COVID Afflicted Cases Have Incubated Long Enough

Recently, we examined one of the first rulings about the Georgia Supreme Court's Emergency Orders and their effect on a case's statute of limitations. In Owens, the Middle District of Georgia determined the addition of 122 days to every cases' statute of limitations was "simply unreasonable." The court's Order was ultimately vacated as the parties agreed to substitute the relevant parties from the Motion to Dismiss. Now, the question of how to interpret the Emergency Orders has finally made it to the Georgia Court of Appeals.

As a reminder, the Emergency Orders provided "[t]he 122 days between March 14 and July 14, 2020, or any portion of that period in which a statute of limitation would have run, shall be excluded from the calculation of that statute of limitation." (emphasis added) In Beauparlant v. Aiken, the plaintiff was involved in a car accident and sustained multiple injuries on June 11, 2018 meaning the statute of limitations would normally run on June