Mrs. Melissa “Missy” Mason, age 52, of Dahlonega, Georgia passed away on Wednesday, December 8, 2021.
Missy was a native and lifelong resident of Lumpkin County. She was born on September 17, 1969, to Wylie and Lonie Smith Armour. She was preceded in death by her father-in-law Clyde Mason; memaw Wardye Wimpy; sisters Glenda (“Pud”) Foster and Brenda Sanford; and uncle Jacky Wimpy. Missy was a beloved mother and “Mimi” to her family. She loved her grandchildren and enjoyed watching them play ball. She could often be found fishing and going to thrift stores. She was loved deeply and will be missed.
She is survived by her husband, Chuck Mason of Dahlonega; daughter Holly (Adam) Ray of Dahlonega; son Hunter (Madison) Mason of Dahlonega; step-daughter Heather (Judd) Gravitt of Murrayville; father Daniel (Lunelle) Armour of Lula; mother-in-law Marjorie Mason of Dahlonega; brothers Eddie Armour of Dahlonega, Gary Armour of Gainesville, Jeff Armour of Gainesville, and Wyndal Armour of Gainesville; sister Carolyn Williams of Gainesville; uncle Melvin Wimpy of Dahlonega; and grandchildren Audrey Gravitt, Javen Mason, Coen Gravitt, Mason Ray, Magdalene Ray, Maddox Ray, and Sutton Mason.
Funeral Services are scheduled for Wednesday, December 15, 2021, at 2:00 PM at Anderson-Underwood Funeral Home Chapel with Rev. Lyman Caldwell officiating. Interment will follow in Philippi Baptist Church Cemetery. The family will receive friends at the funeral home on Tuesday, December 14, 2021, from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM.
To share a memory or a condolence with the family, visit Missy’s online guestbook at andersonunderwood.com.
Anderson-Underwood Funeral Home, 2068 Highway 19 North, Dahlonega, GA 30533
Courtesy announcement provided by McGahee-Griffin and Stewart Funeral Home of Cornelia, Georgia (706/778-8668).
HCES Director Chad Black (Daniel Purcell/Now Habersham)
Habersham County is losing another long-time public servant. Emergency services director and fire chief Chad Black submitted his notice of resignation on Monday. Black has spent much of his 40-year public service career working in Habersham County since being hired on as a part-time paramedic at Habersham Medical Center in 1988.
Black, who has served as head of Habersham County Emergency Services for the past four years, says he’s leaving public safety to accept a private-sector job in management with a medical lab in Gainesville. He describes the move as a quality of life decision – one that will afford him more time to spend with his family and enjoy life a little more. Still, he says, it was a tough decision.
“I wish it would have been bad [circumstances],” Black tells Now Habersham, “it would have been easier. I love my job. I love what I do and I love the people. That’s what’s made this decision so hard,” he adds, choking back tears. “People probably thought I would die doing this.”
Black grew up in White County and developed his interest in public safety early on, riding in ambulances with his uncle Ricky Barrett who owns a funeral home in Cleveland.
“I have to give a lot of credit to Ricky. I watched him over the years, how he treated people and took care of them,” he says.
In 1985, Black began his public safety career in Hall County, simultaneously working part-time in Habersham. In 2016, he retired as Hall County’s deputy fire chief. The following year he was named Habersham County’s EMS director when Jack Moody, who had held that position for 28 years, retired. In that role, he helped guide the successful merger of the county’s EMS and fire services, serving alongside fire chief Jeff Cain until his retirement earlier this year. When Cain retired, Black also took on the role of fire chief.
In addition to his job duties, Black has served as a regional EMS coordinator, utilizing his years of experience as an EMT and flight paramedic to bring high-level trauma care to Northeast Georgia. In 2019, he was awarded the Governor’s Award for Trauma Excellence for his leadership.
In response to the announcement Monday of Black’s resignation, Habersham County Commission Chair Dustin Mealor called Black “a great asset to our county” and said he will be missed. Others expressed deep appreciation for Black’s decades of public service.
“I know words cannot express a proper level of appreciation, but I personally want to thank Chad for his service to Habersham County and for all he has done to help me personally during my tenure as Interim County Manager,” says Alicia Vaughn. “His leadership and dedication to this community are evident when you look at his department and see the spirit of excellence exhibited by his staff.”
“Chad has been a wonderful employee of the county and his heart and passion were evident every day that he showed up for work,” says District 4 Habersham County Commissioner Bruce Harkness. “He will be very difficult, if not impossible, to replace because he absolutely loved his job and his passion to help others was evident.”
District 1 commissioner Bruce Palmer echoed his appreciation for what Black has done to advance public safety in Habersham County, adding, “I would like to wish him the best in his future endeavors.”
For his part, Black says the hardest part of leaving the job will be saying goodbye to the “phenomenal” people with whom he works. The part he will miss least is the constant fear and worry that accompanies a job like his.
“They’re all family to me,” he says of the men and women in his department. “I’ve made it 39 years never to have a line of duty death and I pray I can make it another month.”
Black’s resignation is effective January 14, 2022. Soon after that, he will begin his new job as Executive Vice-President of Governmental Sales and Business Development for Pro-GeneX Laboratories and Clinical Service in Gainesville.
“There will never be words to express my appreciation for all that Habersham County has afforded me,” he says. “I have absolutely been blessed.” He credits his predecessors, Cain and Moody, for laying a strong foundation for public safety in Habersham County and expects the job will attract a number of qualified candidates both from within and outside the department.
Vaughn says the county will work closely with Director Black to ensure that a plan is in place to recruit a qualified candidate to lead Habersham County Emergency Services in the future.
Clarkesville City Councilman Steven Ward passed away on Dec. 11, 2021, of natural causes.
Funeral services will be held Tuesday for Clarkesville City Councilman Steven Ward. Ward passed away suddenly on December 11 from an apparent heart attack. He was pronounced dead at Habersham Medical Center in Demorest, according to Habersham County Coroner Kasey McEntire.
His funeral is set for 3 p.m., December 14, at Whitfield Funeral Home’s south chapel in Baldwin. Visitation will be from 1-2:45 p.m. at the funeral home prior to the service.
Ward was first elected to the Clarkesville City Council in 2017. He was re-elected to a second term this past November.
In a statement on the city’s Facebook page, Clarkesville officials expressed their “deep sorrow” in announcing Ward’s death. “His service and deep devotion to the City of Clarkesville will be missed,” it says.
“Steven served the city with a willing spirit and a keen financial mind,” Mayor Barrie Aycock tells Now Habersham. “He will be greatly missed by all of us at the city.”
Habersham County Commissioner Bruce Harkness was a friend of Ward’s. He says Ward was an “amazing leader for the city” who actively tried to work with the county, as well.
“I was so proud of the awesome man that he had become,” says Commissioner Harkness. “His loss will be felt by many in the whole community and it is a tragedy because he was such a great person and great leader.”
In addition to his public service, Ward worked for Pruitt Health.
He is survived by his mother, Barbara Ward of Clarkesville, and his sister Nancy Holliday and her family of Demorest. Aycock asks the community to pray for Steven’s family, including his long-time girlfriend Kellen Jenkins and her three sons.
A Cornelia man accused of sexually assaulting two girls a decade ago has been arrested and charged with the crimes.
28-year-old Caleb Brady Workman is charged with three counts of aggravated child molestation and four counts of sexual exploitation of children. The charges stem from alleged abuse that occurred in 2011 against two girls under the age of sixteen, according to the arrest warrants. The girls’ mothers reported the abuse to Habersham County Sheriff’s investigators this past April after their daughters told them what happened.
The girls said they were forced to videotape the sexual abuse.
“This disclosure came about when they learned Caleb would be released from prison this year for his charges of Computer Exploitation of Children (child pornography) which he was arrested on in 2016 by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI),” the incident report states.
Arrest warrants were issued in May of this year. A Habersham County deputy took Workman into custody at the Jenkins Correctional Center in Millen, Georgia, on Friday, December 11, and booked him into the Habersham County Detention Center.
As of Monday morning, December 13, he remained in jail without bond.
It was a close call, but fortunately, there were no injuries in an alleged DUI wreck early Monday in Clayton. Four vehicles were involved in the wreck, including a Rabun County school bus loaded with children.
The bus was stopped in the eastbound lane of US 76 waiting to turn left onto Beechwood Drive when a 1962 Ford sedan ran into it.
According to state troopers, 76-year-old John Stancil of Clayton was driving west on US 76 when he ran off the road then crossed into the eastbound lane. The 1962 Ford sedan he was driving struck the rear driver’s side of the bus. The car then struck two other vehicles that were stopped behind the school bus.
Troopers with Georgia State Patrol Post 7 in Toccoa responded to the crash around 7:18 a.m. on December 13. They charged Stancil with DUI and failure to maintain lane.
Pet’s personalities are a big part of what makes them such important parts of our families, and the Habersham County Animal Shelter is full of adorable animals with stories, their own attitudes, likes, dislikes and everything else that makes them unique.
This week, Now Habersham would like to introduce you to two sweet girls, Nancy Drew the cat and Lilly the Dog, who have big personalities themselves.
Meet Nancy Drew
Nancy Drew has a mystery to solve, and it’s why she hasn’t been adopted yet.
Nancy is a beautiful adult female cat, who is friendly, sweet and has the most gorgeous eyes and coat. She was number 40 of the cat hoarding case in Clarkesville, where Habersham County Animal Care and Control reduced around 150 cats.
“I’m good with other cats, and I love people,” she says. “My ideal home has lots of new places to climb in and around, and new places to explore.”
(Hadley Cottingham/Now Habersham)
Nancy isn’t shy at all. She loves to meet new people and greet them as they walk into the shelter’s cat room, and likes to climb up to be eye-level with new friends.
“I have a lot of purr-sonality,” she says. “My future family will get a lot of love, and definitely some great stories, from bringing me home.”
Meet Lilly
Lilly is a friendly, energetic dog who would love to have a family to call her own. She’s learning how to sit and stay, and is thrilled about the idea of having a human, or humans, all to herself.
“I’m not the kind of dog who wants to share,” she says. “I love big and I love hard, and I really like being the center of attention. If I could be an only puppy, that would make me super happy.”
Lilly is learning new tricks and her manners, and while she might need some help learning, her winning smile doesn’t need a bit of training. (Hadley Cottingham/Now Habersham)
Lilly would love to have a place to run around and play, too. She loves to run outside and smell new smells, no matter the weather.
“I hope my forever home has a yard I can run in with a person who likes to play,” she says. “And when we’re all worn out, we can nap together in our warm, safe home.”
If you’re interested in adopting Nancy Drew, Lilly or any of the other animals at the Habersham County Animal Shelter, please call the shelter at (706) 839-0195 to set up an appointment. You may also visit them in person Tuesday-Friday from 10 a.m. to Noon & 1-5 p.m. or on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Check out their Facebook page for more information.
Democratic governors are pushing for Congress to pass federal election legislation, including the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021. Jill Nolin/Georgia Recorder (file photo)
WASHINGTON (GA Recorder) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and 16 other Democratic governors are urging the U.S. Senate to pass two bills that aim to protect voting rights.
Both measures need 60 votes to advance under Senate rules but have been stalled by Republican opposition in the evenly divided Senate.
“Without decisive action by the federal government this year to protect voters’ access to the ballot and ensure the integrity and transparency of our elections, the voices of Americans across the country, especially Americans of color, will be suppressed,” the governors wrote in a Monday letter to U.S. Senate leadership.
One bill, known as the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021, would restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and require states and localities with a systemic history of crafting discriminatory voting laws to get special pre-clearance by the Justice Department before enacting those laws.
The second bill, known as the Freedom to Vote Act, was introduced in the Senate, and it would prevent gerrymandering, protect poll workers and require all states to offer at least two weeks of early voting, as well as establish a national voting day, among other provisions.
The letter is addressed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican. While Schumer has said the Senate will vote again on voting rights legislation, Senate Republicans have repeatedly blocked any voting rights legislation from being debated.
The push for Congress to pass voting rights protection comes as legislators in 48 states have either passed or introduced legislation that would limit voting hours, restrict mail-in voting or reduce polling locations.
The trend followed historic levels of voting in the 2020 presidential election and baseless claims by former President Donald Trump that the election was stolen. Many Republican-controlled state legislatures in reaction introduced strict voter ID laws, raising concerns among Democrats and voting rights advocates.
Experts have also said that the changes to voting laws make it more difficult for rural voters, people of color and those with disabilities to get to the polls. For example, in Iowa and Kansas, someone could face criminal charges for returning a ballot on behalf of a voter who may need assistance, such as a voter with disabilities.
“While we continue to thwart efforts to restrict voting in our respective states, we can’t do it alone and need a federal solution through legislation like the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,” the governors wrote.
So far this year, state Republican legislatures have introduced 389 bills that would limit voting access in some way, according to the Brennan Center for Justice that tracks voting laws across the county.
A handful of states, like Georgia, Texas and Florida, have introduced their own election overhauls that would restrict access to voting. The Justice Department has filed lawsuits in Georgia and Texas over their recently passed voting laws.
The Brennan Center has found that from January to September of this year, 19 states have enacted 33 laws that would make it harder for Americans to vote. Similarly, the Brennan Center has found that at least 25 states have enacted 62 laws that expand the access to vote.
“Even now, legislators in some states are pushing to rewrite election laws — some they themselves passed — simply because they did not like the outcome of the last election,” the governors wrote. “These state-level efforts to limit access to the ballot undermine voting rights and create disparities across the country regarding voting access.”
Both bills currently have no Republican co-sponsors in the Senate.
The Freedom to Vote Act, is a revised voting rights bill by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the Minnesota Democrat who chairs the Senate Rules Committee, and is the product of months-long negotiations with moderate Sen. Joe Manchin III, (D-W.Va.). Manchin, not wanting to amend the filibuster, has promised to get 10 Republicans to back the bill.
Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, (D-Ariz.), have publicly said they won’t kill or amend the filibuster, including for voting rights.
“The protection of our nation’s most fundamental right – the right to vote – is not a political issue or a partisan issue,” the governors wrote. “It is an issue of our democracy.”
A Conyers woman was injured in a wreck during a police chase in Habersham County. That chase ended after the fleeing driver crashed his pickup on Mt. Zion Road, officials say.
William Welch, 23, allegedly fled after a state trooper attempted to stop him for speeding on GA 365 South near Kudzu Hill around 2:12 p.m. Sunday, December 12.
In a release issued late Sunday, Georgia State Patrol Post 7 Commander Donnie Sadler says Welch was driving a 1997 Dodge Dakota pickup. The arrest warrant states the vehicle was checked going 93 mph in a 65 mph zone.
“The driver of the Dakota failed to stop and initiated a pursuit. The pursuit lasted for approximately 5 miles on GA 365,” Sadler says.
During the chase, the fleeing pickup struck a 2013 Honda Civic, causing it to leave the roadway. The driver of Honda, Rebecca Jean Bingham, 33, sustained minor injuries and was taken to Habersham Medical Center.
The Trooper continued the pursuit and attempted to perform a PIT maneuver twice, Sadler says. The pursuit ended when Welch made a left turn onto Mt. Zion Road, lost control, and crashed.
The trooper took Welch into custody without further incident and charged him with multiple offenses including DUI, attempting to elude a police officer, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, and traffic violations, jail records show.
Welch was booked into the Habersham County Detention Center. His bond has not been set.
From left, Travis McMichael, William "Roddie" Bryan, and Gregory McMichael during their trial at at the Glynn County Courthouse in Brunswick, Ga. Jurors on Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2021, convicted the three white men charged in the death of Ahmaud Arbery, the Black man who was chased and fatally shot while running through their neighborhood. (Credit: Pool, file via AP)
Attorneys in the upcoming federal hate crimes trial of the three white men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery want the jury pool to come from an expansive area of Georgia that covers 43 counties, including some that are a four-hour drive from the courthouse where the trial will be held.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys filed a joint motion Thursday in U.S. District Court, with both sides in agreement that casting a wider net for potential jurors will improve the odds of seating an impartial jury. The first trial in Arbery’s slaying, seen by many as a reckoning on racial injustice in the legal system, resulted in murder convictions in a state court the day before Thanksgiving.
Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, were all found guilty of murder and other crimes in Feb. 23, 2020, killing of Arbery. Bryan recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael blasting the 25-year-old Black man with a shotgun after Arbery spent several minutes running as the three men chased him in pickup trucks.
The murder trial in state court was not the end of the legal troubles for the McMichaels and Bryan. They now face hate crime charges at the federal level that allege they violated Arbery’s civil rights, unjustly pursuing and threatening him on a public street because he was Black.
A judge has scheduled jury selection in the federal trial to begin Feb. 7. The McMichaels and Bryan pleaded not guilty to the hate crime charges in May.
Like the state trial, the federal case will be tried in Glynn County, where the killing occurred just outside the port city of Brunswick. Typically, a federal jury would be drawn from residents of Glynn County as well as six neighboring counties that make up the Brunswick Division of the federal court system’s Southern District of Georgia.
“The parties believe that it is likely that many potential jurors from the Brunswick Division will have experienced sustained exposure to the case and may have formed immutable opinions, in one direction or the other, that will ultimately preclude them from sitting on a jury in this case,” the attorneys said in their legal motion.
In a separate court filing, Travis McMichael’s attorney, Amy Lee Copeland, asked the judge to consider moving the trial to a different city within the same judicial district, such as Savannah or Augusta.
The attorneys noted that court rules allow for a jury pool to be assembled from the entire Southern District, which has a population of more than 1.6 million people. Each U.S. state has between one and four federal court districts, which vary substantially by size and population.
Georgia’s Southern District covers 43 of its 159 counties. Farthest from the courthouse is rural Wilkes County, located more than 210 miles (338 kilometers) north of Brunswick.
The next pretrial hearing in the federal case is scheduled for Dec. 20.
The McMichaels armed themselves with guns and jumped in a pickup truck after they spotted Arbery running past their home on a Sunday afternoon last year. They later told police they suspected he was a burglar, though they did not see him committing any crimes.
Bryan joined the chase in his own truck, telling police he used the vehicle to force Arbery into a ditch and cut off his escape from the subdivision. He used his cellphone to record video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery as he tried to run around the McMichael’s idling truck.
Travis McMichael testified he shot Arbery in self-defense after the running man attacked him and tried to grab his gun. Defense attorneys said the three men had reasonable grounds to suspect Arbery was a criminal and wanted only to detain him until police could arrive.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys in the federal case say they hope to avoid the sort of slow-moving grind that made jury selection last 2 1/2 weeks before the state trial could begin.
The state’s jury pool was drawn exclusively from Glynn County, where Arbery’s death had dominated news reports and social media feeds. Most potential jurors arrived at the courthouse already knowing basic facts about the case, and many were dismissed for having strong opinions.
In a separate legal filing in the federal case, prosecutors and defense attorneys asked the judge to approve a 14-page questionnaire to be sent to potential jurors ahead of time along with their jury duty notices. They proposed using the questionnaires to identify any pool members that both sides agree are too biased to fairly hear the case before jury selection begins.
Attorneys noted it would not be the first time a federal jury had been summoned from all 43 counties in Georgia’s Southern District. That happened in 2005 for the federal corruption trial of Charles Walker of Augusta, who had been the powerful Democratic leader of the state Senate.
This article appears on Now Habersham through a news partnership with GPB News.
A Habersham County woman suffered two broken legs and several other people were injured in a two-vehicle crash Sunday evening in Mt. Airy.
The crash happened shortly after 5 p.m. on December 12 at the intersection of Dicks Hill Parkway and Sixth Street.
State troopers say 45-year-old Jonathan Downer failed to yield while turning left onto Sixth Street and pulled into the path of a northbound GMC 3500 pickup truck.
The truck struck the Toyota Avalon Downer was driving, injuring Downer and his four passengers, including a one-year-old girl. Downer, the baby, and an adult passenger, D. J. Arrowood, 25, of Cleveland, suffered minor injuries. Two other passengers were more seriously injured, according to the Georgia State Patrol.
65-year-old Cheryl Downer of Mt. Airy suffered two broken femurs and 64-year-old Linda Gragg, also of Mt. Airy, suffered a broken wrist and laceration to her head. Habersham EMS transported them to Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville for treatment along with a passenger from the pickup, 44-year-old Angela Lance of Gainesville.
The driver of the pickup, Brent Clark, 44, of Mt. Airy, was not injured.
Georgia State Patrol Post 7 Commander Donnie Sadler says charges are pending.
A tort reform group designed to protect business interests ranks the Georgia Supreme Court among the worst offenders in 2021 after court decisions expanded civil liability against businesses. (Stanley Dunlap/Georgia Recorder)
When a Georgia woman didn’t notify her insurance provider about a lawsuit filed against her for hitting a bicyclist with her car, the insurer ended up on the hook for $3 million anyway.
In April, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that although the policyholder was required to provide notice, the insurer should have anticipated that an unreliable and bad driver might not alert the company.
The case is being highlighted now as one of the reasons the American Tort Reform Association, which lobbies on behalf of corporate civil liability interests, ranked Georgia’s Supreme Court as the third-worst “judicial hellhole” in the country for 2021. The group is advocating for new state legislation it claims could save residents and businesses billions.
The association lambasted state Supreme Court rulings it says have eliminated the ability to spread the blame – and damages – among multiple parties in certain cases and increased “bad faith” liability for insurance companies.
“The decline of Georgia’s civil justice system is somewhat surprising and disheartening,” the association’s president, Tiger Joyce, said. “The state was on the Judicial Hellholes Watch List for a number of years, and the Legislature has made some attempts at improvement, but sadly the Supreme Court has continued to make decisions that expand liability and create a toxic environment for small businesses.”
Republican lawmakers have pushed business-friendly tort bills in recent sessions, with mixed success. It remains to be seen if any new push will gain traction when legislators return to the Gold Dome next month.
Timothy Lytton, a law professor at Georgia State University, said that while the tort association is rightly concerned about the potential cost of business, it also ignores important factors on the other end.
“The association does not take into account at all the cost associated with accidents that could have been prevented like personal injury, or the need to increase police protection because stores are not properly putting enough security guards on their premises,” Lytton said. “I think it’s very hard to know from the judicial hellholes report whether or not these cases have been unbalanced, been good or bad economically for Georgia because the report doesn’t take into account any of the benefits of preventing injuries.”
Georgia is a regular fixture on the tort association’s naughty list, said Democratic state Sen. Elena Parent of Atlanta, who shrugged off the group’s criticism.
“This has been a constant refrain from this organization and there are bills filed to restrict access to the civil justice system every year,” said the business attorney. “They are usually defeated because many legislators recognize that Georgia is considered a great place to do business.”
Some key so-called tort reform legislation has moved through the Legislature over the last decade or so under GOP-leadership, including a 2005 Tort Reform Act, and a bill capping medical malpractice pain-and-suffering awards that ended up in a court battle.
In the last couple of years, legislation that would have limited damages in cases such as product liability stalled despite strong support from some Republican lawmakers who regularly file tort bills.
Last year, Senate Bill 415 failed to make it through during a session cut short by the pandemic. At the time, the measure had the backing of influential Republicans who said the bill was needed to stave off the lucrative jury verdicts that hurt businesses and consumers.
Dahlonega Republican state Sen. Steve Gooch held a press conference in early 2020 at the Capitol to push for tort legislation that would make it harder for victims of negligence to sue and would cap punitive damages in product liability cases at $250,000. Georgia Recorder file photo
Proponents of business-friendly tort legislation, however, scored a victory last year with the passage of a bill shielding companies from legal liability for COVID-19 cases unless they prove “gross negligence, willful and wanton misconduct, reckless infliction of harm, or intentional infliction of harm.”
Meanwhile, lawmakers have also created a state business court that opened in 2020 and helps resolve issues such as business contracts disputes and certain liability cases.
Despite the fact that fewer cases went to trial following the pandemic, the report claims Georgia continues to have a poor reputation for its number of verdicts over $1 million, and it raises concern about the role of third-party litigation financing in courtroom proceedings.
The report highlighted a case this year where a Rabun County jury awarded $200 million to the parents of a 7-year-old boy who died in a 2014 boating accident. The attorney representing the parents, who had rented a boat, said they wanted to send a message to the boating industry that safety must be taken more seriously.
Even though civil liability increases the costs businesses incur to implement certain practices, it is also the reason why grocery stores will quickly clean up spilled beverages so that customers aren’t injured, Lytton said.
While some settlements may seem extreme, jurors must also account for potential longer-term costs that the victim faces, Lytton said.
Lytton also criticized the tort reform association for portraying the justices as being overwhelmingly unfair toward businesses.
A Supreme Court spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.
“There’s a case where the Georgia Supreme Court actually did something that is usually associated with a fairly conservative approach to deciding cases and that is they looked at the strict textual language of the statute” Lytton said. “And on that basis, they said the provisions that limited the liability of the corporation actually did not include the current case because of their strict interpretation of the text.”
That case, Alston Bird LLC v. Hatcher Management Holdings, is considered by the tort reform organization as the most significant decision in its 20 years of reports after the Supreme Court ruled that a business or individual can be required to pay the full damages awarded if it is the only one sued, regardless of whether others caused it.
“The Georgia General Assembly can clarify the statute to address the court’s ruling and the absurd result that the ability of a jury to allocate fault among responsible parties depends on how many defendants a plaintiff names in a complaint,” the report said.
The Tallulah Falls School varsity swimmers dominated this past Friday night at the annual Winter Snow Invitational. The girls placed 1st out of 5 teams with 512 points, almost 200 points ahead of the 2nd place team. The boys team placed 1st out of 5 teams with 417 points, just 12 points ahead of the 2nd place team.
Notable individual swims include Madison Dampier’s 1st-place finishes in the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly. She also earned state qualifying times in these two events. Montgomery Dampier finished 1st and earned state qualifying times in both the 200-yard Individual Medley and the 100-yard breaststroke. She set a new school record in the 100-yard breaststroke, breaking the previous record held by Virginia Griswold (’19).
Emre Sungur set new school records in both the 200-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle, breaking records he had set earlier in the season. Sungur earned 1st place in these races as well. Sungur, Madison, Montgomery, Layne Kafsky, Lily Turpin, Jason Dong, Henry Rickman, Nelson Wilkinson, Daya Ssemakula, Karis Tatum, and Tamia Moss all swam to top 3-finishes in their individual events.
“All varsity swimmers competed in at least one scoring relay, this group effort led to victory for both teams,” says coach Rachel Nichols.
The varsity swimmers return to the pool on January 8 at the Shiver Me Timbers Invitational at home.
