The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed a verdict of $18 million Monday, citing "inflammatory remarks" a lawyer made during closing arguments.

Judge Brian Rickman wrote a unanimous opinion tossing the results from a damages-only Mitchell County Superior Court trial in the small town of Camilla before South Georgia Circuit Judge Heather Lanier. The defense had admitted liability. The fight was over how much to pay.

The decision turned on a lawyer telling jurors that, if they didn't award the full amount requested for his client's care, they would be "signing his death warrant."

"We cannot conceive of any civil case in which it would be proper for the jury to be told that its action would result in a party's death. Such is not even permissible in the first phase of a death penalty trial," wrote Rickman, a former district attorney.

Presiding Judge M. Yvette Miller wrote a special concurring opinion critiquing the defense for failing to object, though she agreed with Rickman that the verdict should be reversed anyway. She was joined in that special concurrence by Judge Clyde Reese.

"It's a very significant ruling, I think," said the winning appellate defense attorney, Holland & Knight partner Laurie Webb Daniel. "It's a signal to the plaintiffs bar to watch out."

She said the issues raised in the case connect to a trend of bigger and bigger verdicts, fueled by emotion, and that a judge "has a duty to intervene—even if there is no objection."

"This supports my theme," Daniel said of the ruling. "When the measure of damages is the enlightened conscience of the jury, it is imperative that the trial court adhere to its gate-keeping role and enforce the rules of fair play adopted in the code's prohibition of irrelevant evidence and improper closing arguments."

Daniel handled the appeal with Matthew Friedlander from Holland & Knight. The defense team included Roger Edward Harris and Douglas Lee Clayton of Swift, Currie, McGhee & Hiers in Atlanta and local counsel Bruce Kirbo Jr. of Bainbridge.

"Laurie Daniel and her team did an excellent job securing reversal of the $18 million judgment that was not supported by the evidence in the case," Harris said in an email Tuesday morning. "Judge Miller's special concurrence is an excellent reminder to this trial lawyer, and should be to all trial lawyers regardless of experience, of the need to be ever vigilant in trial, not disregarding appropriate objections regardless of rulings on pre-trial motions, and delivering a measured closing argument that is based on the evidence while at the same time advocating on behalf of your client."

Still, Harris added, there's more to the equation: "A trial lawyer also knows, especially in closing argument, that judgment has to be exercised in real time about what might need to be said with the possibility of alienating the jury.

The plaintiffs team included W. Earl McCall and Henry E. Williams of McCall Williams in Albany; William A. Erwin of Powell & Erwin in Camilla; and Gregory Terrell Williams, a solo in Camilla.

"I'm trying to digest it," McCall said Monday afternoon, adding he couldn't discuss the ruling or whether his team would appeal. "I'm still trying to figure it out."

"Of course I'm very disappointed with today's decision," Henry Williams said in an email Monday evening.

Understanding why words in closing arguments had the power to undo a verdict requires first knowing what happened to Johnny L. Williams nearly seven years ago.

It was a spring day in April 2013. He was 67 then and enjoyed going to church, singing in the choir, doing yard work and being with family and friends, according to the record. He was riding a tractor on a South Georgia pecan farm. Rubin Harvey Jr., driving a loaded dump truck owned by Oxford Construction Co., crashed into the back of the tractor, throwing Williams into a ditch beside a highway. Williams had multiple fractures, including a cracked skull, which caused traumatic brain injury and seizures. After six weeks in a hospital and five weeks in a rehabilitation therapy center, he went home "with the instruction that he would require 24-hour supervision," Rickman said.

Williams' family wanted to take care of him at home for as long as possible, but the extent of his injuries required certified nursing assistants 24 hours a day. His lawyers gave two different life care plan estimates from an economist: one for in-home care and one for memory care at a nursing home, Rickman said. The home care cost was higher by about $1.4 million.

This is what one of the plaintiffs lawyers said during closing that upended the verdict, as Rickman told the story: "I hope that your verdict is not a double down on sentencing him to a nursing home because if you sentence him to a nursing home, you're signing his death warrant."

The "death warrant" comment did it, but there was more.

"Face it, we hear all the time about what goes on in a nursing home," the lawyer went on to say. "I do not in good conscience believe that you are desiring to do that to Mr. Williams. None of this is his fault."

Rickman had more than one problem with that statement. For starters, he said it violated the trial judge's order granting a motion in limine from the defense. "This argument, which essentially told the jury that awarding damages based on the cost of nursing home care instead of the more expensive in-home care would be sentencing Williams to death, clearly violated the trial court's ruling precluding argument offered predominantly to overly inflame the emotions of the jury," Rickman said.

That's where Rickman added this footnote: "Further, we cannot conceive of any civil case in which it would be proper for the jury to be told that its action would result in a party's death; such is not even permissible in the first phase of a death penalty trial."

The plaintiffs team argued on appeal that the verdict should be upheld because the defense lawyers did not object during the closing. But Rickman didn't agree. The trial judge's ruling on the motion in limine was "sufficient to preserve this issue for appellate review," Rickman said.

Beyond that, the quality of nursing home care was not part of the trial, Rickman said. "In addition to being in violation of the court's ruling, this highly inflammatory argument was not supported by the evidence," Rickman said.

And then there was a "golden rule" challenge. It was an issue because the plaintiffs lawyer at one point asked jurors to think about how they would feel if they were Williams, when in fact the law requires jurors to consider the facts and the law without prejudice. As Rickman explained it, the "golden rule" argument urges "jurors to place themselves in the position of plaintiff or to allow such recovery as they would wish if in the same position."

"It is improper because it asks the jurors to consider the case, not objectively as fair and impartial jurors but rather from the biased, subjective standpoint of a litigant," Rickman said.

Rickman didn't hang the decision on the golden rule challenge, but he said he brought it up because "the issue may arise on retrial" when the case goes back to a jury for another damages-only verdict.

"The better practice would be to avoid any argument that could be construed as asking jurors to put themselves in the shoes of one of the parties," Rickman said.

Miller agreed fully with Rickman, but she had more to say. Even though the defense lawyers didn't have to object to the "death warrant" remarks, they should have, Miller said.

"Although trial courts are certainly free to intercede when a party is not abiding by a pretrial ruling, the plaintiff's counsel had a clear duty to abide by the trial court's pretrial rulings prohibiting inflammatory remarks, and the remarks in this case ran afoul of the trial court's rulings," Miller said. "Further, while we may still be able to review the defense's claims regarding the inflammatory remarks, this does not absolve defense counsel of the obligation to object when necessary to protect their clients' interests."

Miller called the reversal "very unfortunate."

"If defense counsel had timely objected, the trial court could have taken the corrective measures needed so as to avoid a retrial at both the taxpayers' and clients' expense," Miller said.

"Accordingly, I caution litigators to be more mindful of best practices during trial proceedings," she added.

The case is Harvey v. Williams, No. A19A2217.