Toxic Tort Claims — the Real Legal Route
In cases of toxic damage — harm to health or property caused by poisonous or noxious substances — Georgian law has no special "toxic tort" statute and no group-claim regime: this must be said plainly at the outset. Questions of written environmental permitting remain in other legislation; the Civil Code gives the injured party an ordinary tort claim. It stands on two norms: Article 992 — a person who causes damage to another by an unlawful, intentional or negligent act is obliged to compensate it; and Article 1000 — liability for damage caused by the increased hazard emanating from a structure. It is this second norm that is the central instrument in toxic-damage cases.
The Increased Hazard from a Structure — Article 1000
Article 1000 provides: where an increased hazard emanates from a structure due to the energy produced, stored or supplied in it, or to a fire-hazardous or explosive, poisonous or noxious substance, the owner of the structure must, if the practical realisation of that hazard entailed the death of a person, bodily injury or damage to a thing, compensate the injured party for the damage arising therefrom. The same liability applies to owners of fire-hazardous or explosive, poisonous or noxious substances where an increased hazard emanates from those substances — so the liable party may be either the owner of the structure or the owner of the substance. Where the increased hazard emanates on another basis, the owner must likewise compensate the damage.
In a toxic-damage case the significance of this norm is special: it is exactly what connects the damage to its territorial source — the concrete structure or substance — and determines liability through the owner's status. The victim no longer needs to prove every detail of the production process; it suffices to prove that the increased hazard emanating from the concrete source materialised and caused the damage. This substantially reduces the evidentiary burden and makes the case more effective.
The law also regulates exceptions to this liability: the duty to compensate is excluded where the damage is caused by force majeure — except where the damage was caused by an accident of power transmission lines, or by damage to installations supplying oil, gas, water or petroleum products. Damage caused by the use of a radioactive substance must be compensated by its user. In a toxic-damage case these details determine precisely who is liable: the owner of the structure, the owner of the substance, or the user of the radioactive source — and which exception may be invoked against the claim.