A Rabun County, Georgia jury returned a $22 million verdict on June 26, 2026 in a medical malpractice and wrongful death case that began with a CT scan that was ordered and never performed. The dollar figure is the headline. The more useful part for practitioners is the fact pattern, which sits on a fault line that recurs in diagnostic imaging claims: what happens when a patient cannot tolerate the study the ordering physician actually wanted.
The facts as reported
In September 2018, David Tucker, then 71, and his wife Carol were rear-ended near Tallulah Falls, Georgia. Tucker was taken to the Habersham County Medical Center emergency department with neck, back and chest pain. The emergency physician ordered a CT of the cervical spine, but Tucker could not lie flat because of back pain. The order was switched to plain cervical spine radiographs, which the emergency physician read as showing no serious injury. A radiologist with Gainesville Radiology Group interpreted the same films two days later and reached the same conclusion.
Four days later Tucker returned to work as a truck driver, developed neurological symptoms in his legs, and collapsed in a parking lot. Imaging at a second emergency department revealed fractures in the neck and upper back along with an epidural hematoma compressing the spinal cord. He underwent emergency surgery, was left paraplegic, and used a wheelchair for six years before dying in July 2024 from complications of his paralysis. Suit was filed in 2020.
The jury returned $22 million, allocated as $6 million for wrongful death, $10 million to the estate, and $6 million for loss of consortium. The executed verdict form was filed in Rabun County Superior Court under case number SUCV2020000256.
The defense account
The defense disputes both the medicine and the characterization of the verdict. Daniel J. Huff of Huff, Powell & Bailey, who represented the radiology group, stated that the radiologist had no role in clinical decision making and that his involvement was limited to interpreting plain radiographs of the cervical spine and chest. According to Huff, five experts testified that the interpretation was accurate and met the standard of care. He added that the patient had diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis, a condition producing irregular bone formation along the front of the spine that complicates interpretation.
Huff also stated that the plaintiff’s two radiology experts identified different areas as possibly fractured and disagreed about whether prevertebral soft tissue swelling was present. He emphasized that the hematoma responsible for the paralysis was in the thoracic spine, outside the region covered by the cervical films. On the verdict, Huff said the jury assigned the radiologist only a small percentage of fault and did not find gross negligence.
Those are contested assertions rather than findings. The operative record on allocation is the verdict form, and any lawyer relying on this case should pull it.
Where the case actually turns
The pivot point here is a study that never happened and a substitute that was less capable of answering the clinical question. That scenario is routine in emergency imaging, where patients cannot lie flat, cannot hold still, or are unstable.
The legally interesting questions follow. Who owns the decision to downgrade the study, the ordering clinician or the radiology group. What documentation exists showing that the substituted study was recognized as less sensitive. Whether anyone communicated that limitation, and to whom. Whether a plan for repeat or completion imaging was created and followed. Counsel on both sides should request the full order history, technologist notes, protocol logs, and the emergency department record, not only the final report.
Anatomic scope is the second axis. A radiologist who interprets a limited cervical series has a defensible argument that thoracic pathology falls outside the scope of the read. Plaintiffs’ counsel will press whether the report should have flagged that the requested CT was never obtained and the study was therefore incomplete for trauma clearance. Under Georgia’s apportionment statute, O.C.G.A. section 51-12-33, that dispute maps onto percentages, which is how a defendant can be partly at fault while contributing a small share of a very large number.
Bifurcation, and an assumption worth revisiting
Georgia’s 2025 tort reform package, Senate Bill 68, created O.C.G.A. section 51-12-15, which lets any party in a personal injury or wrongful death action elect to split trial into a liability phase and a damages phase, with a third phase available for punitive damages and fees. Election must be made before entry of the pretrial order, and a court may reject it only where the amount in controversy is below $150,000 or, in sexual offense cases, where the plaintiff would suffer serious distress from testifying twice. The provision applies retroactively, which is why a 2020 filing was tried under it.
Much of the commentary when SB 68 passed assumed bifurcation would function as a defense tool, on the theory that a jury deciding fault without hearing about a catastrophic injury decides in a cooler register. Law.com’s coverage of this trial framed it the other way, as a plaintiff team using bifurcation to its advantage. A separate Chatham County case reported in August 2026 followed a similar pattern, with plaintiff’s counsel electing bifurcation ahead of a $17.3 million verdict.
One verdict proves nothing about a statute. Two data points running against the predicted direction are enough to say the question is open, and that neither bar should treat the election as automatic.
The demand history
Reporting indicates the plaintiff sent two $1 million demands in 2021, understood to be the policy limits, and that both were rejected, with one carrier reportedly making no offer. Georgia practitioners will recognize the shape of that record. Under Southern General Insurance Co. v. Holt, 262 Ga. 267 (1992), an insurer that negligently, fraudulently, or in bad faith fails to settle within limits may be liable for the excess, and must give the insured’s interests equal consideration with its own. Holt also holds that an insurer does not act in bad faith merely by declining to meet a claimant’s deadline, and defenses remain where liability was unclear.
Whether any of that matters here depends on facts not in the public record. What is public is a case demanded at $2 million total in 2021 and tried to $22 million in 2026. That is a data point for coverage and defense counsel weighing early resolution, and for plaintiff’s counsel deciding how to paper a demand.
Sources
Radiology Business, “$22M malpractice verdict after CT scan canceled when patient couldn’t sit still for exam,” July 6, 2026 (updated July 29, 2026): https://radiologybusiness.com/topics/healthcare-management/legal-news/22m-malpractice-verdict-after-ct-scan-canceled-when-patient-couldnt-sit-still-exam
Executed jury verdict form, Rabun County Superior Court, case no. SUCV2020000256, filed June 26, 2026: https://assets.alm.com/77/e4/7e6d90d148d0ac1cf000a946bd0a/2026-06-26-tucker-jury-verdict-form-executed.pdf
Statement of Daniel J. Huff, Huff, Powell & Bailey, to Radiology Business: https://innovate-healthcare-cdn.s3.amazonaws.com/2026-07/2026.07.13%20-%20Radiology%20Business%20Article%20Letter(10745702.1).pdf
Gainesville Times, “Jury awards $22 million to widow in malpractice case after two doctors allegedly missed spinal fractures,” July 1, 2026: https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/courts/jury-awards-22-million-to-widow-in-malpractice-case-after-two-doctors-allegedly-missed-spinal-fractures/
Law.com, “A Plaintiff’s Team Asked for Trial Bifurcation. Then They Won $17.3M,” August 7, 2026: https://www.law.com/dailyreportonline/2026/08/07/a-plaintiffs-team-asked-for-trial-bifurcation-then-they-won-173m/
Alston & Bird, “What to Expect from Georgia’s New Tort Reform Law,” April 2025: https://www.alston.com/en/insights/publications/2025/04/georgia-new-tort-reform-law
Dechert, “Georgia’s New Tort Reform Laws Change the State’s Litigation Landscape,” April 30, 2025: https://www.dechert.com/knowledge/re-torts/2025/4/georgia-s-new-tort-reform-laws-change-the-state-s-litigation-lan.html
Southern General Ins. Co. v. Holt, 262 Ga. 267, 416 S.E.2d 274 (1992): https://law.justia.com/cases/georgia/supreme-court/1992/s91g1556-1.html
This article summarizes publicly reported information about a verdict that may be subject to post-trial motions or appeal. It is not legal advice.
