wrongful death case include the decedent’s spouse, children, parents, and certain blood relatives or adoptive siblings who depended on the decedent for support when no closer survivors exist. The statute defines “minor children” as anyone under 25 at the time of death, a broader definition than Florida’s general age of majority.

Notably excluded from this definition are grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, stepchildren who were never legally adopted, and unmarried domestic partners, regardless of how close those particular relationships were in practice before the death occurred.

A Port St. Lucie wrongful ...

Under O.C.G.A. Section 51-4-2, the surviving spouse, or if there is no surviving spouse, the surviving children, may recover the “full value of the life of the decedent, as shown by the evidence.” This standard covers both economic contributions like lost income and the intangible value of a person’s life, including guidance, companionship, and the relationship the family has lost.

Georgia courts have described this intangible component as reflecting what the decedent’s life genuinely meant to them personally, separate entirely from what that life meant financially to the surviving family members left behind after the loss.

An ...

Patient falls in Atlanta hospitals and health facilities are among the most preventable serious injuries in institutional care. When a patient falls from a hospital bed, a gurney, or a procedure table, the instinct is to treat it as an accident. Under Georgia law, it may be something more. Whether a fall constitutes actionable institutional negligence depends on the standard of care the facility was required to follow and whether documented failures in that standard allowed the fall to occur.

Hospitals and inpatient health facilities in Georgia owe a duty of care to their patients that is defined ...

Families who suspect that an elderly relative is being abused or neglected in a nursing home or assisted living facility in Georgia often feel overwhelmed and unsure of what to do first. Acting quickly and documenting what you observe is one of the most important things a family can do, both for the immediate protection of their loved one and for the viability of any civil claim that follows.

Civil claims against Georgia care facilities are built on evidence. Institutional defendants have their own legal teams and will have access to their own records, which they control. Families who document ...

When a child is injured due to someone else’s negligence or misconduct in Georgia, the legal deadline for filing a civil claim does not work the same way it does for adult injuries. Georgia’s statute of limitations rules for child injury cases include important provisions that parents need to understand early, because missing the applicable deadline can permanently eliminate the right to seek compensation.

Georgia generally imposes a two-year statute of limitations on personal injury claims. For adults, the clock starts running from the date of the injury. For minors, Georgia law tolls the statute of limitations until the ...

When someone is hurt by a violent crime at a business, apartment complex, or parking lot, the property owner sometimes shares the blame. Georgia’s premises liability law requires owners to take reasonable steps to keep the people they invite onto their property safe from foreseeable harm.

When a property owner invites people onto their land for a lawful purpose, that owner has a duty to use ordinary care to keep the premises and its approaches reasonably safe. If the owner fails in that duty and a person is injured as a result, the owner can be held responsible.

This ...

When a child gets hurt at a daycare, parents often feel like they’re fighting uphill against an institution that has more resources and more information than they do. What many families don’t realize is that Georgia’s daycare licensing and inspection system creates a paper trail that can work powerfully in their favor, especially when the facility has a history of safety violations before their child was ever enrolled.

Georgia negligence law requires injured parties to show that the harm they suffered was foreseeable. A daycare with a clean record and no prior complaints presents a ...

Preschools in Georgia operate under a specific regulatory framework enforced by the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning, the state agency responsible for licensing and oversight of childcare facilities. That framework exists to protect children. When a College Park preschool fails to meet its licensing requirements and a child suffers abuse or neglect as a result, those regulatory failures become directly relevant to the civil case that follows.

The Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning establishes minimum standards for childcare facilities through its licensing rules, which address:

A church shooting leaves survivors and families carrying losses that are almost impossible to put into words. Physical injuries. Trauma that lingers long after the headlines move on. A loved one who isn’t coming home. And on top of all of that, the financial weight of medical bills, funeral costs, and lost income that keeps arriving whether you’re ready for it or not.

Georgia law gives victims and families a path to pursue civil compensation, separate from whatever happens in criminal court. Understanding what’s available, and who can actually be held accountable, is where that process starts.

The shooter bears criminal responsibility. But ...

When a member of the clergy sexually abuses a child, the immediate focus is on the individual perpetrator. But the civil legal system asks a broader question: who else had the power to prevent this, knew or should have known about the risk, and failed to act? In Augusta and throughout Georgia, churches and religious organizations can face substantial civil liability not just for the acts of abusive clergy members, but for the institutional decisions and failures that allowed those acts to occur and continue.

Churches are institutions with supervisory authority over their clergy. That authority ...