Georgia small business owners can now celebrate another step in litigation reform. Georgia passed legislation that adopts a constitutional amendment that creates a dedicated statewide business court.
Gov. Nathan Deal advocated for the creation of a separate business court earlier this year, upon the recommendation of the Georgia Court Reform Council. In their November 2017 report, they wrote: “Specialized courts dealing with complex business matters have been in the United States in one form or another as far back as the formation of the Delaware Court of Chancery in 1792 and, in recent years, businesses have associated the increasing complexity of litigation with the need for specialized business courts. Businesses report an increasing lack of predictability of outcome and time required to resolve matters, often due in part to increasing complexity of cases along with increasing time demands on judges. More recently, legislatures have increasingly turned to business courts for these complex business matters—now present in many states.”
Creating a separate business court in Georgia, the Council advised, offers several advantages:
- Judicial expertise in the field gives businesses security, certainty, and predictability about the outcome because they know their case will be heard by a judge who is familiar with the complex business issues at hand.
- These complex cases can be expedited because the nature of the court and the lawyers is very specialized.
- This across-the-board specialization leads to consistency in case management, lower costs, and improved efficiency.
NFIB/GA State Director Nathan Humphrey applauded the move: “This law will be a big step forward in helping Georgia businesses by reducing the cost and time of litigation, which can be very burdensome to small businesses.”
Under the amendment, each county’s superior court would be allowed to create a business court division, but cases can also be heard before the new statewide court. The court would focus on complex disputes, including topics such as antitrust, intellectual property, cybersecurity, professional malpractice claims, and actions brought under the Georgia Business Corporation Code, among others.
