UBER TECHNOLOGIES GA INC v. DOE ON BEHALF OF DOE 14 (2026)

The Supreme Court today denied the petition for certiorari in this case.

This is a personal injury action against Uber Technologies, Inc. The trial court denied a protective order prohibiting the deposition of Uber's CEO, and then denied Uber's request for a certificate of immediate review. Uber sought a stay from the Court of Appeals, which denied it, and has now sought certiorari in this Court.

I concur fully in our denial of certiorari. The trial court's order is not immediately appealable under OCGA § 5-6-34(a), and when the trial court denied the certificate of immediate review, Uber was left with no ability to appeal. I write separately to explain that the trial court's order appears to have been seriously flawed, and given the nature of the issues, the decision not to grant the certificate of immediate review was manifestly imprudent. Happily, nothing about our denial of certiorari prevents the trial court from reconsidering either its decision to deny a protective order or its decision to deny a certificate of immediate review (which would require first setting aside and reentering the order denying the protective order to restart the ten-day statutory clock).

As Uber argued below and here, the legal standard governing a motion for protective order regarding the deposition of a CEO of a large corporation like Uber is found in OCGA § 9-11-26.1. That statute provides that “[g]ood cause for a protective order to prohibit the deposition of an officer may be shown by proof that such person is an officer and lacks unique personal knowledge of any matter that is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action.” OCGA § 9-11-26.1(b). “Officer” is defined as “a current or former high-ranking officer of an organization with unique and extensive scheduling demands or responsibilities,” OCGA § 9-11-26.1(a)(1), a definition that the CEO of Uber plainly satisfies. So whether good cause supporting the issuance of a protective order exists would turn on whether the CEO lacks “unique personal knowledge.” Id. (emphasis added).

The trial court order acknowledged that Uber made that argument but then did not address it at all. For that matter, the trial court order did not even mention the legal standard set out in OCGA § 9-11-26.1, much less apply it; rather, the trial court order determined that the CEO “likely has knowledge” of relevant matters and “has information that is reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence and, therefore, that no good cause exists for entry of a protective order.” That is simply not the legal standard that applies to a motion like this one.

And even if the trial court had applied the correct standard (which it didn't), given the importance of the question and the strong arguments that Uber has, this is a quintessential case for granting a certificate of immediate review. If denying the protective order was error,¹ and the deposition of the CEO develops material evidence that affects the course of the case, that error may very well prove reversible. The trial court should seriously consider changing course on denying the protective order or denying the certificate.

Nevertheless, we cannot reach those questions in this posture. The General Assembly enacted OCGA § 9-11-26.1, but it also enacted OCGA § 5-6-34, which limits Georgia appellate courts’ review to only those sorts of appeals that it has authorized. The General Assembly has not authorized appeals from denials of protective orders without a certificate of immediate review. And it has not authorized us to decide the merits of an appeal that required a certificate of immediate review when the trial court denies such a certificate; if the General Assembly wants to do so, it will have to do that itself. See Duke v. State, 306 Ga. 171, 186, 829 S.E.2d 348 (2019) (“The scheme for appellate interlocutory review is legislative in nature, and, in the event that the General Assembly determines that the established framework does not adequately safeguard the interests of litigants in particular classes of cases, it is for that body to change it.” (cleaned up)).² In the absence of a certificate of immediate review, the Court of Appeals was without power to provide Uber with the requested relief, and we properly deny certiorari.

FOOTNOTES

1.   I make no suggestion one way or the other whether, applying the proper standard, the record would support such a conclusion, given that we do not have the record before us in this procedural posture.

2.   Uber makes an interesting argument that the order at issue may be a collateral order, in which case Duke’s discussion of the statutory requirements for bringing an interlocutory appeal may not apply. See 306 Ga. at 172–74, 829 S.E.2d 348 (concluding that the order at issue in that case was not a collateral order). But see Buckner-Webb v. State, 314 Ga. 823, 833, 878 S.E.2d 481 (2022) (Pinson, J., concurring) (questioning the validity of the collateral-order doctrine as a matter of Georgia law). But application of the collateral-order doctrine would at a minimum require the timely filing of a notice of appeal. And at least on the limited record before us, there is no indication that a notice of appeal was ever filed.

All the Justices concur.