Dates v. City of Atlanta

• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Brown, Judge.
• Citation: Dates v. City of Atlanta, 903 S.E.2d 289 (Ga. App. 2024)
• Docket Number: A23A0783
• Decision Date: 13 June 2024
• Parties: DATES et al. v. CITY OF ATLANTA.

903 S.E.2d 289

DATES et al.

v.CITY OF ATLANTA.

A23A0783

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

June 13, 2024

Jonathan Palmer Sexton, Stockbridge, for Appellant.

Robert David Steinberg, Atlanta, Peter (Mohamad) Nielsen, Tracey Lenore Hackett, for Appellee.

Brown, Judge.

Kierra Dates, individually and as the parent and guardian of Jeremiah Dates, a minor, (hereinafter "the plaintiff") appeals from the trial court’s order granting the City of Atlanta’s (hereinafter "the City") motion to dismiss based upon deficiencies in her ante litem notice. She contends that the trial court erred because (1) OCGA § 9-3-90, the tolling statute for minors, applies to prevent dismissal of this case; (2) her notice complied with the requirements of the ante litem notice statute, OCGA § 36-33-5 (e); and (3) the ante litem statute, as applied in this case, is unconstitutional under state and federal constitutions. For the reasons explained below, we affirm.¹

[1] "We review the denial of a motion to dismiss de novo and, in so doing, construe the pleadings in a light most favorable to the plaintiff, with any doubts resolved in the plaintiff’s favor." (Citation omitted.) City of Lafayette v. Chandler, 354 Ga. App. 259, 260, 840 S.E.2d 638 (2020). Here, the pleadings show that on June 1, 2020, eight-year-old Jeremiah Dates was injured when a large tree branch fell on him while he was playing on property owned and managed by the City. On June 12, 2020, the plaintiff’s attorney served an ante litem notice on the City, advising it of her intent to assert a claim and that "[t]he amount of the loss claimed is in excess of $500,000." Over one year after the incident, on July 9, 2021, the plaintiff’s attorney sent a supplemental ante litem notice stating that "[t]he amount of the loss claimed is $1,000,000."

The City filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s complaint, arguing that the first and only timely ante litem notice was deficient on two grounds, one of which was the failure to identify the specific amount of monetary damages being sought from the City. The plaintiff asserted in opposition to the motion that her notice complied with the ante litem statute, that the time limit should be tolled under OCGA § 9-3-90 because Jeremiah Dates was a minor at the time he was injured, and finally, that the ante litem statute violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The trial court granted the motion because the plaintiff’s ante litem notice failed to state the amount sought with sufficient specificity. With regard to the plaintiff’s equal protection claim, the trial court concluded that she lacked standing to assert it, and that "[e]ven if she did, the ante litem statute does not violate the equal protection provisions of the Georgia Constitution."

1. Relying on cases from this Court that predate the Supreme Court of Georgia’s decision in Dept. of Public Safety v. Ragsdale, 308 Ga. 210, 839 S.E.2d 541 (2020), the plaintiff urges us to conclude that the ante litem notice statute cannot be applied to bar her case based on OCGA § 9-3-90 (b), which provides: "Except as otherwise provided in Code Section 9-3-33.1,² 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."³ See, e.g., City of Atlanta v. Barrett, 102 Ga. App. 469, 472, 116 S.E.2d 654 (1960) (holding that "the requirement that the notice be given [to a municipality] within six months from the date of the injuries or else that the action therefore be forever barred [pursuant to the predecessor of OCGA § 36-33-5] is itself a statute of limitation and subject to the general law of this State with respect to the tolling of statutes of limitation"), disapproved in part, Ragsdale, 308 Ga. at 215, 839 S.E.2d 541. We disagree.

In Ragsdale, the Supreme Court of Georgia concluded that "[a]s the ante litem notice requirement of [the Georgia Tort Claims Act,] OCGA § 50-21-26[,] is not a statute of limitation, the Code’s statutory tolling provisions, such as OCGA § 9-3-99,⁴ do not apply to the Tort Claims Act’s 12-month ante litem notice period." 308 Ga. at 213, 839 S.E.2d 541. In Green v. Baldwin County Bd. of Commrs., 355 Ga. App. 120, 842 S.E.2d 916 (2020), we extended the holding in Ragsdale to the ante litem notice period set forth in OCGA § 36-11-1 for counties and found that the period for providing ante litem notice would not be tolled by OCGA § 9-3-99, concluding that the "rationale [of Ragsdale] also applies here." Id. at 122 (3), 842 S.E.2d 916.⁵

Neither this Court nor the Supreme Court of Georgia have addressed whether the rationale of Ragsdale applies to prevent application of OCGA § 9-3-90 (b) to the ante litem notice requirement for municipalities in OCGA § 36-33-5. Indeed, the Supreme Court of Georgia expressly declined to address in Ragsdale "whether the ante litem notice period of OCGA § 36-33-5 is subject to … tolling … [g]iven [the] longstanding application [of tolling provisions] in actions against municipalities[.]" Ragsdale, 308 Ga. at 215, n.9, 839 S.E.2d 541. In light of this statement, the plaintiff contends that we should decline to apply the rationale of Ragsdale to OCGA § 9-3-90. She points out that the Supreme Court of Georgia has held that "[w]here a statute has, by a long series of decisions, received a judicial construction in which the General Assembly has acquiesced and thereby given its implicit legislative approval, the courts should not disturb that settled construction." Abernathy v. City of Albany, 269 Ga. 88, 90, 495 S.E.2d 13 (1998). In her view, the General Assembly assumed that minors and persons with disabilities could toll the ante litem period based on longstanding law, and therefore had no need to amend the statute to provide for such a tolling. Conversely, if the General Assembly "had chosen to change the existing law, the legislature would have specifically forbidden tolling provisions."

[2] After considering the applicable principles of stare decisis, see generally Cook v. State, 313 Ga. 471, 485 (3) (a), 870 S.E.2d 758 (2022), we conclude that Barrett and its progeny⁶ must be disapproved because the time for filing an ante litem notice under OCGA § 36-33-5 is not subject to tolling under OCGA § 9-3-90 (b). The Supreme Court of Georgia made clear in Ragsdale that an ante litem notice is not a statute of limitation and that Barrett’s holding to the contrary was implicitly overruled long ago by its decision in City of Chamblee v. Maxwell, 264 Ga. 635, 452 S.E.2d 488 (1994). Ragsdale, 308 Ga. at 215, 839 S.E.2d 541. As it observed, "it is for the General Assembly to waive [the ante litem notice] requirement as it deems appropriate." Ragsdale, 308 Ga. at 216, 839 S.E.2d 541.⁷

2. The plaintiff contends that the trial court erred by concluding that her ante litem notice failed to comply with OCGA § 36-33-5 (e). We disagree.

A person seeking damages against a municipal corporation must give ante litem notice to the corporation "[w]ithin six months of the happening of the event upon which a claim … is predicated[,]" that includes "the time, place, and extent of the injury, as nearly as practicable, and the negligence which caused the injury." OCGA § 36-33-5 (b). In 2014, the General Assembly amended OCGA § 36-33-5 to add subsection (e), see Ga. L. 2014, p. 125, § 1, requiring the claimant to "include the specific amount of monetary damages being sought" for the first time. Subsection (e) further provides: "The amount of monetary damages set forth in such claim shall constitute an offer of compromise." OCGA § 36-33-5 (e). This Court has held that even if only substantial compliance is required to fulfill a claimant’s obligation under subsection (e), "a notice does not substantially comply with [it] unless a specific amount is given that would constitute an offer that could be accepted by the municipality." Harrell v. City of Griffin, 346 Ga. App. 635, 638 (1), 816 S.E.2d 738 (2018).

In Tanks v. Nesmith, 359 Ga. App. 596, 859 S.E.2d 559 (2021), this Court rejected the plaintiff’s claim that an ante litem notice’s statement that the "Amount of Loss Claim: $75,000, Grady Memorial Hospital bill in excess of $10,000" was an offer to settle her claim for $75,000. Id. at 597, 600, 859 S.E.2d 559. We reasoned that the notice of claim "indicates that the value of the claim is some unknown number above $75,000 because it also adds an unspecified amount in excess of $10,000 and makes no statement with regard to the total amount being sought. An unknown number above $75,000 is too indefinite to constitute a binding offer of settlement." (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Id. at 600, 859 S.E.2d 559. Accordingly, the notice failed to comply with OCGA § 36-33-5 (e). Id. See also Davis v. City of Valdosta, 357 Ga. App. 900, 901-902, 852 S.E.2d 859 (2020) (concluding that "[a]n unknown number above $50,000 is too indefinite to constitute a binding offer of settlement") (citation and punctuation omitted). Compare Chandler, 354 Ga. App. at 261-262, 840 S.E.2d 638 (notice providing that plaintiff "incurred well over $100,000.00 in medical expenses to date" but noting that the plaintiff will "seek to recover $1,000,000.00" provided a specific amount of monetary damages sought).

[3] Here, the plaintiff, "acting as parent and natural guardian" of the minor sent, a timely notice⁸ stating "[t]he amount of the loss claimed is in excess of $500,000." As this is too indefinite to constitute a binding offer of settlement, her ante litem notice failed to satisfy OCGA § 36-33-5 (e), and the trial court did not err by dismissing her complaint on this ground.⁹

[4–7] 3. The plaintiff asserts that the trial court should have concluded that the failure to include a tolling provision in OCGA § 36-33-5 "is unconstitutional because it violates due process and equal protection clauses...