What Is the Statute of Limitations for Medical Malpractice in Georgia, and How Is It Different From a Regular Injury Claim?
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A Georgia medical malpractice claim must be filed within two years after the injury or death occurred (O.C.G.A. § 9-3-71(a)), and never more than five years after the negligent act itself (§ 9-3-71(b)). An ordinary injury claim has only the first kind of clock. A second difference: Georgia does not pause the malpractice clock while you remain in the same doctor’s care.
The two clocks side by side
| Ordinary injury claim | Medical malpractice claim | |
|---|---|---|
| Statute | O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33 | O.C.G.A. § 9-3-71 |
| Filing period | 2 years after the right of action accrues | 2 years after the injury or death occurred |
| Outer limit from the act | None of this kind | 5 years after the negligent act or omission (repose) |
| Spouse's loss of consortium | 4 years (§ 9-3-33) | 2 years |
| Injured child | Clock waits until age 18 (§ 9-3-90(b)) | Special malpractice rules in § 9-3-73 |
| Ongoing treatment by the same provider | Not relevant | Does not delay the start (Young v. Williams, 2002) |
The consortium row differs from the general four-year rule. Section 9-3-34 says the article containing § 9-3-33 does not apply to medical malpractice actions, so a spouse’s consortium claim that grows out of malpractice is held to the two-year malpractice period. The Court of Appeals applied exactly that rule in Beamon v. Mahadevan (2014). The general consortium deadline is covered in Georgia’s four-year rule for loss of consortium claims.
When the two years start
The trigger in § 9-3-71(a) is the date “an injury or death arising from a negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred”. It is not the date the patient learned that a mistake was made.
Missed-diagnosis cases show the effect. In Kaminer v. Canas (2007), a child’s HIV infection went undiagnosed by two physicians who first misdiagnosed his symptoms in 1991 and 1993; the infection was not diagnosed until 2001. The Supreme Court of Georgia held that the limitation period and the repose period both ran from the dates the misdiagnoses were first reached, and the claim was barred. The Court repeated its earlier description of § 9-3-71(a) as “an extremely harsh limitation in application” and applied it anyway, because the statute’s wording left no room.
In Amu v. Barnes (2008), the Court kept a narrow “new injury” exception. A patient whose rectal bleeding was diagnosed as hemorrhoids in 2000 stopped having symptoms, then developed metastatic colon cancer that surfaced in 2004. Because the untreated, early condition turned into a different and much more serious one, and the patient was symptom-free in between, the two years for that new injury ran from when its symptoms appeared. The exception does not apply when the original condition simply worsens, as in Kaminer, and it does not move the five-year repose described below.
Why continuing to see the same doctor does not help
A “continuous treatment” rule would start the clock only when a course of treatment ends. Georgia’s malpractice statute contained a version of that idea from 1976 to 1985; the current statute does not. In Young v. Williams (2002), the Court of Appeals had adopted that “continuous treatment” rule for misdiagnosis cases, and the Supreme Court of Georgia reversed: the statute “does not provide for the commencement of the period of limitation upon the termination of the health-care provider’s treatment of the patient, and the judicial branch is not empowered to engraft such a provision on to what the legislature has enacted”.
The practical consequence: a patient who keeps returning to the provider who missed the problem is still on the two-year clock that started with the injury.
What can extend the two years, and what cannot
Section 9-3-73(a) carries the general tolling rules of Article 5 of Chapter 3 into malpractice cases, except where § 9-3-73 itself says otherwise. Three of those interactions work differently in malpractice:
- Fraud. If a provider’s fraud keeps the patient from discovering the claim, § 9-3-96 can delay the two-year limitation period. It does not stop the five-year repose. In Esener v. Kinsey (1999), the Court of Appeals held that fraud “does not toll the statute of repose”, but a provider whose fraud the patient reasonably relied on may be estopped from raising repose as a defense. How concealment is proved is covered in how fraudulent concealment tolls a Georgia deadline.
- Children. The general rule that a minor’s clock waits until age 18 does not carry over. Under § 9-3-73(b), a child injured before age five has two years from the fifth birthday to sue, and a child five or older is held to the ordinary malpractice periods. The outer limits for children and for adults who are legally incompetent are set out in the five-year repose and its exceptions.
- A foreign object left in the body. Section 9-3-72 replaces the § 9-3-71 limits with one year from discovery. The statute excludes “a chemical compound, fixation device, or prosthetic aid or device” from the definition.
The five-year outer limit, in one paragraph
Section 9-3-71(b) bars any malpractice action “more than five years after the date on which the negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred”, and § 9-3-71(c) calls it “a five-year statute of ultimate repose and abrogation”. It runs from the act, not the injury and not the discovery. That is why an injury that occurs in year four leaves only the time remaining before year five, not a fresh two years.
Dates to pin down before anything else
- The date of the procedure, prescription, or missed diagnosis (starts the five-year repose).
- The date the injury or death occurred (starts the two years; in a misdiagnosis case this can be the misdiagnosis date itself, as in Kaminer, unless a distinct new condition later developed, as in Amu).
- The patient’s age on the date of the act, if the patient is a child.
- Whether the provider was a state, city, or county entity, because a separate pre-suit notice deadline can apply (see Georgia’s ante litem notice deadlines).
A malpractice complaint also has to be filed with an expert affidavit, and § 9-11-9.1 gives a 45-day extension only in a narrow situation near the deadline; that rule is explained in the pre-suit requirements for a Georgia malpractice case.
Sources
- O.C.G.A. §§ 9-3-33, 9-3-34, 9-3-71, 9-3-72, 9-3-73, 9-3-90, 9-3-96.
- Young v. Williams, 274 Ga. 845 (2002)
- Kaminer v. Canas, 282 Ga. 830 (2007)
- Amu v. Barnes, 283 Ga. 549 (2008)
- Esener v. Kinsey, 240 Ga. App. 21 (1999)
- Beamon v. Mahadevan, 329 Ga. App. 685 (2014)
General information about Georgia law as of October 2026. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.