DISMISSAL OF WRONGFUL DEATH CONSTRUCTION CASE

On June 16, 2025, Atlanta Partners Carrie Christie and Courtney Norton prevailed on a motion to dismiss a wrongful death construction case in the Superior Court of Walton County, Georgia. The plaintiff’s minor decedent was crushed when the compactor he was driving tipped over the edge of an elevation pad and crushed him. The motion to dismiss asserted a lack of subject matter jurisdiction over the defendant general contractor under the tort immunity provisions in Georgia’s Workers Compensation Act. The Act is an employee’s exclusive remedy against his employer, including his statutory employer, for work-related injuries and fatalities. When an employee’s injury/fatality is compensable under the Act, he is absolutely barred from pursuing a common law tort action for the same injury/fatality. At issue was whether the “affirmative act” exception to tort immunity, which is triggered when a defendant makes an “active, direct and individual action” toward a plaintiff, applied in this case, when the general contractor informed all subcontractors and their employees that the job site was ready for work. Ms. Christie and Ms. Norton successfully showed that a general “ready for work” directive was not an “active, direct and individual” action toward the decedent, who was employed by a subcontractor and whose worksite instructions came entirely from the subcontractor without any direct instruction by the defendant general contractor. Accordingly, the defendant general contractor was entitled to tort immunity under the Act’s exclusive remedy provision.