What Is Georgia’s Statute of Repose for Product Liability, and How Does It Interact With the Filing Deadline?
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Two separate clocks govern a Georgia product liability claim, and they measure different things. The statute of limitations gives you two years from your injury. The statute of repose can bar the claim ten years after the product was first sold, even if you were hurt last week. When those two clocks disagree, the earlier one usually wins. This guide explains the core difference, the ten-year repose period, the two-year limitations period, how they interact, and the exceptions that can keep a claim alive past ten years.
Limitations vs. Repose: the Core Difference
These two terms sound alike and do opposite jobs.
A statute of limitations measures time from your injury. It asks how long you waited to sue after you were hurt. A statute of repose measures time from an event tied to the defendant’s product, here the first sale, regardless of when, or whether, an injury ever happens. Georgia courts have drawn this line sharply: a repose period is not triggered by injury and is not tied to when a claim accrues. That is why a claim can be perfectly timely under the limitations rule and still be dead under repose.
The Ten-Year Repose From First Sale
Georgia’s product liability repose comes from O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(b)(2). It bars a strict-liability product claim brought more than ten years “from the date of the first sale for use or consumption of the personal property causing or otherwise bringing about the injury.”
Two details matter. The clock starts at the first sale of the product as new to its intended user, not at manufacture and not at injury. And for products bought repeatedly over years, the Georgia Supreme Court clarified in 2025 (in the consolidated Burroughs litigation) that the repose period runs on a per-unit basis: each unit sold as new starts its own ten-year clock. Claims tied to units sold within ten years before suit can survive; claims tied to units sold more than ten years earlier are extinguished.
The Two-Year Injury Limitations Period
Running alongside repose is the ordinary two-year personal injury deadline. A product injury is still a personal injury, so the claim must be filed within two years of the injury under Georgia’s general limitations rule. Property damage from a product follows the separate four-year property rule.
So a plaintiff has to satisfy both: file within two years of the injury, and stay within ten years of the product’s first sale.
How They Interact
The interaction is where claims are lost. Picture a product first sold twelve years ago that injures someone today. The two-year limitations clock just started, so by that measure the claim is fresh. But the ten-year repose period expired two years ago. The repose bar controls, and the strict-liability claim is gone before the limitations period has barely begun.
The lesson is that satisfying the two-year rule is not enough. The age of the product, measured from first sale, is an independent gate the claim has to pass through.
Exceptions
The ten-year repose is not absolute for every theory. O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(c) extends the repose to negligence-based product claims but carves out exceptions. Georgia courts have read the statute to allow certain claims past ten years where:
- the manufacturer’s negligence caused a disease or birth defect (and Georgia courts have tied this to genuinely latent injuries);
- the conduct shows a willful, reckless, or wanton disregard for life or property; or
- the claim is a failure to warn of a danger that became known to the manufacturer, since the statute preserves a continuing duty to warn.
These exceptions are narrow and fact-specific. Whether one applies depends on the product, the nature of the alleged defect, what the manufacturer knew, and when. The existence of an exception is not a substitute for acting within the deadlines.
Key Takeaways
- Product claims face two clocks: a two-year limitations period from injury and a ten-year repose period from first sale (O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(b)(2)).
- Repose runs from the product’s first sale as new, not from injury, and applies per unit for repeatedly purchased products (Burroughs, Ga. 2025).
- When the clocks disagree, the earlier deadline usually controls, and repose can bar a claim before the limitations period matters.
- Limited exceptions under § 51-1-11(c) (disease/birth defect, willful or wanton conduct, failure to warn) can extend a claim past ten years, but they are narrow.
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.