Letter to the Editor : Relief for Georgia’s Small Businesses

When small businesses succeed, communities succeed.

But for years, too many of Georgia’s small business owners were not thriving. They were surviving, and barely. Not because of poor products or bad management, but because of a legal environment that had grown deeply unpredictable and, for many, genuinely frightening.

Small businesses are resilient by nature. We adapt, solve problems, and find ways to persevere. But resilience should not be confused with limitless capacity.

My husband and I know this firsthand. Like so many family business owners across this state, we spent years watching insurance premiums climb at rates that defied reason, dreading the possibility that a single lawsuit, however baseless, could threaten to unravel what we had built.

We were not alone. For too long, many Georgia small businesses operated under a cloud of uncertainty. The threat of costly, time-consuming litigation made it harder to plan for the future with confidence.

From neighborhood restaurants to family farms, from construction companies to local retailers, Georgia’s small business owners operated under a persistent cloud of legal and financial uncertainty. Rather than invest in expansion, hire new employees, or increase wages, many of us were perpetually on defense, diverting resources away from growth and toward protection.

That is why Georgia’s 2025 tort reforms matter so much, and why they deserve to be protected.

These reforms were not designed to shield bad actors or close the courthouse doors to people who have been genuinely wronged. The legislation was crafted with a clear principle in mind: individuals with legitimate claims must retain full access to justice, while litigation that disproportionately burdens employers, healthcare providers, and small businesses should be curtailed.

As policymakers noted during the passage of the legislation, the reforms were designed to create a substantive step toward fairness, exactly the kind of balance a healthy civil justice system should strike.

The early signs of the tort reforms’ impacts are encouraging. Insurance costs that had been rising at unsustainable rates are beginning to stabilize, and the civil justice system is operating with greater transparency. And, importantly, small business owners are beginning to feel something that had become unfamiliar: confidence in the future of the legal landscape.

That confidence is not a small thing. When a business owner feels secure, she reinvests. She expands her storefront, hires another employee, and gives someone a raise. Those decisions ripple outward through families, neighborhoods, and entire communities in ways that are difficult to quantify but impossible to ignore.

Georgia is home to 1.4 million small businesses, encompassing about 99.7% of all businesses in the state and employing 42% of Georgia’s private-sector workforce.

These high percentages represent the family-owned hardware store that sponsors the Little League team, the neighborhood bakery that donates trays of pastries to the school fundraiser, and the local contractor who hires the young adult fresh out of trade school because he believes in giving people a chance.

Small businesses are the connective tissue of our communities, and when they thrive, everyone benefits.

When legal uncertainty and unpredictable insurance costs go unchecked, the damage does not stop at the business owner’s doorstep. Prices rise at the grocery store, everyday services become more expensive, and job opportunities contract.

Repealing or weakening these reforms would send Georgia backward. It would signal to entrepreneurs, both those already here and those considering a move to our state, that the ground beneath them is unstable. That is not a message a competitive state can afford to send.

What Georgia’s small business community needs is a foundation of stability. Not immunity from accountability, but a fair and predictable legal environment in which people who work hard and play by the rules can plan for the future with something resembling peace of mind. These reforms are providing exactly that.

At the end of a long day, that peace of mind is what my husband and I are working toward. It’s what small business owners across this state deserve, and what Georgia’s communities depend on to grow stronger, attract investment, and build an economic future that works for everyone.

Georgia’s tort reforms are a step in the right direction, and protecting them is a step toward the Georgia we all want to live in.

Pat Kaemmerling

Peachtree City

Pat Kaemmerling serves as Vice Chair of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Leadership Council in Georgia, and co-owns the family business Ultimate Security Solutions with her husband David.