Court Opinion

ID: 9930841
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-07 20:05:40.774224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:50:12.711124
License: Public Domain

Court of Appeals
of the State of Georgia

                                         ATLANTA,____________________
                                                  February 07, 2024

The Court of Appeals hereby passes the following order:

A24A0378. THE MEDICAL CENTER OF CENTRAL GEORGIA, INC. et al v.
    NORKESIA TURNER et al.

      In the above-referenced appeal, Norkesia Turner sued Dr. William Thompson;
Dr. Heather Nolan; and their employer, the Medical Center of Central Georgia (“the
appellants”) for medical malpractice and wrongful death—both claims arising from
the doctors’ alleged negligence during surgery of her father, which she contends
caused his death. Following trial, the jury entered a verdict in Turner’s favor,
awarding her approximately $9.2 million in damages, $7.2 million of which were for
noneconomic damages designated specifically to the wrongful-death claim. In relevant
part, the appellants argue the jury’s award of $7.2 million in noneconomic damages
for wrongful death exceeded the damages caps in OCGA § 51-13-1.1 But we have
serious reservations as to whether this Court has jurisdiction to consider the
constitutional question presented in this appeal.
      The question of whether the limits on noneconomic damages in a medical-
malpractice action under OCGA § 51-13-1 apply to a wrongful-death claim arising
from medical malpractice is a constitutional issue that has yet to be explicitly addressed
by the Supreme Court of Georgia, which has exclusive jurisdiction, inter alia, over “all
cases in which the constitutionality of a law, ordinance, or constitutional provision has

      1
        The appellants also argue that Turner failed to present sufficient evidence of
causation to support her negligence claim, but causation is not at issue regarding
jurisdiction.
been drawn in question.”2

      To be sure, our Supreme Court has interpreted the foregoing jurisdictional
provision as extending “only to constitutional issues . . . that do not involve the
application of unquestioned and unambiguous constitutional provisions or challenges
to laws previously held to be constitutional against the same attack.”3 As a result, this
Court has limited jurisdiction to review constitutional questions in cases involving

      the application, in a general sense, of unquestioned and unambiguous
      provisions of the Constitution to a given state of facts and that do not
      involve construction of some constitutional provision directly in question
      and doubtful either under its own terms or under the decisions of the
      Supreme Court of Georgia or the Supreme Court of the United States.4

      Importantly, the Supreme Court of Georgia “will never pass upon
constitutional questions unless it clearly appears in the record that the point was
directly and properly made in the [trial] court below and distinctly passed upon by the
trial judge.”5 And here, the trial court ruled that our Supreme Court’s decision in
Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery, P.C. v. Nestlehutt6 conclusively decided the constitutional

      2
        Ga. Const. of 1983 Art. VI, § VI, Par. II (1); see also Zarate-Martinez v.
Echemendia, 299 Ga. 301, 304 (2) (788 SE2d 405) (2016) (punctuation omitted); accord
Fox v. Norfolk S. Corp., 342 Ga. App. 38, 43 (1) (802 SE2d 319) (2017).
      3
       State v. Davis, 303 Ga. 684, 687 (1) (814 SE2d 701) (2018) (punctuation
omitted).
      4
       Davis, 303 Ga. at 687-88 (1) (emphasis supplied); accord City of Decatur v.
DeKalb Cnty., 284 Ga. 434, 436 (2) (668 SE2d 247) (2008).
      5
       Nathans v. Diamond, 282 Ga. 804, 807 (2) (654 SE2d 121) (2007) (punctuation
omitted).
      6
          286 Ga. 731 (691 SE2d 218) (2010).
issue presented in this case in Turner’s favor. Specifically, the trial court determined
that Nestlehutt unequivocally held that OCGA § 51-13-1 was unconstitutional and did
not exclude any aspect of the statute, which included wrongful-death claims in the
medical malpractice context.7 In this respect, it is undisputed that the text of that
statute refers to medical-malpractice claims, including wrongful death.8 It is also true
Nestlehutt held that the caps on noneconomic damages in OCGA § 51-13-1 were
unconstitutional as to tort cases “involving medical negligence” and “involving the
negligence of a health care provider.”9

       7
         See OCGA § 51-13-1 (“In any verdict returned or judgment entered in a
medical malpractice action, including an action for wrongful death, against one or more
health care providers, the total amount recoverable by a claimant for noneconomic
damages in such action shall be limited to an amount not to exceed $350,000.00,
regardless of the number of defendant health care providers against whom the claim
is asserted or the number of separate causes of action on which the claim is based.”
(emphasis supplied)); see infra note 8.
       8
          See supra note 7. As noted by the trial court, the Nestlehutt Court made two
seemingly unqualified statements that the damages caps in OCGA § 51-13-1 are
unconstitutional. Specifically, at the outset of the opinion, the Supreme Court noted
that, “[b]ased on our review of the record and the applicable law, we find that the
noneconomic damages caps in OCGA § 51–13–1 violate the constitutional right to trial
by jury . . . .” Nestlehutt, 286 Ga. at 731. And later in the opinion, the Nestlehutt Court
reiterated that “we conclude that the noneconomic damages caps in OCGA § 51–13–1
violate the right to a jury trial as guaranteed under the Georgia
Constitution.”Nestlehutt, 286 Ga. at 738 (2) (b). Given that OCGA § 51-13-1 includes
wrongful death as a type of medical-malpractice claim and the Nestlehutt Court did not
explicitly exclude wrongful-death claims involving medical negligence from its holding,
it is perfectly understandable that the trial court felt bound by Nestlehutt. See Ga.
Const. of 1983, Art. VI, Sec. VI, Par. VI (“The decisions of the Supreme Court shall
bind all other courts as precedents.”).
       9
       Nestlehutt, 286 Ga. at 735 (2) (a); see Taylor v. Devereux Found., Inc., 316 Ga.
44, 59 (B) (III) (885 SE2d 671) (2023) (“[T]he claim that was restricted by the
statute—a claim for non-economic damages in a tort case involving medical
negligence—was within the scope of the constitutional right to trial by jury in
       Nevertheless, the appellants maintain the $350,000 cap for noneconomic
damages in OCGA § 51-13-1 survives in some form and applies here because Nestlehutt
involved only a medical-malpractice claim; so, they argue, the ruling in that case does
not apply to the statutory caps as to wrongful-death claims. Indeed, they contend
Nestlehutt could not have ruled that the statutory caps on noneconomic damages in
wrongful-death cases are unconstitutional because that issue was not before the
Court.10 Of note, Turner argues this Court “does not have jurisdiction to determine
whether Appellants’ request to apply OCGA § 51-13-1 to the judgment for wrongful
death damages violates [her] rights under Constitution of Georgia, which falls under
the exclusive jurisdiction of the Georgia Supreme Court.”11
       So, while we fully acknowledge the wrongful-death claim in this case involves
medical negligence and negligence of a health care provider, we nevertheless conclude
that because a wrongful-death claim was not directly at issue in Nestlehutt, the issue of
whether the noneconomic caps delineated in OCGA § 51-13-1 apply to wrongful-death
claims—even in the context of medical malpractice—appears to be a novel
constitutional question for the Supreme Court of Georgia to resolve.

Georgia.” (emphasis supplied)); Nestlehutt, 286 Ga. at 734 (2) (a) (“Given the clear
existence of medical negligence claims as of the adoption of the Georgia Constitution
of 1798, we have no difficulty concluding that such claims are encompassed within the
right to jury trial under Art. I, Sec. I, Par. XI (a)” (emphasis supplied)).
       10
         See Appellant’s Brief, p. 2 (arguing that the Supreme Court of Georgia “has
never considered OCGA § 51-13-1’s application to damages for wrongful death, as
those circumstances were not (and could not have been) present in Nestlehutt,” and
that “[a]pplying Nestlehutt’s framework for analyzing right to a jury trial, an award of
noneconomic damages for wrongful death—a post 1798 statutory invention—falls
outside the scope of the jury trial right.”) (emphasis in original); see also generally id.
at pp. 25-36.
       11
       Appellees’ Brief, p. 2; see also id. at p. 11 (noting that “the constitutionality
of damages caps is an issue that falls within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Georgia
Supreme Court”).
      In sum, because the Supreme Court of Georgia has not directly addressed the
particular constitutional question squarely presented in this appeal, we cannot say this
issue is unquestioned and unambiguous; and under such circumstances, we conclude
it appropriate to transfer this case to our Supreme Court for a definitive determination
as to whether it has exclusive jurisdiction over same.12

                                        Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia
                                          Clerk’s Office, Atlanta,____________________
                                                                      02/07/2024
                                                   I certify that the above is a true extract from
                                        the minutes of the Court of Appeals of Georgia.
                                                  Witness my signature and the seal of said court
                                        hereto affixed the day and year last above written.

                                                                                          , Clerk.

      12
        On February 6, 2024, after holding oral argument, all three members of the
panel assigned to this case voted unanimously to transfer it to the Supreme Court of
Georgia for further consideration of the jurisdictional issue raised in this order.