Georgia Supreme Court Restores a $33.5 Million Verdict That Was Cut to $350,000 Under the Malpractice Cap
After trial: The Georgia Supreme Court's June 16, 2026 decision (Nos. S26A0349 and S26X0350) reaffirmed Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery, P.C. v. Nestlehutt and held that OCGA 51-13-1(b)'s noneconomic damages cap cannot be applied to a verdict that includes pain and suffering damages protected by the right to a jury trial. The judgment was vacated and the case remanded with direction: the trial court's reduction of the wrongful death award to $350,000 was undone, restoring the verdict to $33,465,176, and the State Court of Bibb County was directed to decide one argument from the defendants' motion for a new trial that it had not reached. The case is not final, that motion could still change the outcome, and there is no public information on whether any amount has been paid.
Won by Shamp Silk.
A Bibb County jury awarded $33,465,176 in July 2024 after finding that physicians affiliated with an OB-GYN practice in Macon, Georgia failed to diagnose and treat a bowel perforation that occurred during April Clark's May 2019 ovarian cyst surgery, a failure the family said led to her death that June. The trial court later cut the wrongful death portion of the verdict from $29,250,000 to $350,000 under Georgia's medical malpractice damages cap. On June 16, 2026, the Georgia Supreme Court vacated that reduction, holding the cap cannot apply to a verdict that includes pain and suffering damages protected by the state's constitutional right to a jury trial, which restored the verdict to its full $33,465,176. The Court also sent the case back to the trial court to decide one argument from the defendants' motion for a new trial that the trial court had never reached, so the case is not over.
What happened
In May 2019, April S. Clark had surgery in Macon, Georgia to remove an ovarian cyst. Her bowel was perforated during the procedure. She was cared for afterward by physicians affiliated with OB/GYN Specialists, LLP, and her family later argued they failed to diagnose and treat the perforation before it killed her. Clark died on June 27, 2019.
Her husband, Charles Clark, and her daughter, April D. Clark, who administered her mother's estate, sued the physicians involved in her care and their practice, OB/GYN Specialists, LLP, in the State Court of Bibb County. Charles Clark brought the statutory wrongful death claim; April D. Clark, as administrator, pursued the claims for her mother's conscious pain and suffering before she died and for her medical expenses. The case went to trial in July 2024.
The jury returned a verdict against Dr. Thomas B. Leigh, Dr. William Shirley and OB/GYN Specialists, LLP. It awarded $29,250,000 for the full value of Clark's life, $2,500,000 for her pain and suffering, and $1,715,176 in medical expenses, a total of $33,465,176.
The defendants asked the trial court to apply OCGA 51-13-1(b), Georgia's cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases, which limits what a claimant can recover in noneconomic damages against health care providers to $350,000. The State Court of Bibb County denied the defendants' motion for a new trial but granted their motion to remit and amend the judgment, cutting the wrongful death award from $29,250,000 to $350,000 while leaving the pain and suffering and medical expense figures untouched.
Both sides appealed. On June 16, 2026, the Georgia Supreme Court reaffirmed its 2010 ruling in Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery, P.C. v. Nestlehutt and held that the cap cannot be applied to a verdict that includes damages protected by Georgia's constitutional right to a jury trial. Because the wrongful death award could not be separated from the pain and suffering damages the jury had already found for the same death, the cap could not reach it either. The Court vacated the trial court's order remitting the verdict, which restored the wrongful death figure and put the verdict back at its full $33,465,176.
The case is not finished. The Supreme Court sent it back to the State Court of Bibb County to decide one argument from the defendants' motion for a new trial that the trial court never reached the first time, because it believed the cap had already resolved the case. Laura M. Shamp and Joshua Forrest Silk of Shamp Silk represented the Clark family, along with James Darren Summerville and Elizabeth C. Stone of The Summerville Firm, LLC.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.FindLaw, Supreme Court of Georgia opinion, Clark v. Leigh (and vice versa), Nos. S26A0349/S26X0350, decided June 16, 2026: procedural history, the jury verdict breakdown, the trial court's cap-driven remittitur, the holding vacating that order, the remand to decide one unaddressed new-trial argument, and counsel of record naming Laura M. Shamp and Joshua Forrest Silk of Shamp Silk alongside James Darren Summerville and Elizabeth C. Stone of The Summerville Firm, LLC
- 2.CourtListener, June 16, 2026: the same Supreme Court of Georgia opinion, confirming the case numbers and disposition
- 3.The Georgia Virtue, June 23, 2026: news coverage of the ruling, the jury's award components, the trial court's reduction to $350,000, and the order that the Bibb County court consider a remaining argument from the doctors' new-trial motion
- 4.State Court Report, June 2026: independent case tracker confirming the Georgia Supreme Court's June 16, 2026 ruling and case number S26A0349
- 5.Legal Examiner, 2026: the trial court's remittitur to $350,000 and the Supreme Court's decision undoing that reduction
More proven verdicts from Shamp Silk
All Shamp Silk proven verdicts →A Fulton County State Court jury awarded $75 million to Jonathan Buckelew, who suffered a brain stem stroke after a chiropractic neck adjustment at age 32 and was left with locked-in syndrome when an emergency physician and a radiologist failed to diagnose it for a full day. The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in March 2025.
A Duval County, Florida jury awarded longtime smoker Elaine Jordan $11 million in August 2015, finding that Philip Morris USA concealed the dangers and addictive nature of cigarettes and that the resulting chronic obstructive pulmonary disease led to her two lung transplants and a later kidney transplant. The verdict included $7,795,000 in compensatory damages and $3,205,000 in punitive damages. Jurors also found Philip Morris 60 percent at fault and Jordan 40 percent at fault. Philip Morris appealed and lost at every stage: Florida's First District Court of Appeal affirmed in April 2018, the United States Supreme Court denied review in February 2019, and a later appeal of the attorney fee award Jordan won failed as well. The $11 million stands as rendered in 2015.
A Cobb County, Georgia jury awarded $10.5 million in February 2023 after an on-call obstetrician discharged Dinesha Robinson from the emergency room despite lab results showing signs of infection during a high-risk twin pregnancy. The untreated infection spread and led to the death of the family's daughter shortly after birth and the stillbirth of her twin brother. The verdict split evenly into two $5.25 million wrongful death awards, one per child. The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the amount as supported by the evidence in July 2025 but vacated the trial court's ruling on the state's damages cap and sent that question back for further proceedings.
A Cobb County, Georgia jury awarded $10.5 million in February 2023 after an on-call obstetrician discharged Dinesha Robinson from the emergency room despite lab results showing signs of infection during a high-risk twin pregnancy. The untreated infection spread and led to the stillbirth of the family's son and the death of his twin sister shortly after birth. The verdict split evenly into two $5.25 million wrongful death awards, one per child. The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the amount as supported by the evidence in July 2025 but vacated the trial court's ruling on the state's damages cap and sent that question back for further proceedings.
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Georgia Hayes, a Kansas City area ovarian cancer patient, sued pharmacist Robert Courtney after learning he had diluted the chemotherapy drugs used in her treatment. A Jackson County jury found Courtney liable and awarded Hayes $225,571,439 in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages, the first of hundreds of similar suits against Courtney to reach trial. The trial judge later found the award excessive and cut it by remittitur to $330,071,439, and that reduced judgment stood. Hayes herself and the case reporter covering the verdict both said she was unlikely to ever collect a significant portion of it.