FELA in Georgia: What Exists and What Does Not
Clarity comes first: the American FELA — the special federal claim scheme created for railway workers — does not exist in Georgian law, and we have no direct analogue of it. The route applied in Georgia by a worker injured on the railway is the ordinary tort claim: a person who causes damage to another by an unlawful intentional or negligent act is obliged to compensate that damage. The special rules of occupational safety and labor law are defined by separate legislation and do not replace the civil claim. The ordinary tort framework is nonetheless fully adequate: it covers both compensation of damage in pecuniary and non-pecuniary form, and the employer's liability for the acts of its worker. The architecture of the claim is simply different: not the conditions of a special scheme, but the establishment of fault, causation and damage.