What Are the Key Provisions of Georgia’s 2025 Tort Reform (SB 68)?

Georgia enacted its most significant tort reform in two decades when Senate Bill 68 became law in 2025. It is not a single change but a package of procedural and substantive reforms, and critically, different provisions take effect at different times and apply to different cases. Understanding which rules are retroactive and which are prospective is essential. This guide gives an overview of SB 68, its procedural changes, its substantive changes, the negligent security overhaul, bifurcation, and the effective dates.

Overview of SB 68

Senate Bill 68 was signed into law and took effect on April 21, 2025. It represents a broad overhaul of Georgia’s civil litigation rules, aimed at what supporters described as rebalancing the system after years of large verdicts. Rather than one change, it bundles together at least eight distinct reforms spanning procedure, evidence, damages, and premises liability.

The single most important thing to understand about SB 68 is that its provisions do not all apply the same way. Some apply immediately to all cases, including those already pending, while others apply only to cases that arose on or after the effective date. Getting this distinction right is critical, because whether a given rule applies to a particular case can depend entirely on when the underlying injury occurred.

Procedural Changes

Several SB 68 provisions changed civil procedure and apply retroactively, to pending and future cases alike. These include new limits on “anchoring”, arguments suggesting specific dollar values for noneconomic damages, which the law restricts (a change to O.C.G.A. § 9-10-184). They also include new motion-to-dismiss and discovery-stay procedures (affecting O.C.G.A. § 9-11-12), under which filing certain motions can pause discovery while the court considers them.

The package also tightened the rules on voluntary dismissal (O.C.G.A. § 9-11-41), narrowing a plaintiff’s ability to dismiss and refile, and restricted the double recovery of attorney’s fees (O.C.G.A. § 9-15-16), limiting fee awards to a single recovery rather than stacking them under multiple theories. Because these procedural changes are retroactive, they affect cases that were already in litigation when the law took effect, not just new filings.

Seatbelt and Phantom Damages (Substantive)

SB 68 also made substantive changes affecting damages and evidence. One removed Georgia’s long-standing “seatbelt gag rule,” allowing evidence of a plaintiff’s seatbelt non-use to be considered on issues like comparative negligence and apportionment (a change to O.C.G.A. § 40-8-76.1). Another addressed “phantom damages,” limiting recovery of medical expenses to the reasonable value actually necessary to satisfy the charges rather than inflated billed amounts, and changing how collateral sources are handled (a new framework at O.C.G.A. § 51-12-1.1).

These substantive damages changes are treated differently from the procedural ones on timing. The phantom-damages and medical-expense valuation changes apply only to causes of action arising on or after the effective date, not to pending cases. The seatbelt change has its own timing rule, applying to actions commenced on or after the effective date, a point clarified in related legislation. So unlike the retroactive procedural rules, these substantive changes generally do not reach back to injuries that occurred before April 21, 2025.

The Negligent Security Overhaul

One of SB 68’s most consequential changes was a near-complete rewrite of negligent security law, creating a new statutory framework at O.C.G.A. §§ 51-3-50 through 51-3-57. This replaced the prior “totality of the circumstances” approach to foreseeability with a stricter standard, and it changed how fault is apportioned, requiring that a meaningful share of fault be assigned to the criminal perpetrator, with a rebuttable presumption against verdicts that fail to do so.

This overhaul, addressed in detail in the premises liability posts, significantly narrowed property-owner liability for third-party crimes. Like the phantom-damages change, the negligent security framework is prospective: it applies to causes of action arising on or after the effective date, so older incidents remain under the prior law. This makes the date of the incident decisive in negligent security cases.

Bifurcation and Effective Dates

SB 68 also gave parties the option to bifurcate (or trifurcate) trials, separating the questions of liability and damages into distinct phases (a new provision at O.C.G.A. § 51-12-15), discussed in the dedicated post on bifurcation. This change is retroactive, applying to pending and future cases.

Pulling the timing together: the retroactive provisions, applying to pending and future cases, include the anchoring limits, the motion-to-dismiss and discovery-stay procedures, the voluntary-dismissal restrictions, the attorney’s-fee limits, and bifurcation. The prospective provisions, applying only to causes of action arising on or after April 21, 2025, include the negligent security framework and the phantom-damages and medical-expense valuation rules, with the seatbelt change keyed to actions commenced on or after the effective date. This split is the practical heart of SB 68: the same statute can either govern or not govern a given case depending on which provision is at issue and when the case arose. Because of this complexity, determining how SB 68 affects a particular case requires identifying both the specific provision and the relevant date.

Key Takeaways

• SB 68, effective April 21, 2025, is a package of at least eight reforms spanning procedure, evidence, damages, and premises liability.
• Retroactive provisions (applying to pending and future cases) include anchoring limits, motion-to-dismiss/discovery-stay rules, voluntary-dismissal restrictions, attorney’s-fee limits, and bifurcation.
• Prospective provisions (applying only to causes of action arising on or after the effective date) include the negligent security overhaul and the phantom-damages/medical-expense rules; the seatbelt change applies to actions commenced after the effective date.
• Whether SB 68 affects a case depends on both the specific provision and when the case arose, making the timing analysis essential.

This article provides general information about Georgia law and is not legal advice. Statutes and court decisions change, and how the law applies depends on the specific facts of a situation. For advice about a particular matter, consult a licensed Georgia attorney.