Ga. Supreme Court Reinstates $35M Judgment In Brawl At Six Flags

SOUTH COBB, GA -- The Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday that a teenager who was viciously beaten by a group of purported gang members at Six Flags in Austell in 2007 can collect the $35 million judgment he won in a civil suit against the park, Patch has learned.

The unanimous ruling by the state's highest court reverses a Georgia Court of Appeal's decision in 2015 to throw out the jury award and try the case anew, according to news reports. SIGN UP: To get notified of more local news like this, click here to sign up for the South Cobb Patch. Or find your Atlanta-area town here. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.

Joshua Martin, 19 at the time, and two other boys were jumped by a group of youths as they waited on a Cobb Community Transit bus a summer night in July 10 years ago.

Among the aggressors were several teens who worked for Six Flags as seasonal workers, says a report from the court. Four of them were subsequently convicted in the beating.

Martin was the most seriously injured in the attack. He was in a coma for a week and suffered brain damage. Six Flags argued that because the brawl did not occur on its property, it should not be held liable -- but the high court saw it differently.

“This case stands for the common sense proposition that a property owner does not escape liability for an attack that begins on its premises simply because the victim moves outside the premises before the attack is completed,” Justice Britt Grant said in Monday's opinion, according to WXIA-TV. “We now expressly adopt this narrow principle, and hold that although the landowner’s duty is to maintain safety and security within its premises and approaches, liability may arise from a breach of that duty that proximately causes injuries even if the resulting injury ultimately is completed beyond that territorial sphere.”

Preceding the attack, the court considered other incidents of aggression toward park visitors, including instances where families were threatened. They reportedly told Six Flags security about the threats, “but Six Flags inexplicably allowed the gang members to remain in the park,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, citing the ruling.

The original ruling by a Cobb County jury ordered Six Flags to pay $32.2 million, while four assailants in the attack were to pay $2.8 million, the newspaper reports.

Image via Wikimedia / Creative Commons license