Williams v. Regency Hospital Co., [Ms. S25G0276, Aug. 26, 2025] __ Ga. __ (2025). The Court (Land, J.; all Justices concur) affirmed dismissal of a medical malpractice suit as time-barred, rejecting an equal protection challenge to OCGA § 9-3-73(b), which bars tolling of the statute of limitations for mentally incompetent plaintiffs in medical malpractice actions.
Plaintiff, conservator for her mentally incompetent mother, filed suit more than two years after the alleged malpractice. Plaintiff argued OCGA § 9-3-90 tolled the limitation period and that § 9-3-73(b)’s no-tolling provision violated the Equal Protection Clause by treating incompetent plaintiffs in medical malpractice actions differently from those in other civil suits. The Court reaffirmed its holding in Deen v. Stevens, 287 Ga. 597 (2010), which upheld § 9-3-73(b) under a rational basis standard. Because the statute was rationally related to the legislative goal of ensuring affordable healthcare by limiting stale claims, the Court upheld its constitutionality. Ms. ** 8–17.