Georgia Court of Appeals judges are pondering the case of a Columbus woman who says she was poisoned by lead from a coal yard adjoining the property where she worked.

In the first day of oral arguments in the new Nathan Deal Judicial Center, S. Lester Tate III of Akin & Tate in Cartersville asked the court to reverse Muscogee County Superior Court Judge Ron Mullins.

"The standard for summary judgment was grossly misapplied," Tate said. Tate suggested the trial judge may have confused federal standards for summary judgment with the state's. He said the judge's order read more like a directed verdict—a decision after a trial with all the evidence in.

Tate told a three-judge panel that his client, Wylee S. Toms, deserves her day in court.

Toms founded a daycare center for disabled adults, Faith Home, in 1996, according to a brief filed for her by Tate and W. Matthew Wilson of Wilson Law Firm in Atlanta. Toms served as director—running the daily operations of the daycare center and drinking water and eating food from a garden on the property.

In 2010, Toms began experiencing "unexplainable and uncharacteristic health problems," her lawyers said in the brief. She had stomach pain, fatigue and weight loss. In 2012, she had her gallbladder removed. But her symptoms continued. In 2016, her doctors said she had suffered a stroke. By then she weighed just 94 pounds.

Her lawyers cited as evidence a Georgia Environmental Protection Division report finding lead in the soil and shutting down operations of Faith Home. They also cited a Social Security Administration report declaring Toms disabled because of toxic exposure to coal. And they said she had frequently seen coal dust in the home and on the property, which they said logically could be explained by up to 34 tons of coal being stored across the street on property owned by William C. Buck Jr., the third generation owner of Columbus Coal and Ice.

"Lead is a component of coal," Tate said.

Buck's attorney, David Helmick of Waldrep, Mullin & Callahan in Columbus, told the court that Toms produced no evidence to show his client did anything to cause the problem.

"A plaintiff cannot try a case without being able to show the defendant caused the injuries," Helmick said. "There is no causal link to the defendant."

"We don't dispute the presence of lead on the Faith Home property," Helmick said. He also said, "We don't dispute the illness … which surely could have many causes."

Helmick suggested the lead could have come from a burned-out building on the Faith Home property—or some other source.

"They don't have an expert to link the lead to Mr. Buck," Helmick said.

Also defending Buck are Neal Callahan from Helmick's firm, Waldrep, Mullin & Callahan, along with Adam G. Sowatzka, J. Matthew Brigman and Fisher K. Law of King & Spalding.

The case is Toms v. Buck, No. A20A0320.