Can you sue your employer for a work injury in Georgia?

If you are hurt at work in Georgia, workers’ compensation is usually your only remedy against your employer. You cannot also sue the employer for negligence. That rule is O.C.G.A. § 34-9-11, the exclusive remedy provision. It does not protect outside parties, so a negligent driver, contractor, or manufacturer can still be sued.

What does O.C.G.A. § 34-9-11 say?

The published heading is “Exclusivity of rights and remedies granted to employee under chapter; immunity granted to construction design professionals.” Subsection (a) opens:

The rights and the remedies granted to an employee by this chapter shall exclude and be in place of all other rights and remedies of such employee, his or her personal representative, parents, dependents, or next of kin, and all other civil liabilities whatsoever at common law or otherwise, on account of such injury, loss of service, or death.

The same subsection preserves your right to sue a third party tortfeasor, with exceptions for coworkers, the employer’s workers’ compensation carrier, and certain construction design professionals. Subsection (c) extends the employer’s immunity to businesses using temporary staffing and employee leasing firms. Last amended in 2015 (Ga. L. 2015, p. 1079, HB 412).

What does it mean for you?

Workers’ compensation is a trade. You get medical care and partial wage replacement without having to prove anyone was at fault. In exchange, you give up the right to sue your employer for the full value of your injury, including pain and suffering. “Exclusive remedy” is the legal name for that trade, and this section is where it lives.

The part most injured workers never hear about is the third party exception. The exclusivity rule protects your employer and your coworkers. It does not protect anyone else. If you were driving for work and another motorist hit you, you have a workers’ compensation claim and a separate injury claim against that driver. If a subcontractor’s crew dropped something on you, or a machine was defectively designed, or a property owner left a hazard where you were sent to work, those are separate lawsuits with full damages available.

The two claims interact. The workers’ compensation insurer will usually want to be repaid out of the third party recovery, through what Georgia calls subrogation, and that has to be handled carefully so you are not left with less than you started with. This is one of the places where having one firm handle both sides pays for itself.

Related Georgia laws

• O.C.G.A. § 34-9-80: the 30 day deadline to report a work injury
• O.C.G.A. § 34-9-82: the one year deadline to file a workers’ compensation claim
• O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33: how fault is divided in the third party case

Sources

• Official Code of Georgia Annotated on legis.ga.gov (official text)
• O.C.G.A. § 34-9-11 on Justia (2025 Georgia Code)
• Text verified against the published code on 2026-10-16. Statute text is public record. Nothing on this page is legal advice about your specific case.

What should you do next?

Hurt on the job and told workers’ comp is all you get? Sometimes that is true. Often it is not. The question is whether someone other than your employer had a hand in it, and that is worth a free conversation.

Call Kenneth S. Nugent, P.C. at 770-820-0711, any hour, any day. The call is free, the case review is free, and there is zero fee unless we win. Nine offices across Georgia, and we come to you if you cannot come to us.

One more thing. Don’t sign anything from an insurance company before you talk to a lawyer. A signature on the wrong form can give away rights you did not know you had.