The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed a Gwinnett County trial court decision dismissing a case where a patient died at a long-term care facility for lack of proximate cause on Monday. The opinion may also send a policy message to other state-funded caregivers regarding how culpable they can be held for a patient’s death.
At oral argument, plaintiff-appellant attorney David Hughes of Hall Hirsch Hughes argued that not only was a Gwinnett County trial court incorrect in dismissing his client’s case but that the action goes beyond proving proximate cause in a wrongful death suit. This is because the deceased was developmentally disabled and as a result was a class of person state statute is designed to protect.
