START HERE -- THE SHORT ANSWER

The short answer, and why it is not the whole answer

If your child was hurt in Georgia, the deadline is usually the child's twentieth birthday. Georgia stops the clock while a child is under 18, and the ordinary two-year injury deadline runs from the eighteenth birthday instead of from the day of the injury.

That is the rule most of the time. It is also the reason parents lose claims, because three common kinds of injury do not follow it, and two of them can expire while your child is still small. A medical malpractice claim for a baby can be gone by the tenth birthday. A claim against the people who designed or built a structure can be gone before the child starts school, on a clock that started running before the child was born.

So the useful question is not "how long do I have." It is "which kind of injury is this." This page walks through each one and tells you which statute controls it.

• Why the clock waits for a child
• Ordinary injury claims: until age 20
• Medical malpractice: the rule that catches families out
• Injuries from how something was designed or built
• Childhood sexual abuse
• Your own claim runs on a different clock
• Who actually brings the claim: parent, next friend, or conservator
• If the defendant is a government body
• The deadlines in one table
• Common questions

RULE 01 -- WHY THE CLOCK WAITS

Why the clock waits for a child

A child cannot file a lawsuit. Georgia does not treat that as the child's problem. O.C.G.A. § 9-3-90(b) provides:

Except as otherwise provided in Code Section 9-3-33.1, individuals who are less than 18 years of age when a cause of action accrues shall be entitled to the same time after he or she reaches the age of 18 years to bring an action as is prescribed for other persons.

Read it closely, because two things in that sentence do the work. The child gets "the same time" an adult would get, counted from the eighteenth birthday rather than from the injury. And the whole rule opens with an exception, which is a signal that the legislature wrote carve-outs elsewhere and meant them to win.

It is worth being precise about what tolling does and does not mean. It does not mean you have to wait. A parent can bring the claim the week after the injury, and in most cases should. Tolling is a protection against a claim dying while a child is too young to protect it. It is not a schedule, and treating it as one is how good cases get thin: witnesses move, vehicles get repaired, surveillance video is overwritten on a thirty-day loop, and the medical record stops being contemporaneous.

RULE 02 -- THE GENERAL RULE

Ordinary injury claims: until age 20

For most injuries to a child, a car wreck, a dog bite, a fall on someone's property, a defective product, O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33 supplies the period:

Except as otherwise provided in this article, actions for injuries to the person shall be brought within two years after the right of action accrues, except for injuries to the reputation, which shall be brought within one year after the right of action accrues, and except for actions for injuries to the person involving loss of consortium, which shall be brought within four years after the right of action accrues.

Two years, tolled to the eighteenth birthday, gives you the twentieth birthday. Two carve-outs sit inside the same sentence: injury to reputation gets one year, and loss of consortium gets four.

Note also how § 9-3-33 begins. "Except as otherwise provided in this article" was added in 2015, and it is what subordinates the general two-year rule to the medical malpractice and abuse provisions below. When a more specific statute in the same article speaks, it controls.

RULE 03 -- MEDICAL MALPRACTICE

Medical malpractice: the rule that catches families out

This is where Georgia departs hardest from the twentieth-birthday answer, and where we most often see families arrive too late. A child injured by medical negligence does not get tolling to 18. O.C.G.A. § 9-3-73(b) says so directly:

Notwithstanding Article 5 of this chapter, all persons who are legally incompetent because of intellectual disability or mental illness and all minors who have attained the age of five years shall be subject to the periods of limitation for actions for medical malpractice provided in this article. A minor who has not attained the age of five years shall have two years from the date of such minor's fifth birthday within which to bring a medical malpractice action if the cause of action arose before such minor attained the age of five years.

Take those two sentences one at a time.

A child who was five or older when the malpractice happened is on the adult clock. Two years from the injury under § 9-3-71(a), with no extension for being a child. A ten-year-old injured today has until two years from today, not until age 20.

A child who was under five gets two years from the fifth birthday. The statute never uses the word "seventh," and that is exactly how this gets misreported. Two years measured from the fifth birthday lands on the seventh birthday. A newborn injured during delivery has, as the limitation period, until the seventh birthday.

Then there is a second wall behind the first. Subsection (c) is a statute of repose, which subsection (d) confirms in terms, and a repose is harder than a limitation period because it is not about when you discovered anything:

(c) Notwithstanding subsections (a) and (b) of this Code section, in no event may an action for medical malpractice be brought by or on behalf of: ... (2) A minor: (A) After the tenth birthday of the minor if such minor was under the age of five years on the date on which the negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred; or (B) After five years from the date on which the negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred if such minor was age five or older on the date of such act or omission.

So the tenth-birthday cutoff reaches only children who were under five when the negligence happened. For a child who was five or older, the outer wall is five years from the act. Neither can be extended by the child's age, because that is what a repose is for.

One exception worth knowing: subsection (e) provides that subsections (b) and (c) do not apply where a foreign object has been left in a patient's body. Those cases are governed by § 9-3-72 instead.

If your child was hurt during birth or in infancy, do not measure from the eighteenth birthday. Measure from the fifth birthday and the tenth, and call someone well before either.

RULE 04 -- DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION

Injuries from how something was designed or built

If a child is hurt because of how a building, a stairway, a railing, a deck, or a pool was designed, planned, supervised, or constructed, the claim against the people responsible for that work runs on a clock that has nothing to do with the child's age or the date of the injury. O.C.G.A. § 9-3-51(a) bars an action for injury to the person arising out of such a deficiency "more than eight years after substantial completion of such an improvement."

Eight years from when the work was finished. That clock can be most of the way through before a child is born.

Subsection (b) supplies the only stretch, and it is narrow. If the injury occurs during the seventh or eighth year after substantial completion, suit may be brought within two years of the injury, "but in no event may such an action be brought more than ten years after the substantial completion of construction of such an improvement."

This one is easy to miss because nothing about the injury announces it. A child falls through a defective railing; the family has two years, or until age 20, in mind; and the answer actually turns on a completion date on a certificate of occupancy nobody has looked at. If a structure is involved, finding out when it was finished is an early task, not a late one.

Note the limit of this statute. It protects the people who performed or furnished the design, planning, supervision, or construction. It is not a general shield for a property owner, and a premises claim against the owner or occupier is a different claim with a different deadline.

RULE 05 -- CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE

Childhood sexual abuse

O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33.1 governs civil claims for childhood sexual abuse, and § 9-3-90(b) expressly steps aside for it. It sets two different regimes depending on when the abuse occurred, each keyed to its own list of offenses set out in the statute.

For abuse committed before July 1, 2015, subsection (a)(2) requires the action to be "commenced on or before the date the plaintiff attains the age of 23 years."

For abuse committed on or after July 1, 2015, subsection (b)(2)(A) gives two routes. The action shall be commenced:

(i) On or before the date the plaintiff attains the age of 23 years; or (ii) Within two years from the date that the plaintiff knew or had reason to know of such abuse and that such abuse resulted in injury to the plaintiff as established by competent medical or psychological evidence.

The discovery route is real but it carries conditions. The knowledge that starts the two years is knowledge of both the abuse and the resulting injury, and the statute requires that to be established by competent medical or psychological evidence. If the case is filed after 23 on that route, subsection (b)(2)(B) requires the court to determine in a pretrial finding when discovery occurred, and to make that finding within six months of filing.

Which route you are on also changes what must be proved against an institution. Where a school, church, camp, or employer is a defendant because the abuser was its volunteer or employee, or because it controlled the activity, subsection (c)(2) allows damages on a finding of negligence if the case was brought under the age-23 route. Subsection (c)(3) applies to the discovery route and requires more: gross negligence, plus that the entity knew or should have known of the conduct and failed to take remedial action.

Two points on the current text. Georgia opened a revival window in 2015 through a subsection (d); that subsection is no longer part of the statute, which now preserves only a reference to it "as it existed on June 30, 2017." And the offense lists in subsections (a) and (b) are not identical, so which conduct is covered depends on when it happened. If you are weighing one of these claims, the dates and the specific conduct decide the deadline, and they are worth getting in front of a lawyer rather than estimating.

RULE 06 -- THE PARENTS' OWN CLOCK

Your own claim runs on a different clock

This is the single most expensive misunderstanding in this area, so it gets its own section.

When a child is hurt, there are two claims, not one. The child's claim is for the child's injuries. The parents have their own, separate claim, typically for the medical expenses they paid and their own losses. Tolling protects the child's claim. It does not protect yours.

The Georgia Court of Appeals held exactly that in Swallows v. Adams-Pickett, 344 Ga. App. 647, 811 S.E.2d 445 (2018), cert. denied. In a medical malpractice case, the parents' claims for their minor child's medical expenses, and their ancillary claims such as their own lost income, were subject to the ordinary two-year medical malpractice limitation and were barred, because the extension for minors applied only to the child's claims. The child's claim survived. The parents' did not.

The practical consequence is simple and we will say it plainly: do not let the two-year date pass because you believe your child's deadline is years away. Both things can be true, and the half you lose is the half that covers the bills you have already paid.

RULE 07 -- WHO BRINGS THE CLAIM

Who actually brings the claim: parent, next friend, or conservator

Knowing the deadline is only half of it. The other half is who is legally allowed to file the case, make the decisions in it, and receive the money at the end. This is where families get surprised late in a case rather than early.

Start with the ordinary path, which covers most cases. Under O.C.G.A. § 9-11-17(c), where a child has a representative such as a guardian, conservator, or other like fiduciary, the representative may bring the action on the child's behalf. Where the child has no appointed representative, the child "may bring an action by his next friend or by a guardian ad litem," and the court is directed to appoint a guardian ad litem for a child not otherwise represented, or to make such other order as it deems proper for the child's protection. That is why most childhood injury suits are captioned as a parent suing as next friend of the child. No probate proceeding is needed in order to file.

When a conservator should bring the claim instead

The other option is one we do not see as much, mostly because of the amount of intense oversight involved and the application process it takes. But there are cases where it is genuinely in the child's best interest to have a conservator appointed.

So what is a conservator? It is somebody whose normal full-time job is to take care of people or money, and to make sure their best interests are met. That is the important part. It is a professional role, not a title the family hands to whoever is available.

There are four situations where we start thinking about one:

• The child is without parents. Sometimes they lost their parents in the same car wreck that injured them.
• The parents are not stable enough to bring a claim. It is not a judgment about anyone. It is a practical question about who can carry a case for years.
• The parents are not ready or not wanting to handle the claim on the child's behalf. That is allowed to be the answer, and it is better said early than discovered late.
• There is a chance the parents might be blamed for what happened to the child. This is the one families never see coming, and it is the one that matters most. A parent who may be pointed at as partly responsible cannot be the person deciding what the child's claim is worth and whether to settle it.

In any of those situations you want a conservator involved. The conservator applies to the probate court, which in Georgia is a separate court from the state or superior court where the lawsuit itself is brought. They submit an application to the judge asking to be appointed as conservator, and once appointed they hold control of the decisions in the litigation and the settlement.

Can a conservator be a family member? The answer is yes, but it is not necessarily what we recommend. Professional conservators do this across a lot of cases, and it is often their full-time job. They are trained in it, they know what to do, and they know Georgia law. An uncle serving once, for one child, is learning the role on the only case that will ever matter to that child.

When the law stops leaving it to you

The statutes above explain why you might want a conservator. These decide when you no longer have a choice, and the number is $15,000.

O.C.G.A. § 29-3-1(b) provides that the natural guardian of a child may not receive the child's personal property until becoming the legally qualified conservator, with one exception:

provided, however, that when the total value of all personal property of the minor is $15,000.00 or less, the natural guardian may receive and shall thereafter hold and use all or part of the personal property for the benefit of the minor and shall be accountable for the personal property but shall not be required to become the legally qualified conservator as to that personal property.

Settlement authority tracks the same number. Under O.C.G.A. § 29-3-3:

• If the child already has a conservator, "the only person who can compromise a minor's claim is the conservator." Subsection (b) is absolute on that point, which is part of why the appointment decision is not one to make casually.
• If the gross settlement is $15,000 or less, subsection (c) lets the natural guardian compromise the claim without becoming conservator and without court approval.
• If the gross settlement is more than $15,000, it must be submitted to a court for approval: to the court in which the action is pending if suit has been filed, and otherwise to the appropriate court. A parent cannot dismiss a pending action and take the settlement elsewhere for approval without the approval of the court where it is pending.
• Above $15,000, whether a conservatorship is required turns on a net figure rather than the gross. Subtract attorney's fees, expenses of litigation, and the medical expenses to be paid from the proceeds, then subtract the present value of amounts the child will receive after reaching majority. If what remains is $15,000 or less, subsection (f) lets the natural guardian seek court approval without becoming conservator. If it is more, subsection (g) says the natural guardian may not seek approval without becoming the conservator.

"Gross settlement" is defined in subsection (a) as the present value of everything paid or to be paid, including cash, medical expenses, expenses of litigation, attorney's fees, and any amount used to buy an annuity or similar arrangement. It is not the number the family takes home, which is why the gross and net tests can point in different directions on the same case.

Two more things worth planning around. Subsection (h) lets an approved compromise defer money rather than pay it in a lump sum, capped at a total of $15,000 distributed before the child reaches majority, and it expressly contemplates a structured settlement or a court-approved trust. For a badly injured young child that is often the better structure and not a formality to be endured. And subsection (i) provides that a settlement entered consistently with the statute is final and binding on all parties, including the child. Done properly, it closes. Done improperly, the defendant has bought nothing and the child may still have a claim.

The short version: a parent as next friend can file any child's case and can finish a small one alone. Once the money is real, or once any of those four situations is in play, the conservatorship stops being optional and the probate court becomes part of the case. Start that early. An appointment takes time, and the worst moment to discover you need one is the week a settlement is supposed to fund.

RULE 08 -- GOVERNMENT DEFENDANTS

If the defendant is a government body

If the claim is against a city, a county, a school district, a transit authority, or a state agency, there is a separate written notice requirement that comes before any lawsuit and runs on a much shorter clock than the periods on this page. It is a different statute from § 9-3-33, and § 9-3-90 does not address it.

We are not going to print a number here, because the right period depends on which government entity it is and the specifics matter more than a general rule can carry. What we will say is this: if a government body may be responsible for your child's injury, treat the matter as urgent now rather than on the strength of a tolling rule. Call us and we will tell you which notice applies and when it is due.

THE TABLE -- EVERY DEADLINE AT ONCE

The deadlines in one table

Or answer four questions and the finder above does this lookup for you. Open the finder.

COMMON QUESTIONS

Common questions

TALK TO US

Talk to us about your child's deadline

Deadlines in this area are not a matter of opinion, and the answer usually takes one conversation rather than a consultation series. If you tell us what happened, how old your child was when it happened, and who you think is responsible, we can tell you which statute governs and what the date is.

The Wetherington Law Firm handles serious injury cases for children and their families throughout Georgia. There is no charge to find out where you stand.