Background
Kevin Sinyard worked as a pipefitter for more than 25 years for over 41 contractors, including work as an independent contractor at four Georgia Power plants between 1979 and 1986. Diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma in 2014, he and his wife sued multiple defendants in 2016, alleging negligence, premises liability, loss of consortium, and punitive damages. This appeal marked the case’s third appearance before the Court of Appeals. In the 2022 decision known as Sinyard I, the court reversed summary judgment for Ford and affirmed in part and reversed in part summary judgment for Georgia Power.
On remand, Georgia Power, Ford, and Union Carbide sought to exclude causation expert Dr. Jerrold Abraham and experts Christopher DePasquale and Dr. Steven Compton, and sought summary judgment based on Abraham’s exclusion. The trial court denied those motions. After mediation, the Sinyards settled with Ford and Union Carbide. The trial court dismissed those companies over Georgia Power’s objection, leaving Georgia Power as the sole remaining defendant, and ruled that Georgia Power was not entitled to apportionment of fault. Georgia Power appealed that order, the expert-testimony rulings, and the denial of its renewed summary-judgment motion.
The Court’s Holding
The court affirmed the judgment. It first held that the 2005 version of OCGA § 51-12-33(b) governed the 2016 lawsuit. Under AU Medical Center v. Dale, apportionment under that provision is available only when more than one defendant remains at trial, so Georgia Power could not obtain apportionment after Ford and Union Carbide were dismissed. The court declined Georgia Power’s footnoted request to overrule AU Medical Center.
Georgia Power alternatively relied on OCGA § 51-12-15(a), enacted in Georgia’s 2025 Tort Reform Act. The legislation expressed an intent for applicable provisions to reach pending causes of action unless doing so would be unconstitutional. The court agreed that OCGA § 51-12-15 is “a procedural vehicle for the apportionment statute,” OCGA § 51-12-33. But to the extent the newer statute changed Georgia Power’s entitlement to apportionment despite AU Medical Center, it altered substantive rights affecting liability and collection rather than merely enforcing existing obligations. The court therefore held that “retrospective application of OCGA § 51-12-15 to this case does not comport with the Georgia Constitution.” That conclusion was tied to the statute’s asserted effect in this case, not announced as a categorical bar on applying the statute to every pending case.
Reviewing expert admissibility for abuse of discretion under OCGA § 24-7-702, the court upheld the denial of the exclusion motions. Challenges to DePasquale’s literature-based exposure ranges and Compton’s reliance on studies, prior testing, and case materials concerned factual foundations that could be tested on cross-examination. Abraham’s opinions differed materially from those rejected in Scapa Dryer Fabrics v. Knight because he relied on exposure descriptions and DePasquale’s ranges to address exposures above de minimis levels. The court also rejected summary judgment premised on the absence of admissible causation evidence.
On renewed summary judgment, reviewed de novo with evidence viewed favorably to the Sinyards, the court found a genuine dispute over whether Georgia Power had superior knowledge of the specific asbestos hazards. David Rosner’s testimony was equivocal about the knowledge of Sinyard’s employers, whose knowledge was imputed to Sinyard, while other evidence suggested those employers lacked such knowledge. The court expressly declined to decide whether the trial court erred in holding that expert testimony on the ultimate issue could not be used at summary judgment, because a factual dispute remained even after considering Rosner’s testimony.
Key Takeaways
- Under the governing 2005 apportionment statute and AU Medical Center, dismissal of all other defendants before trial defeated Georgia Power’s apportionment claim.
- Although OCGA § 51-12-15 is a procedural vehicle for apportionment, applying it retrospectively to change apportionment entitlement in this case would unconstitutionally alter substantive rights.
- The court upheld the expert rulings and denied causation-based summary judgment, but resolved the renewed-knowledge motion on the evidence without deciding the ultimate-issue expert-testimony question.
Why It Matters
The decision applies binding apportionment precedent to a sole remaining defendant and explains why the 2025 legislation could not retrospectively supply the different apportionment right Georgia Power sought here. It also illustrates the distinction between expert-admissibility challenges and attacks on credibility, while keeping disputed superior-knowledge issues in an asbestos premises-liability case for the jury.