Walmart beats verdict under Georgia’s new lawsuit rules

Walmart is the first company to successfully appeal a jury verdict under a new Georgia law aimed at limiting lawsuits and easing insurance rates, beating an almost $1 million judgment in a slip-and-fall case.

The Georgia Court of Appeals granted the retail giant a new trial in a personal injury suit filed in 2022 by Lowndes County resident Ruby Medders, who slipped on spilled liquid in the dog-food aisle of a Walmart store in Valdosta in November 2020.

At a three-day trial in January, the retail giant was found to be 95% to blame for Medders’ knee and ankle injuries, for which the jury awarded $975,000 in damages. Factoring in Medders’ 5% of fault, Lowndes County State Court Judge Ellen Golden ordered Walmart to pay the customer just over $926,000.

That judgment can’t stand because the closing arguments made at trial by Medders’ attorney in relation to the appropriate amount of damages were improper and harmful, the Court of Appeals held in an Oct. 29 opinion.

A three-judge panel found the arguments, likely permitted under previous state law and legal precedent, aren’t allowed under a Georgia law enacted last year as part of Gov. Brian Kemp’s effort to overhaul litigation rules in favor of businesses.

“We have little trouble concluding that the uncorrected improper argument of counsel could have affected the jury’s verdict,” Judge Trea Pipkin wrote in the opinion, joined by judges Stephen Dillard and Elizabeth Gobeil.

A Walmart spokesperson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a statement Tuesday that the company is “pleased with the ruling.”

Max Thelen, an attorney for Medders, said they appreciate the attention the Court of Appeals gave the case but are “respectfully disappointed” in the opinion and are “evaluating our options.” That may include asking the Georgia Supreme Court to weigh in, he said.

“This opinion will likely have significant implications on how damages are argued in every injury trial going forward,” Thelen told the AJC in a statement Tuesday.

With last year’s Senate Bill 68, Georgia lawmakers limited how attorneys can suggest to juries an appropriate amount of damages in personal injury cases.

The new law bars lawyers from tying the value of damages to anything not “rationally related” to the evidence at trial. It addresses the business community’s concern that some plaintiff attorneys were unfairly driving up jury verdicts by introducing irrelevant information.

In Medders’ case, it was wrong for her lawyer to suggest damages for pain and suffering based in part on the federal minimum wage and how much Walmart paid a physician to be involved in the litigation as an expert, the Court of Appeals decided.

Though the expert’s rates were brought up by Medders’ counsel during witness testimony, that information and the minimum wage were not rationally related to the evidence about Medders’ pain and suffering, the appellate judges held.

Medders’ medical expenses were around $186,000, court records show. Her counsel asked the jury to award her that, as well as almost $1 million in additional damages for pain and suffering, the judges said.

On appeal, Medders argued that the minimum wage and the expert’s rates were instructive in valuing the years of pain and suffering she has endured and likely will in future. She alleged the fall at Walmart required her to undergo three surgeries in 2021 and 2022.

Thelen told the AJC that Medders still struggles with daily pain. He said the arguments at trial about damages were proper under Georgia’s new law, as the Lowndes County judge had determined.

Case records show that the liquid Medders slipped on was on Walmart’s floor for 32 minutes before she fell, during which time two employees had walked past the spill without cleaning it up.

In its brief to the Court of Appeals, Walmart said Medders had knee injuries before she fell in its store and that she declined an initial offer by staff to file an accident report, telling the staff she was OK.