Everyday people are hurt and killed by criminal attacks in Atlanta. There are almost daily assaults, rapes and murders at Atlanta apartment complexes and hotels (and many other Atlanta businesses), and the crime victims almost never have financial recourse against the criminals because the criminals are either never apprehended or have no assets or insurance to pay a civil judgment. Fortunately, there is still a way for Atlanta crime victims to recover money damages for their losses.
Claims can also be made against the business owner where the crime occurs. Prevailing on such claims, however, is very difficult and requires hiring an experienced crime victim lawyer. I previously wrote a blog on this topic discussing most of the issues and the work required when representing crime victims in a lawsuit against a property owner. Unfortunately, I failed to discuss the apportionment of damages defense now available to landowners to defend these claims.
In 2005, Georgia passed its first tort reform legislation. An important part of this legislation was the Legislature's attempt to abolish joint and several liability. (The reason I say attempt is because the legislation is now being challenged in Georgia's appellate courts.) Joint and several liability is where if a party is found 1% liable for an injury, the claimant can recover 100% of damages from that party. In crime victim cases, this meant that if a jury found an apartment complex or other business owner1% at fault for a rape or murder or other criminal attack, the apartment complex or other business owner would be responsible for 100% of the loss and oftentimes million-dollar verdicts.
The 2005 tort reform ended joint and several liability, and now requires the jury to apportion damages between all potential at fault parties, whether they are part of a lawsuit or not. This has made recovering damages in crime victim cases even more difficult than they previously were. Now the jury can apportion a certain amount of fault to the criminal and a certain amount to the business owner. For example, in a murder case, the jury could apportion 95% of the fault to the murderer and 5% of the fault to the apartment complex. In this situation, if the jury returned a verdict for $1 million, the apartment complex would only be responsible to pay $50,000, and this amount would probably be the only money the victim would recover because it is highly unlikely the criminal could or would pay any of the $950,000 responsible to him.
The practical effect of the new apportionment statute is that it becomes an even more difficult decision to decide whether to pursue crime victim cases in light of the tremendous amount of work and expense required to now prevail against the property owner. Expenses alone in pursuing one of these cases can easily exceed $50,000. Accordingly, an experienced crime victim lawyer should be consultant when deciding whether to pursue damages arising from a criminal act. As I mentioned before, these cases are not simple car crash cases and cannot be handled by just any lawyer.
