2026-09-10 · Georgia · Courts

What happened. The Georgia Court of Appeals has affirmed certification of a class action against a Midtown Atlanta condominium association over a special assessment it levied without first submitting a claim to its insurers.

1280 West Condominium Association, Inc. v. Allan, No. A25A2111, decided 12 March 2026. Davis, J., with Rickman, P.J., and Gobeil, J., concurring. Published; affirmed.¹

The facts

In 2016 the association assessed owners $5,000 to $7,000 each to repair severely damaged balconies, on the view that the damage was ordinary wear and tear of the concrete. It made no insurance claim.

Its own engineer, TEC Structural Engineering Services, then determined the cause was water intrusion into the grout pockets used to embed the handrails — a different thing entirely from concrete degradation, and potentially a covered peril.

One owner, Adriane Friedl, used that report to file a successful claim under the association's own policy. The rest sued for refunds, on theories of negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and breach of the declaration.

The certification

The trial court certified a class under O.C.G.A. § 9-11-23(a) and (b)(3): every Georgia-resident owner or resident assessed for the balcony repairs, excluding Friedl and anyone else who timely filed.

The association attacked all seven certification elements, with one unifying theme: the court had to decide, unit by unit, whose balcony damage was water-caused — and therefore hypothetically insurable — before it could certify anything.

The Court of Appeals rejected every argument:

“merit-based disputes are not ripe for resolution at the class certification stage, particularly where no dispositive motions have been filed, argued, or ruled on below, and merits discovery has not concluded.”

Class certification orders are directly appealable under § 9-11-23(g); review is for abuse of discretion; the court discerned none. The common question that predominated was whether the association had to submit the claim to its insurers before imposing the special assessment.

Why this is the sleeper decision of the period

Because it takes an ordinary, routine board judgment — assess now, deal with insurance later — and converts it into class-wide exposure, at a stage where the association cannot force individualised causation into the analysis.

1. 1280 West Condominium Association, Inc. v. Allan, No. A25A2111 (Ga. Ct. App. 12 March 2026) — slip opinion ↩
2. Senate Bill 406, as passed (26 LC 49 2879S) — signed copy, Office of the Governor ↩