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Official Code of Georgia Annotated

Title 51. TORTS · Chapter 1. GENERAL PROVISIONS

51-1-1. Tort defined.

Active

Current through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly.

  1. A tort is the unlawful violation of a private legal right other than a mere breach of contract, express or implied. A tort may also be the violation of a public duty if, as a result of the violation, some special damage accrues to the individual.

The notes below are printed with the section but are not enacted law (O.C.G.A. § 1-1-1(c)). They are shown apart from the text.

History

Orig. Code 1863, § 2894; Code 1868, § 2900; Code 1873, § 2951; Code 1882, § 2951; Civil Code 1895, § 3807; Civil Code 1910, § 4403; Code 1933, § 105-101.

Law reviews

For article advocating the exhaustion of every possible recovery before closing a tort claim, see 18 Ga. B. J. 301 (1956). For article, ‘‘Products Liability Law in Georgia: Is Change Coming?,’’ see 10 Ga. St. B. J. 353 (1974). For article analyzing the trend in this country toward no-fault liability, see 25 Emory L.J. 163 (1976). For article discussing plaintiff conduct and the emerging doctrine of comparative causation of torts, see 29 Mercer L. Rev. 403 (1978). For article discussing the defenses to strict liability in tort, see 29 Mercer L. Rev. 447 (1978). For article examining the significance of distinguishing between tort and contract in Georgia, see 30 Mercer L. Rev. 303 (1978). For article, ‘‘Products Liability Law in Georgia Including Recent Developments,’’ see 43 Mercer L. Rev. 27 (1991). For article, ‘‘Selected Federal Tort Reform and Restatement Proposals Through the Lenses of Corrective Justice and Efficiency,’’ see 32 Ga. L. Rev. 1017 (1998). For annual survey of tort law, see 57 Mercer L. Rev. 363 (2005). For article, ‘‘Causation Actually,’’ see 51 Ga. L. Rev. 1 (2016). For note discussing increased risk of cancer as an actionable injury, see 18 Ga. L. Rev. 563 (1984). For comment, ‘‘Medical Expert Systems and Publisher Liability: A Cross-Contextual Analysis,’’ see 43 Emory L.J. 731 (1994).

Other notes

History of Code section.
The language of this section is derived in part from the decisions in Western Union Tel. Co. v. Taylor, 84 Ga. 408, 11 S.E. 397 (1890); Louisville & N.R.R. v. Spinks, 104 Ga. 692, 30 S.E. 968 (1898); and Wolff v. Southern Ry., 130 Ga. 251, 60 S.E. 569 (1908).

Read the official page (the state's PDF, opened at the page this text was read from).

Current through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly.

Text read from t51-(v39)-2017-pdf.pdf, Volume V39, 2017 edition, pages 6 to 7; merge action: annotated; file SHA-256 bc30a40687b2.