Trial Attorney Blog
Finch McCranie, LLP currently represents three individuals who have been tragically added to the ever growing and long list of innocent victims either killed or seriously injured in a police chase case. In two of the cases we filed on behalf of these victims, the police department involved is seeking to have the claims dismissed based on an argument that the Georgia Legislature has allegedly abolished the legal doctrine joint and several liability. While the law does not support the government’s argument, nonetheless, this argument is likely to be seen in every police chase case filed in Georgia until such time as the Georgia Supreme Court has officially rejected it.
Georgia law has long followed the doctrine of joint and several liability. If two or more people acting in concert with one another (even though not associated with one another) nonetheless contribute to damages to an innocent third party through their actions either, or both, may be sued and either, or both, are 100% individually liable for the damage caused by their acts. In short, if the acts of one person combine with the acts of another to produce an injury to an innocent third party, Georgia law has long been that either or both parties may be sued and either or both parties held 100% liable for the full extent of the damages inflicted. This is in essence what the doctrine of joint and several liability doctrine has stated in Georgia for 200 years. Thus, in a police chase case, if the fleeing suspect causes the damage to the innocent third party, he may be sued. Also, if a police officer recklessly disregards proper police procedure (and thereby contributes to plaintiff’s damages) he may also be sued and held jointly liable. This is how the joint and several liability doctrine applies in a police chase case. Recently, however, jurisdictions sued in high speed police chase are contending that the Georgia Legislature allegedly changed this law in 2005 when the infamous “SB3″ tort reform package was enacted into law.
One of the provisions of the tort reform package was an amendment to O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33 which does say that in those cases where the plaintiff is himself to some degree responsible for his own injuries that in such a limited context a jury may individually apportion damages against named defendants, and even non-parties, rather than holding all the responsible parties each 100% liable each for all of the plaintiff’s damages. What is noteworthy about this modification to the law, however, is that it only applies in those cases where the plaintiff himself was to some degree responsible for this own damages.
In virtually every police chase case we have seen, our clients are totally innocent third parties caught up in the chase. In most cases, the injured third party is simply at the wrong place at the wrong time and is crashed into either by the fleeing suspect or the police vehicle. In such circumstances, it is absurd for a police department to contend that the innocent third party somehow was responsible for creating his own damages. And yet, even though the innocent third party cannot be legitimately claimed to have in any way contributed to their own damages, police departments in Georgia and their attorneys are now asserting that such innocent victims should not recover damages under the longstanding joint and several liability doctrine but should instead be limited in their damages as if they somehow contributed to their own damages. In short, they seek to have juries apportion damages against the most responsible party (the fleeing suspect) thereby abrogating completely the joint and several liability doctrine for the police officer.
We at Finch McCranie intend to fight against the efforts of the defense bar to deny our clients’ rights to justice. These people have already suffered enough from the reckless disregard of proper police procedure in these unwarranted, ill-advised high speed police chases. As we have written about before, all too often these cases involve situations where the suspect is fleeing for a minor traffic offense or misdemeanor and yet the police continue to endanger the public and inflict death and/or serious injury on the very third party members of the public they are supposed to be trying to protect. The price that society pays for these ill-advised police chases is staggering. Quite literally, we are talking about millions of dollars in medical bills and lost wages and needless deaths, brain injuries, amputations and other serious injury. We need to stop chases for minor offenses before other people are killed and maimed. Except in the extreme cases where the suspect should be apprehended for murder, rape or some other forcible felony, such chases should be barred. To continue chasing suspects for suspected violations involving minor traffic offenses or other misdemeanor violations is to continue to invite disaster, serious injury and death for the public at large.
To the extent that police departments and their attorneys continue to try to role back hundreds of years of legal history in these cases, we will continue to resist them, until such time as the Georgia Supreme Court rules on this issue. We are confident that when the issue is placed before the Court that the ruling will be in favor of our clients, that being that the joint and several liability doctrine is alive and well in Georgia and that the police can be held jointly liable for damages if their reckless disregard for proper police procedure was a proximate cause of the damages sustained.