Georgia Minor Settlement Approval for a Child's Injury Claim

Your child's injury settlement needs court approval in Georgia once the gross amount is more than $25,000.

At $25,000 or less, a parent can accept the offer and receive the money without a judge, then must hold it for the child and account for it.

Above $25,000, the number that decides the next step is the net, what is left after fees, case expenses, and liens.

A net of $25,000 or less still needs approval, but no conservator.

A net above $25,000 needs a court-appointed conservator to settle the claim, post a bond, and report to the probate court every year until your child turns 18.

The probate court approves the settlement when no lawsuit was filed, and the judge in the case approves it once one has been.

Before you sign anything on your child's behalf, find out which of those three paths the offer puts you on.

A child cannot sign a binding release, so Georgia law decides who settles for the child and when a court looks first. The answer turns on two figures, the gross settlement and the net settlement, each measured against $25,000.^[1]

The gross settlement is the present value of everything paid or to be paid to resolve the child's claim, from every settling party combined, counting the cash, the attorney's fee, litigation expenses, and money allocated to a structured settlement. The net subtracts the fees, expenses, and enforceable liens paid from the settlement, the present value of payments due after your child turns 18, and money placed in a trust the court approves or creates.

These lines were $15,000 until House Bill 620, which the Governor signed in 2022, raised each of them to $25,000 and defined the net settlement in its current form.^[2] Guides written before 2022 still quote the old figure.

Take a $40,000 offer for a nine-year-old hurt in a crash. If the attorney's fee and case expenses come to $14,000 and a hospital lien takes $4,000, the net is $22,000, so the settlement needs a judge's approval but no conservator. At $60,000 with the same deductions, the net is $42,000, and a conservator has to be appointed before the claim can close.

The same rules apply to every kind of child injury claim, from a collision on I-285 to a bite in a neighbor's yard, and the liability side of those cases is covered on our pages for Georgia car crash claims and Georgia's dog bite rules.

Which tier the offer lands in decides whether you leave with the money in hand or with a probate file that stays open until your child's 18th birthday.

If your child already has a court-appointed conservator, that conservator is the only person who can settle the claim. In every other case, a parent acts as the child's natural guardian, and in the first two tiers the parent can accept the settlement and take the money without a conservatorship.

That parent then holds the money for the child and has to account for it. A company paying $25,000 or less can release it to the parent on a sworn affidavit stating that the child's property will not exceed that amount and that no conservator has been appointed.^[3]

Once a lawsuit is filed, a child without a conservator sues through a next friend, usually a parent. A next friend cannot receive the proceeds of the child's case until posting a bond, approved by the court, promising to account for the money.^[4]

A grandparent or other relative raising the child under a guardianship order has authority over the child's care, but Georgia does not let a temporary, testamentary, or permanent guardian receive the child's property unless the guardian also becomes conservator. A grandmother raising a child after a crash needs a conservatorship as well before the settlement can be paid to her.

None of these roles changes what the claim is worth, which still comes from the injury and the coverage behind the at-fault party, the same as any claim in our Georgia personal injury practice.

With no lawsuit on file, the petition goes to the probate court. Once a suit is filed, the court where it is pending has exclusive jurisdiction to approve the settlement. While the settlement is in front of that court, the case cannot be voluntarily dismissed, or dismissed on motion, except by the court's own order and on its terms.

A case that settles while on appeal stays with the trial court for approval. A lawsuit filed and then dismissed, without the trial court keeping jurisdiction, sends the approval back to the probate court.

The trial judge decides whether to hold a hearing and does not need one when the record already shows the settlement meets the statute. In probate court, a child who is a party must be represented by a guardian ad litem unless the judge finds that the parent has no conflict of interest and can represent the child for that proceeding.^[5]

A settlement that follows these steps is final and binding on everyone, your child included. That finality is what the paying insurer is buying, so the insurer has its own reason to want the approval order in the file.

A dismissal entered before the approval order moves the whole approval to probate court, which means a new petition in a new court before the money is released.

Georgia probate courts use a standard form for this request, GPCSF 19, the Petition to Compromise Doubtful Claim of Minor or Adult Ward. It is signed under oath, and it asks for far more than the settlement amount.^[6]

The form also asks a harder question. If the claim appears worth more than the insurance limits, the petition has to explain why releasing the at-fault party still makes sense after looking at that party's assets. Any amount paid from the settlement to someone other than your child has to be listed and documented.

When an annuity is part of the deal, your child's estate has to be the named beneficiary of any guaranteed payments that come due after the child's death.

If the doctor cannot yet say whether your child will recover fully, the petition has no honest answer to that question, and that is a reason to wait before settling.

Below the $25,000 net line, the money comes to you as natural guardian. Above it, the court has three main places to put it, and the choice is made at approval.

A conservatorship. The conservator, often a parent, posts a bond equal to double the value of the child's estate, or equal to its value when a licensed commercial surety writes the bond. Within two months of appointment, the conservator files an inventory and a plan for spending the money, and the court has to approve the plan, along with any budget that would spend more than the money earns. Every year, within 60 days of the anniversary of appointment, the conservator files a sworn return showing what came in and what went out.^[7] Investments stay inside a list the statute allows, such as insured deposits at a financial institution in Georgia, unless the court approves more.

A structured settlement. Payments scheduled for after your child turns 18 come out of the net, so a structure can keep a recovery under the conservatorship line. In a deferred arrangement, no more than $25,000 in total can be paid out before the 18th birthday. Families weighing the two can compare how a structured settlement stacks up against a lump sum before the hearing.

A court-approved trust. Money placed in a trust the court approves or creates also comes out of the net. For a child whose injury brings lifelong care, or who depends on Medicaid or Supplemental Security Income, a special needs trust can keep the recovery from ending that coverage.

Each option sets who controls the money and how often a court reviews it for the rest of your child's childhood.

A Georgia conservatorship for a minor ends on the day your child turns 18, or earlier if the child is emancipated, and the conservator then delivers the money and property to your child.^[8] The conservator files a final return and asks the probate court for a discharge, with notice published so anyone can object. Your child, now an adult, can also ask the court to require that final accounting.

Structured payments keep arriving on the schedule the court approved, and a trust pays out on its own terms. Without either one, the full balance passes to your child at 18 in a single delivery.

If your child will still need help with money as an adult, a petition filed in the six months before the 18th birthday can ask for an adult conservator to take over on that date.

A child can also receive money because a parent died. When a surviving spouse brings that wrongful death claim, Georgia lets the spouse settle it without the children agreeing and without a court order. The recovery is split equally among the spouse and the children, except that the spouse always receives at least one-third, and the spouse holds each child's share and is accountable for it.^[9]

When there is no surviving spouse and minor children hold the claim, the rule changes. The adult acting for them has to qualify as conservator if that is needed to receive the money and has to obtain court approval of the settlement under § 29-3-3. The probate petition asks about this directly, including whether a personal representative has been appointed for the parent's estate.

Before any child's share exists, the family has to know who holds a Georgia wrongful death claim and what that person must do to file it.

In a settlement led by a surviving spouse, the accounting duty is the children's main protection.

When a spouse resolves the case with no court review, the closing statement is often the only written record of what each child is owed. We list every child by name with a dollar amount beside it, adult children included, before the money moves, because they will be asked to account for it years later when their children come of age.

A child hurt before 18 gets the same time Georgia gives adults, starting on the 18th birthday. With the ordinary two-year limit, most of these claims can be filed until the child turns 20.^[10] Claims of childhood sexual abuse follow their own statute, § 9-3-33.1. Adults work under Georgia's two-year injury deadline and its exceptions, which run on a different clock.

Medical malpractice runs on a different clock. A child harmed by malpractice before age five has until the seventh birthday, two years after the fifth, and for that child no malpractice claim can be brought after the tenth birthday. A child who was five or older at the time is on the adult malpractice clock, with an outer limit of five years from the negligent care.^[11] Injuries during delivery fall in the first group, which puts Georgia birth injury claims on a far shorter calendar than a crash claim.

If a doctor or hospital may share the blame for your child's injury, count the deadline from the date of the care.