Professional Negligence Law Reporter

The Georgia Supreme Court held that a deceased patient’s adult daughter may, under equitable principles, sue one of his treating physicians for wrongful death.

Diane Dickens Hamon sued physician William Clark Connell and South Georgia Emergency Medical Associates, P.C., for the wrongful death of her father, James Dickens Jr. The defendants moved for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that Hamon had no legal right to bring the wrongful death claim because Dickens was survived by a spouse. The trial court denied the motion, but an appellate court reversed. The state high court granted certiorari to consider whether the trial court had erred in finding that Hamon had the right, under equitable principles, to bring a claim under the state’s wrongful death act, Ga. Code Ann. §51-4-1 et seq.

Reversing, the state high court concluded that the trial court had properly denied the defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings. The court noted that at the time of his death, James Dickens had long been separated from his wife, who refused to sue for wrongful death in her capacity as surviving spouse. Citing the text of the wrongful death act, the court said that although the law gives a surviving spouse the right to pursue a wrongful death claim, it also grants this right to a decedent’s children where there is no surviving spouse. Moreover, under certain circumstances, state courts have applied equitable principles to allow someone other than a surviving spouse to bring a wrongful death claim to benefit a decedent’s children, the court noted.

The court rejected the appellate court’s conclusion that application of equitable principles was available to minor, not adult, children seeking to sue for wrongful death. Nothing in applicable case law nor in the equity statutes themselves suggests that only minor children may benefit, the court held, adding that the wrongful death act also draws no distinction between minor and adult children.

Consequently, the court held that the appellate court’s ruling was improper.

Citation: Hamon v. Connell, 2023 WL 1786090 (Ga. Feb. 7, 2023).

Plaintiff counsel: Robert D. Howell, Moultrie, Ga.