Construction Claim Rules in Georgia

Statutory interest rate

Prime rate + 3% (judgments); 7% (prejudgment default)

Postjudgment: the Federal Reserve prime rate on the date of judgment plus 3%, unless the contract specifies its own rate, which controls instead. The rate is fixed by the prime rate in effect on that judgment's date, so it differs from one judgment to the next. At the last check, in August 2026, the Bank Prime Loan rate in the Federal Reserve's H.15 release was 6.75%, which put a judgment entered then at about 9.75%. Prejudgment on a liquidated demand or open account: 7% simple by default if there is no contract rate.

Compounding: Not specified by the statute; treat as simple interest.

Citation: O.C.G.A. §§ 7-4-12, 7-4-2

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-7/chapter-4/article-1/section-7-4-12/

Last checked: 2026-08-23

Check the current Bank Prime Loan rate in the Federal Reserve H.15 release for the judgment date you are working with.

Accrual: breach of contract claim

From when the party became liable and bound to pay, generally the breach/due date

O.C.G.A. § 7-4-15 provides that interest runs on a liquidated demand from the time the party became liable and bound to pay it, which for a construction contract debt is generally the date payment was due or the date of breach.

Citation: O.C.G.A. § 7-4-15

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-7/chapter-4/article-1/section-7-4-15/

Accrual: property damage / tort claim

Not date of loss: requires a specific written demand, then runs from 30 days after that demand if unpaid

Georgia's Unliquidated Damages Interest Act (O.C.G.A. § 51-12-14) lets a tort/property-damage claimant recover interest, but only after sending the defendant (or its insurer) a written demand meeting the statute's specific requirements. If the demand isn't paid within 30 days, interest runs from that 30-day mark, not from the date of loss itself. Skipping the demand step forfeits this interest right entirely.

Citation: O.C.G.A. § 51-12-14

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-51/chapter-12/article-1/section-51-12-14/

The demand's timing, content and delivery method are all statutory requirements; a demand that misses any of them can forfeit the interest right. Confirm the current procedural requirements before relying on this.

Actual Cash Value rule

Relaxed evidentiary standard for household/personal property (narrower than a full broad-evidence doctrine)

Purchase price or replacement cost plus the approximate age of the item is enough evidence for a jury to find ACV. The rule comes from a case about fire-damaged household property. Whether it controls for a building or a general construction claim has not been decided.

Citation: Braner v. Southern Trust Ins. Co., 255 Ga. 117 (1985)

Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/georgia/supreme-court/1985/42284-1.html

Braner concerns household goods destroyed by fire. Check Georgia authority on structures before applying it to a building claim.

ACV statute or regulation

No Georgia statute or regulation defines ACV or restricts labor depreciation. Valuation comes from case law.

Georgia's insurance code and the Department of Insurance's claims settlement rules do not define how ACV must be calculated for a property claim or restrict depreciating labor. O.C.G.A. § 33-32-5 is a valued policy statute for total fire losses to one and two family dwellings and does not set an ACV computation method. Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 120-2-52 is a first-party claim settlement procedure rule covering timelines and vehicle claims, not a depreciation formula. Georgia's ACV standard comes from case law applying a fair market value approach.

Citation: O.C.G.A. § 33-32-5 (valued policy, total fire losses); Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 120-2-52 (claims settlement procedure)

Source: https://rules.sos.ga.gov/gac/120-2-52

Recoverable depreciation holdback

No Georgia statute sets the timing or process for paying withheld recoverable depreciation, so the policy terms control.

Georgia Code Title 33, Chapter 32 (property insurance) and § 33-32-5 (valued-policy provisions for total fire losses) address related valuation topics, but no provision specifically sets a deadline or procedure for releasing recoverable depreciation once repairs on a partial loss are complete. This appears to be governed by individual policy terms rather than statute.

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2020/title-33/chapter-32/

“No damages for delay” clause enforceability

Enforceable only if the clause is clear, unambiguous and specific; a bare 'extension of time' clause won't bar damages

Georgia courts require an exculpatory no-damages-for-delay clause to be clear, unambiguous and specific to bar recovery, construing any ambiguity against the drafter. In a case where a subcontract's clause only granted an extension of time for delay, the court held it didn't eliminate the right to recover monetary damages at all, since the parties had shown elsewhere in the same subcontract that they knew how to draft clearer delay-liability language when they intended it.

Citation: Ragan Enterprises, Inc. v. L&B Construction Co., 222 Ga. App. 335 (1996)

Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/georgia/court-of-appeals/1996/a96a0566.html

Construction contract filing deadline

6 years for an action on a simple written contract

Georgia's limitations period for actions on simple written contracts is 6 years from when the amount became due and payable, covering an ordinary written construction-contract claim. Two deadlines sit in front of that one on most construction claims. A mechanic's lien and a payment bond claim each run on their own, far shorter clock, counted from last furnishing rather than from breach and missing either one removes the security while leaving the contract claim alive but unsecured. Check those dates first. Accrual is the other half of the question: the period runs from breach, which on a payment dispute is usually the date payment came due rather than the date the work was done.

Citation: O.C.G.A. § 9-3-24

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-9/chapter-3/article-2/section-9-3-24/

State unemployment insurance (SUTA)

Georgia's new-employer unemployment tax rate is 2.7% of the first $9,500 in wages per employee; experienced employers range from 0.04% to 8.1%.

New employers pay a flat 2.7% rate until they accrue enough experience to be individually rated. Established employers are then rated on a reserve-ratio basis, with published rates ranging from about 0.04% up to 8.1% depending on claims history. The taxable wage base is $9,500 per employee per year.

Citation: Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL).

Source: https://dol.georgia.gov/blog-post/2025-12-23/2026-employer-tax-rates-available-now

Last checked: 2026-08-26

The Department of Labor distributes 2026 rate notices through its Employer Portal rather than publishing a publicrate table, so confirm your own rate on that notice.

Workers' compensation rating

Georgia uses NCCI advisory rates rather than its own rating bureau.

Georgia relies on NCCI to develop workers' compensation loss costs and classification codes, which are then filed with the Georgia Office of Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire for approval. Claims administration and dispute resolution run through the Georgia State Board of Workers' Compensation, but rate-setting itself follows the standard NCCI advisory model used across most states.

Citation: NCCI Georgia State Advisory Forum, Georgia State Board of Workers' Compensation

Source: https://www.ncci.com/Articles/Documents/II_StateAdvisoryForumState_GA_2025.pdf

Prevailing wage law

Georgia has no state prevailing-wage law for public construction contracts.

Georgia has never enacted a state prevailing wage law for public construction. Work let by Georgia state or local agencies carries no state-mandated prevailing wage. The federal Davis-Bacon Act applies only to federally funded work.

Citation: U.S. Department of Labor state prevailing wage summary

Source: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/prevailing-wages

Comparative / contributory negligence rule

Modified comparative fault, recovery barred at 50% or more fault

Recovery is reduced in proportion to fault and barred once the worker is 50% or more at fault. A worker exactly 50% at fault recovers nothing.

Citation: O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33(a), (g) (bar and reduction); § 51-12-33(c)-(d) (nonparty fault); § 51-11-7 (avoidance by ordinary care)

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-51/chapter-12/article-2/section-51-12-33/

Verified against: statute text of O.C.G.A. s 51-12-33

Non-economic damages cap

No general cap on non-economic damages

Most states cap non-economic damages only in medical malpractice actions, which does not reach a third-party construction claim. Economic losses, medical bills, lost wages, future earning capacity, are not capped by these statutes.

OSHA plan

Federal OSHA (no state plan)

Georgia has no OSHA-approved state plan; both public and private employers fall under federal OSHA jurisdiction. Under federal jurisdiction the citation is issued by an OSHA area office and contested before the federal Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Federal OSHA does not cover state and local government employees, so a public employee injured on a public job falls outside it. Reporting deadlines are a work-related fatality within 8 hours, an inpatient hospitalisation, amputation or loss of an eye within 24 hours. For a construction claim the inspection file matters more than the citation: photographs, measurements, witness statements and the inspector's narrative are usually obtainable and are often the best contemporaneous record of the site.

Citation: 29 U.S.C. § 667 (State Plan roster)

Source: https://www.osha.gov/stateplans

Weight of an OSHA violation in a negligence case

Evidence of legal duty under OCGA § 51-1-6 when the plaintiff is the OSHA-violating defendant's OWN employee, but excludable as 'not pertinent' when the plaintiff is a different party's employee: a real trap for the exact multi-employer construction scenario this category covers.

Dupree v. Keller Industries, 199 Ga. App. 138, 141, 404 S.E.2d 291 (1991), is Georgia's leading case: OSHA regulations are admissible not merely as standards of performance but as evidence of legal duty, violation of which may give a cause of action under OCGA § 51-1-6. But that duty runs specifically between an employer and its own employees. In Brantley v. Custom Sprinkler Systems, Inc., 218 Ga. App. 431, 461 S.E.2d 592 (1995), a city employee sued a contractor hired by the city; evidence of the contractor's OSHA violation was held not pertinent, because the plaintiff was not that contractor's employee. In Smith v. CSX Transportation, Inc., 703 S.E.2d 671 (Ga. Ct. App. 2010), OSHA stair-construction standards (29 C.F.R. § 1910.24(f)) were held admissible as evidence of legal duty for the plaintiff's own employer and the trial court's refusal to charge the jury on those standards was reversible error. The distinguishing fact across all three cases is the employment relationship between the plaintiff and the OSHA-violating defendant, not a genuine doctrinal conflict. The practical construction-industry consequence: on a multi-employer job site, an injured worker suing a party other than their own direct employer for that other party's OSHA violation (a sub's employee suing the GC, or one sub's employee suing a different sub) may find that OSHA evidence gets excluded as 'not pertinent' under Brantley's reasoning, even though the same evidence would be squarely admissible under Dupree and Smith if the injured worker were suing their own employer.

Citation: Dupree v. Keller Industries, 199 Ga. App. 138, 404 S.E.2d 291 (1991); Brantley v. Custom Sprinkler Systems, Inc., 218 Ga. App. 431, 461 S.E.2d 592 (1995); Smith v. CSX Transportation, Inc., 703 S.E.2d 671 (Ga. Ct. App. 2010); OCGA § 51-1-6.

Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ga-court-of-appeals/1542528.html

Third-party contribution against the employer

A statutory employer that pays workers' compensation benefits cannot be sued for contribution or implied indemnity by a third-party tortfeasor.

O.C.G.A. § 34-9-11 grants employer/statutory-employer tort immunity. Georgia courts have held that once a contractor is determined to be a statutory employer, it cannot be treated as a joint tortfeasor subject to contribution (Modlin v. Swift Textiles, Inc., 180 Ga. App. 726 (1986)) and a passive tortfeasor may not bring a claim for implied indemnity against an employer paying workers-comp benefits even where the employer's active negligence was primarily responsible for the injury (Georgia Dep't of Human Resources v. Joseph Campbell Co., 261 Ga. 822 (1992)). Contractual indemnity provisions, however, remain enforceable notwithstanding exclusivity.

Citation: O.C.G.A. § 34-9-11; Modlin v. Swift Textiles, Inc., 180 Ga. App. 726, 350 S.E.2d 273 (1986); Georgia Dep't of Human Resources v. Joseph Campbell Co., 261 Ga. 822, 411 S.E.2d 871 (1992).

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2020/title-34/chapter-9/article-1/section-34-9-11/

Injury-severity gate on contribution claims

Georgia has no intentional-act exception to workers' compensation exclusivity in practice. The employee must show the employer specifically intended to cause the injury.

To escape exclusivity an employee must show the employer had a specific intent to cause injury. An unsafe workplace, known dangerous conditions or an OSHA violation is not enough and the standard is met so rarely that Georgia is usually described as having no working exception. Georgia also rejects the dual capacity doctrine. The exclusivity bar does not apply where the employer failed to carry required coverage. In practice exclusivity takes the direct employer off the tort table entirely, whatever the OSHA file shows. The claim runs against the other parties on the site: the general contractor, the owner, another subcontractor, an equipment manufacturer. The employer or its carrier then asserts a lien against whatever the worker recovers from those parties, so the figure the worker actually keeps is the recovery less the lien, the fee and the costs. Whether the lien is reduced for the cost of obtaining the recovery is a separate state question worth asking early, because it moves the net more than most people expect.

Citation: O.C.G.A. § 34-9-11

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2020/title-34/chapter-9/article-1/section-34-9-11/

Distinctive state doctrine

Design-professional immunity carve-out (O.C.G.A. § 34-9-11)

Georgia extends the same third-party immunity that protects employers to construction design professionals (architects and engineers) retained to perform professional services on a construction project: unless the design professional specifically assumes the project's safety practices by written contract. This is broader than most states' treatment of design professionals, who are more commonly ordinary third-party defendants.

Citation: O.C.G.A. § 34-9-11

Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2020/title-34/chapter-9/article-1/section-34-9-11/