As of last week, the 2020 Georgia legislative session is over. Late on Friday evening, the Georgia House and Senate passed Senate Bill 359. This bill was a compromise between GTLA, businesses, healthcare workers, hospitals, sports teams, and many others. A lot of folks deserve credit for this compromise legislation, but most especially, Representative Trey Kelley deserves a shout out for his unwavering commitment to this being a reasonable attempt at COVID liability protection. 

As we noted in every update that we shared with the membership, the politics of this session has always outweighed the policy on this issue. States around the country have passed extremely broad COVID liability bills. A bill in Georgia was going to pass, and our mission was to be at the table when this bill was drafted. We are happy to report that we accomplished that goal! 

Below you will find a link to an Atlanta Journal Constitution article detailing the progress of the legislation, its contents, and commentary from GTLA President-Elect, Jon Pope in addition to a link for SB 359 as passed by both Chambers:

• AJC Article

• SB 359

A more thorough email will be circulated to the membership in the coming days outlining more specifically the items which our team tracked throughout the session and how they fared, but, in the meantime, please know that your GTLA legislative team, leadership, and our lawyer legislators did work that should make you all very proud.

Best,