---
title: Sanoh v. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority et al.
collection: opinions
id: S26C0559
cite_as: Sanoh v. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority et al., S26C0559 (Ga. Aug. 18, 2026)
canonical_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26C0559
md_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26C0559.md
text_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26C0559/text
source_url: https://www.gasupreme.us/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/s26c0559.pdf
date: 2026-08-18
status: published
corpus_version: opinions-2026-09-14
license: Public record of the Supreme Court of Georgia, via CourtListener and the court's own website; see about.md
publisher: Georgia Commons, an independent project of Georgia Civic Data. Not the State of Georgia. Not legal advice.
up: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/2026.md
previous: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A1094.md
next: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26Q0585.md
index: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/index.md
omitted: opinion extras
omitted_chars: 1823
omitted_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26C0559.md?full=1
docket: S26C0559
court: Supreme Court of Georgia
case_type: civil
disposition: Petition for certiorari denied
vote: All the Justices concur, except Peterson, C.J., and Ellington, Pinson, and Land, JJ., who dissent; Colvin, J., disqualified
word_count: 1534
date_filed_source: courtlistener
record_source: gasupreme
court_note: Dissental Issued.
legal_areas:
  - torts
  - transportation law
upstream_id: ga-s26c0559
summaries_model: claude-sonnet-5
---

# Sanoh v. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority et al.

Supreme Court of Georgia, docket S26C0559, filed 2026-08-18.

## Opinion

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion.

SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA

Case No. S26C0559

August 18, 2026

The Honorable Supreme Court met pursuant to adjournment.

The following order was passed:

KADIATOU SANOH v. METROPOLITAN ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTHORITY et al.

The Supreme Court today denied the petition for certiorari in this case.

All the Justices concur, except Peterson, C.J., and Ellington, Pinson, and Land, JJ., who dissent. Colvin, J., disqualified.

Court of Appeals Case No. A25A1341

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF GEORGIA

Clerk’s Office, Atlanta

I certify that the above is a true extract from the minutes of the Supreme Court of Georgia.

Witness my signature and the seal of said court hereto affixed the day and year last above written.

, Clerk

PINSON, Justice, dissenting from the denial of certiorari.

Georgia law requires a “carrier of passengers” like MARTA to exercise “extraordinary diligence to protect the lives and per- sons” of their passengers. OCGA § 46-9-132; Metro. Atlanta Rapid Transit Auth. v. Rouse, 279 Ga. 311, 311 (2005). Just as it sounds, extraordinary diligence means more than ordinary care; it is “that extreme care and caution which very prudent and thoughtful per- sons exercise under the same or similar circumstances.” OCGA § 51–1–3. See also Rouse, 279 Ga. at 311. And as with other ques- tions in tort law that ask what a hypothetical person (here, a “very prudent and thoughtful” one) would do under the circumstances, outside of “plain and undisputable cases,” the question whether a carrier breached its statutory duty of extraordinary diligence is a question for the factfinder, even in the absence of factual disputes. Bussey v. Dawson, 224 Ga. 191, 193–94 (1968) (applying as “con- trolling” the “well established rule that questions of negligence, diligence, contributory negligence and proximate cause are pecu- liarly matters for the jury, and a court should not take the place of the jury in solving them, except in plain and undisputable cases). See also, e.g., Givens v. Coral Hosp.-GA, LLC, 317 Ga. 282, 284 (2023) (Pinson, J., concurring); Am. Multi-Cinema, Inc. v. Brown, 285 Ga. 442, 445 (2009); Ellington v. Tolar Constr. Co., 237 Ga. 235, 237 (1976).

In this case involving an abrupt stop of a MARTA bus, how- ever, the Court of Appeals took the extraordinary diligence ques- tion from the factfinder. Citing its recent decision in MARTA v. Brown, 366 Ga. App. 275, 281 (2022), the court held that MARTA “has no duty to give passengers a reasonable time to find a seat before departing the station.” Sanoh v. Metro. Atlanta Rapid Transit Auth., A25A1341, slip op. at 4 (Ga. App. Oct. 15, 2025) (unreported). As an initial matter, that holding appears to have mixed up the elements of duty and breach. There can be no real dispute that MARTA owes a duty of extraordinary diligence to protect its passengers, see Rouse, 279 Ga. at 311, and indeed, the Court of Appeals began its analysis by noting that the parties agreed on that much. Sanoh, A25A1341, slip op. at 4. The real question was whether MARTA had breached that duty under the circumstances of this case. And the court’s holding, in effect, was that, as a matter of law, MARTA does not breach its duty of ex- traordinary diligence by not giving a passenger enough time to sit down or otherwise secure herself on a MARTA bus.

I am not so sure about that. What if a bus driver mashes the accelerator immediately after closing the bus doors, when most of the new riders are still looking for seats? What if he does so even after someone asks him to wait? Or what if the driver notices an elderly or disabled person has not yet found a seat, and still hits the gas? Would a “very prudent and thoughtful” bus driver exercising “extreme care and caution” do any of those things? At the least, is that “plain[ly] and undisputabl[y]” so? Un- der the Court of Appeals’s rule, the answer would seem to be yes: case dismissed. But see, e.g., Eason v. Crews, 88 Ga. App. 602, 612–13 (1953) (agreeing that it was up to the jury whether the carrier exercised extraordinary diligence to protect the passenger when a limb on the side of the roadway protruded through an open window and injured the passenger’s eye, and ultimately af- firmed the jury’s verdict resolving the question against the de- fendant); Metts v. Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co., 52 Ga. App. 115, 116–18 (1935) (reversing grant of general demurrer to rail- road company in case where passenger was injured when disem- barking the train because while there is ordinarily “no duty upon a carrier to assist a passenger in boarding or alighting from its train,” “whether extraordinary diligence requires that a passen- ger be assisted in entering a train, may be dependent upon the circumstances and conditions” and, “[i]f, in the exercise of extraor- dinary care” it is necessary for the safety of a passenger to be as- sisted or aided in entering the train “then it would become the duty of the carrier to assist the passenger.”); Piller v. Hanger Cab Co., 115 Ga. App. 260, 264 (1967) (holding that the trial court erred in sustaining a general demurrer to the complaint alleging that a taxicab was speeding on wet roads in the dark when “[t]he petition raise[d] too many issues of fact … to hold as a matter of law that the defendant was exercising extraordinary diligence to protect the plaintiff passenger” or that another driver involved in the accident was the sole proximate cause of the collision); Cuth- bert v. Metro. Atlanta Rapid Transit Auth., 190 Ga. App. 550, 550–51 (1989) (stating that “[w]hether the passenger was owed a duty of extraordinary care or ordinary care is also a jury question” when the driver stopped the bus about four feet from the curb and a passenger who was walking along the side of the bus fell under its rear wheel and was killed).

Or how about this case? Headed home from work on the evening of January 22, 2022, Kadiatou Sanoh boarded a MARTA bus. She swiped her Breeze card at the terminal, but the card was a few cents short of the fare. Believing that she could not sit down without paying her fare, Sanoh stepped to the side and searched her purse for the necessary change. In the meantime, without sig- naling, the bus driver accelerated away from the stop but then hit the brakes as a car pulled in front of the bus. At that point, Sanoh was still looking through her purse, and although she had braced herself with one hand, she flew forward and hit her head on a railing at the front of the bus, causing significant injuries. Would a “very prudent and thoughtful” bus driver exercising “extreme care and caution” have acted in the same fashion? Under the de- cision below and Brown, the answer is apparently a clear and in- disputable “yes.” That strikes me as a difficult rule to defend given (1) the high standard set by a duty of extraordinary dili- gence and (2) our law generally reserves questions of breach for decision by the factfinder.

This is not to say that the right answer is clear. Not every “the bus started/stopped fast and I fell” claim against a common carrier like MARTA must reach a jury. No doubt it will be “plain and undisputable” under the circumstances of some cases that MARTA’s conduct in starting or stopping or otherwise driving a bus or train met even that high standard of extraordinary dili- gence, or that the passenger’s own negligence was the proximate cause of her injury and thus barred relief. See Bussey, 224 Ga. at 193–94. The question is whether there is a particular set of cir- cumstances in these cases that demand a rule that the carrier has not breached its duty (or is not liable for some other reason, like contributory negligence) as a matter of law. I don’t have a ready answer. But in my view, the fact that it may be hard to figure out whether some bright-line rule can be fashioned in these cases (and if so, where to draw it) does not mean we should not try. Not taking up this question leaves in place a rule (from Brown) that cuts off liability as a matter of law in too many cases given the common carrier’s duty of extraordinary diligence and the general rule that questions of breach are for the factfinder. And because this question is both important and recurring, I would grant re- view in this case to address it as best we can.

I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Peterson, Jus- tice Ellington, and Justice Land join this dissent.

## Summaries written by Georgia Commons

The following was written by claude-sonnet-5 from the opinion above and is not part of the court's opinion. Quote the opinion, not the summary.

The Supreme Court of Georgia declined to review a Court of Appeals ruling that MARTA cannot be sued for injuries suffered by a passenger still looking for a seat when a bus abruptly braked, over a dissent from four Justices.

### Plain-language summary

Kadiatou Sanoh was searching her purse for change to cover a shortfall in her bus fare when a MARTA bus driver pulled away from the stop and then braked hard to avoid a car, throwing her forward into a railing and injuring her. She sued MARTA, but the Court of Appeals of Georgia ruled that MARTA has no duty to give passengers time to sit down before departing, effectively deciding as a matter of law that MARTA had not breached its duty to its passengers.
Sanoh asked the Supreme Court of Georgia to take up her case. The court denied her petition, meaning the Court of Appeals decision stands. Four Justices, including the Chief Justice, dissented, arguing the case raised an important and recurring question about how far a bus company's high legal duty to its riders extends that deserved full review.

### Holding, as summarized

The court did not rule on the merits; it simply denied the petition for certiorari, leaving the Court of Appeals of Georgia's decision that MARTA breached no duty as a matter of law to passengers still finding seats when a bus departs or stops abruptly.

### Disposition

Petition for certiorari denied. All the Justices concur, except Peterson, C.J., and Ellington, Pinson, and Land, JJ., who dissent; Colvin, J., disqualified.

### Why it matters

The denial leaves in place a Court of Appeals rule that can end similar lawsuits against MARTA and other common carriers before a jury ever hears them, even though Georgia law demands carriers exercise an unusually high level of care toward passengers.

> The summarized reasoning, checked quotes, suggested questions (1,823 characters) are at https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26C0559.md?full=1