NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion.
In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: June 10, 2025
S24G1246. DATES et al. v. CITY OF ATLANTA.
MCMILLIAN, Justice.
Kierra Dates filed an action against the City of Atlanta (“the
City”) after her minor son was injured on City property. Prior to
filing suit and within the time required by law, Dates sent an ante
litem notice to the City, see OCGA § 36-33-5 (“municipal ante litem
notice statute”), claiming a loss in a nonspecific amount. She later
provided a supplemental ante litem notice outside the time required
by statute claiming a loss of $1,000,000. After the trial court
dismissed Dates’s complaint for failure to comply with the
requirements of the municipal ante litem notice statute, Dates
appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The court held that Dates’s
first notice was not specific enough to satisfy the municipal ante
litem notice statute. It also held that Dates’s second notice was
untimely because the tolling provision for actions brought by minors
did not apply to municipal ante litem notices. See OCGA § 9-3-90
(b). We granted certiorari to consider whether the tolling provision
for actions brought by minors applies to the municipal ante litem
notice statute1 and conclude that the Court of Appeals correctly
determined that the minor tolling provision does not apply to OCGA
§ 36-33-5.
1. On June 1, 2020, Dates’s eight-year-old son, J. D., was
playing at Howell Park – owned by the City – when a rotten tree
branch fell and injured his leg. On June 12, 2020, Dates sent an ante
litem notice to the City, advising it of her intent to assert a claim
and stating that “[t]he amount of the loss claimed is in excess of
$500,000.” Over a year later, on July 9, 2021, Dates sent a
supplemental ante litem notice stating that “[t]he amount of the loss
claimed is $1,000,000.” Dates then filed her complaint on November
1 In granting certiorari, we posed the following question: Is the time for
filing an ante litem notice under OCGA § 36-33-5 subject to tolling under
OCGA § 9-3-90 (b), such that the plaintiff’s supplemental ante litem notice was
timely? Oral argument was held on May 14, 2025.
2
23, 2021.
The City moved to dismiss, arguing that Dates’s first notice did
not comply with the specificity requirements of the municipal ante
litem notice statute, OCGA § 36-33-5 (e),2 and that her second notice
was untimely under OCGA § 36-33-5 (b).3 In opposition to the
motion, Dates asserted, in part, that the time limit to submit an ante
litem notice should be tolled under OCGA § 9-3-90 (b) 4 – because her
son was a minor at the time of the incident – and that, accordingly,
2 OCGA § 36-33-5 (e) provides, in relevant part: “The description of the
extent of the injury required in subsection (b) of this Code section shall include the specific amount of monetary damages being sought from the municipal
corporation. . . .” (Emphasis added.)
3 OCGA § 36-33-5 (b) provides:
Within six months of the happening of the event upon which a
claim against a municipal corporation is predicated, the person . .
. having the claim shall present the claim in writing to the
governing authority of the municipal corporation for adjustment,
stating the time, place, and extent of the injury, as nearly as
practicable, and the negligence which caused the injury. No action
shall be entertained by the courts against the municipal
corporation until the cause of action therein has first been
presented to the governing authority for adjustment.
(Emphasis added.)
4 OCGA § 9-3-90 (b) provides, in relevant part: “[I]ndividuals who are
less than 18 years of age when a cause of action accrues shall be entitled to the
same time after he or she reaches the age of 18 years to bring an action as is
prescribed for other persons.”
3
her supplemental notice complied with the timing requirements of
the statute.
On September 29, 2022, the trial court granted the City’s
motion to dismiss, concluding that Dates’s first ante litem notice
failed to state the amount sought with sufficient specificity and that
the amendment could not correct the defect because it was untimely;
Dates appealed.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision,
holding, in relevant part, that the time for filing an ante litem notice
under OCGA § 36-33-5 is not subject to tolling under OCGA § 9-3-90
(b), relying primarily on Dept. of Public Safety v. Ragsdale, 308 Ga.
210 (839 SE2d 541) (2020). See Dates v. City of Atlanta, 371 Ga. App.
824, 825 (1) (903 SE2d 289) (2024). In Ragsdale, this Court
concluded that “[a]s the ante litem notice requirement of [the
Georgia Tort Claims Act,] OCGA § 50-21-26[,] is not a statute of
limitation, the Code’s statutory tolling provisions, such as OCGA §
9-3-99, do not apply to the Tort Claims Act’s 12-month ante litem
notice period.” 308 Ga. at 213. The Court of Appeals then extended
4
the “rationale” of Ragsdale to OCGA § 36-33-5.5 See Dates, 371 Ga.
App. at 825-26 (1).
In so doing, the Court of Appeals disapproved a number of its
cases in which it had held that an ante litem notice is a statute of
limitations that is subject to tolling, noting that in Ragsdale, this
Court clarified “that an ante litem notice is not a statute of
limitation and that Barrett’s holding [a Court of Appeals’s decision]
to the contrary was implicitly overruled long ago by its decision in
City of Chamblee v. Maxwell, 264 Ga. 635 (452 SE2d 488) (1994).”6
Dates, 371 Ga. App. at 826 (1).
2. In considering whether the time for presenting an ante litem
notice under OCGA § 36-33-5 can be tolled under the minor tolling
5 Although it is true that, in Ragsdale, we declined to resolve the question
of whether OCGA § 36-33-5 is subject to tolling, we explained that we did so
because that issue “[was] not before us” and that “we leave that question to a
case that squarely presents it.” Id. at 215 n.9.
6 The Court of Appeals disapproved of Carter v. Glenn, 243 Ga. App. 544
(533 SE2d 109) (2000); Jacobs v. Littleton, 241 Ga. App. 403 (525 SE2d 433)
(1999); Lowe v. Pue, 150 Ga. App. 234 (257 SE2d 209) (1979); Barnum v.
Martin, 135 Ga. App. 712 (219 SE2d 341) (1975); and City of Barnesville v.
Powell, 124 Ga. App. 132 (183 SE2d 55) (1971). See Dates, 371 Ga. App. at 826
(1) n.6.
5
provision, OCGA § 9-3-90,7 we start by analyzing the text of the
relevant statutes. “When we consider the meaning of a statute, we
must presume that the General Assembly meant what it said and
said what it meant.” Deal v. Coleman, 294 Ga. 170, 172 (1) (a) (751
SE2d 337) (2013) (cleaned up). “To that end, we must afford the
statutory text its plain and ordinary meaning, we must view the
statutory text in the context in which it appears, and we must read
the statutory text in its most natural and reasonable way, as an
ordinary speaker of the English language would.” Id. at 172-73 (1)
(a) (cleaned up).
With these basic principles in mind, we turn to the text of the
municipal ante litem notice statute. The plain language of OCGA §
36-33-5 (b) says that an injured party should provide notice to a
municipality “[w]ithin six months of the happening of the event upon
which a claim against a municipal corporation is predicated.”
7 We note that we did not grant certiorari as to whether Dates’s first ante
litem notice – claiming an amount of loss “in excess of $500,000” – complied
with the requirements of OCGA § 36-33-5 (e). Thus, in analyzing the tolling
issue on review before us, we will assume without deciding that Dates’s first
notice was ineffective.
6
Nothing in the statute addresses whether any tolling provision
applies to extend the time to present a claim to a municipality.
This absence is particularly notable when the municipal ante
litem notice statute is considered in its relevant context. Another
statute within the same title of the Georgia Code (“Local
Government”) – OCGA § 36-11-1 – governs the ante litem notice
requirement for losses involving counties. The county ante litem
statute explicitly provides: “All claims against counties must be
presented within 12 months after they accrue or become payable or
the same are barred, provided that minors or other persons laboring
under disabilities shall be allowed 12 months after the removal of the
disability to present their claims.” (Emphasis added.) This shows
that the General Assembly knows how to carve out an ante litem
notice exception for minors, yet it chose not to do so in the municipal
ante litem notice statute. See State v. Wierson, --- Ga. ---, --- (2) (a) (--- SE2d ---) (2025) (considering the insanity-defense statutes’
relevant contexts and noting that the General Assembly chose to
include explicit exceptions in other adjacent code sections but did
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not do so for the insanity-defense statutes). And as we have recently
explained, “[g]enerally, when two statutes deal with the same
subject matter, are grouped together, and use largely the same
language, but one includes an additional provision that the other
does not, this is strong evidence that the omission was intentional.”
Id. at --- (2) (a). This textual difference supports a conclusion that
the minor tolling provision does not apply to OCGA § 36-33-5.
The other relevant statute – the minor tolling provision in
OCGA § 9-3-90 – also does not say whether it applies to ante litem
notice requirements like OCGA § 36-33-5. OCGA § 9-3-90 (b) states:
Except as otherwise provided in Code Section 9-3-33.1
[relating to childhood sexual abuse claims], individuals
who are less than 18 years of age when a cause of action
accrues shall be entitled to the same time after he or she
reaches the age of 18 years to bring an action as is
prescribed for other persons.
Dates argues that subsection (b) refers to extending the time for
minors to “bring an action” to after the minor reaches the age of 18
such that the minor “shall be entitled to the same time . . . as is
prescribed for other persons.” And under OCGA § 36-33-5 (b), “[n]o
action shall be entertained . . . until the cause of action therein has
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first been presented.” So it can be argued that the presentment
requirement is a condition precedent to “bring[ing] an action” such
that the tolling statute should apply.
However, we note that OCGA § 9-3-90 (b) refers to extending
the time for “bring[ing] an action” and OCGA § 36-33-5 addresses
when an action “shall be entertained.” This distinction suggests that
tolling refers to the individual’s time to bring the action, whereas
the municipal ante litem notice statute addresses when a court can
“entertain” an action. These distinct terms support the conclusion
that the minor tolling statute and the municipal ante litem notice
statute involve different parts of the litigation process, such that the
minor tolling statute does not apply to the municipal ante litem
notice statute.
Ragsdale is instructive on how to resolve this textual question.
In Ragsdale, we considered whether the time for filing an ante litem
notice under the Georgia Tort Claims Act, OCGA § 50-21-26 (a) (1),
was subject to tolling under OCGA § 9-3-99, which provides for
tolling of “[t]he running of the period of limitations” when the tort
9
arises from a crime. 308 Ga. at 211. We explained that the statutory
reference to “the period of limitations” was to statutes of limitations
and that ante litem notice provisions act as a “condition precedent”
for bringing suit, rather than as a statute of limitations subject to
tolling under the criminal tolling statute. Id. at 212 (relying on
Maxwell, 264 Ga. at 636, where we held that the municipal ante
litem notice statute is a “condition precedent to bringing suit against
a municipal corporation” and “not itself a six-month statute of
limitations”).
In addition, we pointed out that “[t]he General Assembly could
have expressly provided for such tolling, as it did . . . in the case of
the ante litem notice requirement applicable to actions against
counties, but it did not do so. Compare OCGA § 36-11-1.” Ragsdale,
308 Ga. at 213. And we rejected Ragsdale’s argument that the
General Assembly acquiesced in a long line of Court of Appeals cases
holding that the tolling statutes apply to ante litem notice
requirements. Id. at 215. Ultimately, we concluded that because
OCGA § 9-3-99, by its own terms, only applied to toll statutes of
10
limitations, “the time for filing an ante litem notice under OCGA §
50-21-26 (a) (1) is not subject to tolling under OCGA § 9-3-99.” Id. at
215.
We follow the reasoning in Ragsdale to reach a similar
conclusion in this case. The minor tolling provision, OCGA § 9-3-90
(b), refers to extending the “time . . . to bring an action.” In Ragsdale
we explained that “[a] statute of limitation has as its purpose the
limiting of the time period in which an action may be brought” and
described it “as a rule limiting the time in which a party may bring
an action for a right which has already accrued.” Ragsdale, 308 Ga.
at 211-12. Thus, we conclude that OCGA § 9-3-90 (b)’s extension of
the “time . . . to bring an action” is referring to tolling statutes of
limitations. Because we have held in Maxwell, 264 Ga. at 636, that
OCGA § 36-33-5 is not a statute of limitations but rather a condition
precedent to bringing an action, it follows that OCGA § 9-3-90 (b)
does not apply to toll the time in which a minor must provide an ante
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litem notice to a municipality. 8 See Ragsdale, 308 Ga. at 213 (“As
the ante litem notice requirement of OCGA § 50-21-26 is not a
statute of limitation, the Code’s statutory tolling provisions, such as
OCGA § 9-3-99, do not apply to the Tort Claims Act’s 12-month ante
litem notice period.”). Because Dates’s supplemental ante litem
notice was untimely and was not tolled by the minor tolling
provision, we conclude that the Court of Appeals did not err in
affirming the dismissal of the case.
Judgment affirmed. Peterson, CJ, Warren, PJ, and Bethel,
Ellington, LaGrua, Colvin, and Pinson, JJ, concur.
8 Dates also argues that because the General Assembly acquiesced by
inaction to the “settled construction” in Court of Appeals’s decisions that have
long applied the tolling statutes to OCGA § 36-33-5, we should also follow those
now-overruled Court of Appeals decisions. A similar argument was made and
rejected in Ragsdale, and we reject Dates’s arguments here for the same
reasons. See Ragsdale, 308 Ga. at 215 & n.8 (Court of Appeals’s decisions in
contravention of Maxwell, which “implicitly disapproved Barrett’s conclusion
that an ante litem notice requirement is a statute of limitation,” “ha[ve] not,
by any stretch, become a settled construction of OCGA § 51-21-26 (a)”).
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