Georgia’s Senate Bill 68, signed by Governor Brian Kemp on April 21, 2025, is a tort reform law that reshapes how personal injury and wrongful death cases are tried in the state.1Georgia Senate Press. Sen. Chuck Payne Applauds Signing of Comprehensive Tort Reform Legislation by Governor Kemp It changes what medical billing evidence a jury can see, raises the bar sharply on negligent security claims, and gives either side the right to split most trials into separate liability and damages phases. Several smaller procedural changes ride along with those headline reforms.
When the New Rules Apply
The timing matters, because SB 68 does not treat every provision the same way. The negligent security and medical billing changes apply only to causes of action arising after April 21, 2025. If the incident that caused the injury happened before that date, the old rules govern those two issues even if the lawsuit is filed later.
The procedural changes work differently. Bifurcation, the new limits on voluntary dismissal, the automatic discovery stay, and the seatbelt evidence rule took effect immediately and apply to cases already in litigation. A case filed in 2024 can still be affected by these procedural provisions once they kicked in.
Medical Billing Evidence and Phantom Damages
The most financially significant change in SB 68 addresses what defense attorneys long called “phantom damages.” Before the reform, a plaintiff could put the full amount billed by hospitals and doctors in front of the jury, even when insurance had negotiated the actual payment down to a fraction of that number. A $200,000 hospital charge that insurance settled for $40,000 could still anchor the jury’s thinking at $200,000.
Under the new law, courts must allow juries to hear both figures: the amounts charged for medical treatment and the amounts actually necessary to satisfy those charges under any public or private health insurance covering the plaintiff, including workers’ compensation. The jury uses both numbers to determine the reasonable value of the medical care. Plaintiffs can no longer rely on inflated billed amounts alone.
Negligent Security Claims Are Much Harder to Win
Under prior law, a plaintiff injured by a third party’s crime on someone else’s property could often establish liability by showing the property had a general history of crime. Georgia property owners already owed a duty under O.C.G.A. § 51-3-1 to use ordinary care in keeping their premises safe for invitees.2Justia. Georgia Code 51-3-1 – Duty of Owner or Occupier of Land to Invitee Courts applied a relatively broad foreseeability test to convert that general duty into a negligent security case.
SB 68 replaces that approach with a five-element test. An invitee suing a property owner over a third party’s criminal act must now prove all five:
- Foreseeability of the criminal conduct, shown either by a “particularized warning” of an imminent threat or, by clear and convincing evidence, that similar criminal activity was reasonably likely given prior substantially similar incidents on the premises or within 500 yards.
- Foreseeability of the injury as a reasonable consequence of the criminal act.
- Premises vulnerability: the criminal exploited a specific physical condition of the property that created a security risk substantially greater than the general crime risk in the surrounding area.
- Failure by the owner to exercise ordinary care in fixing or mitigating the known vulnerability.
- A causal link between that failure and the injury.
The “particularized warning” standard is deliberately narrow. It requires the owner to have actually known specific, credible information about a particular person likely to commit a specific criminal act at a specific time and place on the property. A vague sense that the neighborhood is unsafe will not satisfy it.
Licensees face a steeper climb still. A licensee is someone who enters property for their own purposes rather than at the owner’s invitation, such as a social guest, and Georgia has always limited the owner’s duty to avoiding willful or wanton injury.3Justia. Georgia Code 51-3-2 – Duty of Owner of Premises to Licensee Under SB 68, a licensee bringing a negligent security claim must prove the owner had a particularized warning of the imminent threat and then deliberately failed to act. General crime statistics on or near the property no longer establish foreseeability for either category of visitor.
Trial Bifurcation
SB 68 gives either party the right to split most personal injury and wrongful death trials into two phases. In the first phase, the jury decides only whether the defendant is liable. If it finds liability, the trial moves to a second phase on how much money the plaintiff should receive in compensatory or punitive damages.
The right is not absolute. A court may deny bifurcation when the amount in dispute is less than $150,000, and it must deny it in cases involving sexual offenses against minors. For most other personal injury and wrongful death cases, though, bifurcation is available to whichever side asks for it. The practical effect is that jurors decide fault before they hear about the plaintiff’s medical bills, lost income, or pain and suffering, which tends to reduce the influence of sympathy on the liability question.
Other Procedural Changes
A handful of smaller but consequential procedural changes took effect alongside bifurcation.
Seatbelt evidence is now admissible in civil automobile accident cases. Before SB 68, a plaintiff who was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of a crash could recover full damages without the jury ever learning of it. Georgia now joins the majority of states that let jurors consider seatbelt non-use.
Voluntary dismissal has a hard deadline. A plaintiff can voluntarily dismiss a case only within 60 days after the defendant files an answer. After that window closes, dismissal requires court approval. This limits a tactic where plaintiffs dismissed and refiled to reset deadlines or maneuver around unfavorable judges.
Discovery is automatically paused while a motion to dismiss or a motion for a more definite statement is pending. If the court denies the motion, the defendant has 15 days to file an answer. Defendants no longer have to spend heavily on discovery while a threshold legal challenge is unresolved, which changes the settlement pressure in weaker cases.
What SB 68 Does Not Cover
SB 68 is often discussed together with Senate Bill 69, which Governor Kemp signed on the same day. SB 69 is a separate law targeting third-party litigation funding rather than a part of SB 68. Beginning July 1, 2026, entities financing lawsuits in Georgia must register with the state and disclose the existence of the funding, the funder’s identity, and the general terms of the agreement.1Georgia Senate Press. Sen. Chuck Payne Applauds Signing of Comprehensive Tort Reform Legislation by Governor Kemp Foreign-affiliated financiers are barred from operating in the state, and opposing parties can seek discovery on the terms of any funding arrangement. If your question is really about litigation financing, SB 69 rather than SB 68 is the operative law.
SB 68 also does not touch several longstanding features of Georgia personal injury practice. The two-year statute of limitations for personal injury under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33, the modified comparative negligence rule barring recovery when the plaintiff is 50 percent or more at fault under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33, the $250,000 punitive damage cap under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-5.1, the offer of settlement fee-shifting rules under O.C.G.A. § 9-11-68, the expert affidavit requirement for malpractice claims under O.C.G.A. § 9-11-9.1, and the 2024 restrictions on direct action against motor carrier insurers under Senate Bill 426 all remain the law as they stood before April 21, 2025. A case filed today still runs through those rules; SB 68 just changes what happens on top of them at the medical damages, negligent security, and trial-procedure layers.