O.C.G.A.
O.C.G.A.

O.C.G.A. § 51-4-3 (2019)

Persons entitled to bring action for wrongful death of

✓ O.C.G.A. — 2019 edition (Public.Resource.Org Release 73)
Code text and O.C.G.A. statutory annotations on this page reflect the 2019 Official Code of Georgia Annotated (Public.Resource.Org Release 73, 2019-08-21; public domain per Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). The Syfert case-law annotations in Notes of Decisions, below, are current.
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wife or mother; survival of action; service on and intervention of parties not joining; effect of final judgment. Reserved. Repealed by Ga. L. 1985, p. 1253, § 2, effective April 10, 1985.

Annotations

Editor’s notes. - This Code section was based on Ga. L. 1887, p. 43, § 1; Civil Code 1895, § 3828; Civil Code 1910, § 4424; Ga. L. 1924, p. 60, § 1; Code 1933, § 105-1306; Ga. L. 1939, p. 233, § 1; Ga. L. 1960, p. 968, § 1; Ga. L. 1971, p. 359, § 1; Ga. L. 1981, Ex. Sess., p. 8.

Present provisions concerning persons entitled to bring an action for the wrongful death of a spouse or parent appear in § 51-4-2.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 10 cases (1 in the last 5 years), 1983–2025 · leading case: Tolbert v. Murrell, 322 S.E.2d 487 (Ga. 1984).
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Tolbert v. Murrell, 322 S.E.2d 487 (Ga. 1984). · cites it 38× “" OCGA § 51-4-3, which is applicable where the mother is killed, provides in pertinent part as follows: "(a) The husband and the legitimate and illegitimate child or children may recover for the homicide of the wife or mother.”
MacK v. Moore, 345 S.E.2d 338 (Ga. 1986). · cites it 8× “The 1985 amendment to OCGA § 51-4-2 and the legislature's repeal of OCGA § 51-4-3 corrected the constitutional infirmity which caused this court to strike down § 51-4-2 in Tolbert v.”
Gen. Motors Corp. v. Rasmussen, 340 S.E.2d 586 (Ga. 1986). · cites it 6× “OCGA § 51-4-3, the alternative method provided by Tolbert for pursuing a wrongful death action, vested a single action jointly in the children and the surviving spouse.”
Jones v. Jones, 362 S.E.2d 403 (Ga. Ct. App. 1987). · cites it 6× “Tolbert held: “Henceforth, children of deceased fathers who leave widows shall be afforded the rights afforded children [of deceased mothers] under [former] OCGA § 51-4-3.” Id. p. 571. This, of course, was the law until the legislature in 1985 (Ga.”
Edenfield v. Jackson, 306 S.E.2d 911 (Ga. 1983). · cites it 2× “2 In so holding, the court relied in part on the fact that the next Code section, OCGA § 51-4-3 (Code Ann. § 105-1306), specifically enables illegitimate children to maintain actions for the wrongful deaths of their mothers.”
Bandy v. Hosp. Auth. of Walker Cnty., 332 S.E.2d 46 (Ga. Ct. App. 1985). · cites it 2× “(a) The complaint was originally brought in Bandy’s name as executor of the estate of his mother, Mary Bandy.”
Duffee v. Rader, 344 S.E.2d 258 (Ga. Ct. App. 1986). · cites it 2× “27, 1984), held that OCGA § 51-4-2 was unconstitutional and “[h]enceforth, children of deceased fathers who leave widows shall be afforded rights afforded children under OCGA § 51-4-3 [regarding the children and spouse of a deceased mother].”
Gilbert v. Wills, 834 F.2d 935 (11th Cir. 1987). “Here the surviving members of the Gilbert family through their private agreement working in coalescence with the provisions of the Georgia wrongful death statute, O.C.G.A. § 51-4-3, manipulated the result in such a way as to manufacture diversity jurisdiction in precisely the…”
Cole v. Roberts, 648 F. Supp. 415 (M.D. Ga. 1986). · cites it 15× “§ 51-4-2 (Michie 1982) by striking out in their entirety both O.C.G.A. § 51-4-3 (Michie 1982) and section 51-4-2.”
Spence v. Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison (M.D. Ga. 2025). · cites it 3× “Likewise, the Georgia General Assembly repealed O.C.G.A. § 51-4-3 more than 40 years ago.”
— 51-4-3(b)(2) — 1 case
Cole v. Roberts, 648 F. Supp. 415 (M.D. Ga. 1986). “§ 51-4-2 (Michie 1982) by striking out in their entirety both O.C.G.A. § 51-4-3 (Michie 1982) and section 51-4-2.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.