Eugene Felton Jr.

The Shower after the Fall-Risk Protocol

West Georgia Medical Center knew Mary Kate Ford could fall. The hospital said so itself, classifying her as a high fall risk when she arrived with pneumonia on December 2, 2010, and activating a fall-prevention protocol that governed how she moved, bathed, and received assistance. The danger had been named, the rule written, the duty assigned.

Two days later, Ford left her bed to shower. Her estate alleged that a nursing assistant directed her to bathe and then walked away, leaving her without the assistance her own classification required. Returning to bed, Ford fell and fractured her right thigh. Surgery followed the next day.

She sued the hospital authority and related West Georgia entities in 2012. After her death, Robert Ford carried the case forward as administrator of her estate, and Quinton Seay and Eugene Felton tried it in Troup County. Felton's trial team built the proof plank by plank: what the protocol required, what the nursing assistant did instead, why assistance mattered for this patient, how the fall happened, and how the breach produced the fracture and everything that flowed from it.

On March 3, 2016, the jury returned its allocation. Zero percent of the fault to Mary Kate Ford. One hundred percent to West Georgia Medical Center. It awarded $325,000.

Zero Percent to the Patient

That number answered the defense outright. The hospital had argued that Ford's condition or her choices should reduce its responsibility. The jurors placed every percentage point on the hospital that had identified the danger and adopted the rule meant to control it — then failed to follow it. A patient who obeys the hospital's own instructions does not carry the blame when the hospital abandons them mid-task.

The Bottom of the Foam Pit

A foam pit is supposed to be the soft ending of a jump. In August 2015, Anthony Seitz flipped from a trampoline into one at Airmaxx Trampoline Park in St. Cloud, Minnesota, passed through the foam, and struck the bottom. The spinal injury left him permanently paralyzed.

L. Chris Stewart and Felton represented the family. The complaint alleged that the park failed to provide adequate safeguards and supervision, failed to meet industry standards, and knew of earlier incidents in which guests had struck the bottom of the same pit. Felton's team developed the evidence that gave those allegations weight: the pit's dimensions measured against industry safeguards, the supervision practices in place that day, the prior incidents the park had already seen, the waiver language it relied on, and the permanence of what happened to Anthony Seitz.

The record connected the park's operating choices to the injury and to the family's long-term needs. In January 2017, the case resolved for $3 million — resources for continuing medical care that will be required for the rest of a young man's life.

Consent and the Scope of a Civil Trial

Some victories restore a right rather than award a sum. Regina Myers and Felton represented Sabrina Barnett in the Eleventh Circuit after her employment-discrimination case was tried before a federal magistrate judge. Under 28 U.S.C. § 636(c), a magistrate judge may conduct a civil trial only with clear, voluntary, and unambiguous consent. Barnett's case had none of that: the pretrial conference was not recorded, counsel had spoken only of a recommendation he expected to make, and Barnett objected before trial began.

The Eleventh Circuit held that the magistrate judge lacked jurisdiction, set the judgment aside, and returned the case for proceedings before an authorized tribunal. The court treated the absence of valid consent as a jurisdictional defect — a structural protection of the right to an Article III judge, not a procedural formality that silence could waive. Barnett got back what the statute promised her: a trial before a court empowered to hold one.

Foreseeability and Security Proof

In Fields v. Rainbow Community Center, Adult Protective Services placed a vulnerable young woman in a homeless shelter that also housed parolees through Georgia's Reentry Program. The shelter did not know the nature of its residents' prior crimes, conducted no independent screening, and had no security. Another resident assaulted her.

Felton, Quinton Seay, Janet Scott, and Alexandria Jones represented her on appeal. The question was whether the record connected the shelter's operating choices to the assault — and Felton's team supplied the connective tissue: the population the shelter housed, the screening it never performed, the security it never posted, the placement history, and expert testimony that an officer's presence would have deterred conduct violating shelter rules.

In October 2023, the Georgia Court of Appeals held that the total circumstances — violent offenders, vulnerable residents, and the absence of security — created a jury question on premises liability, and that the separate contract ruling likewise could not stand. Both claims returned for further proceedings. The ruling restored the survivor's opportunity to put her evidence before a jury.

The House under the Backhoe

Janice Durham sought shelter in an abandoned house on Daniel Street in Atlanta. On May 7, 2011, a contractor hired by the City began demolishing it without knowing she was inside.

The first 911 caller gave the correct Daniel Street address four times. A dispatcher sent rescuers to Daniel Avenue, five miles away. The first crew reached the right location eighteen minutes after the original call.

Durham's estate sued the City and others, and Felton and Sean Gill represented the family in the City's appeal. When the appeal concluded, the nuisance and contract claims remained standing — routes to relief that Felton's appellate work kept open, grounded in the pre-demolition inspection, the occupied structure, and the emergency-address evidence.

Courtroom Foundations

Felton learned trial work from both counsel tables. He practiced criminal defense before becoming a Bibb County assistant district attorney, then worked in insurance and corporate defense, medical negligence, and catastrophic-injury litigation before co-founding Seay/Felton.

Prosecuting and defending criminal cases sharpened his command of witness credibility, preserved objections, jury procedure, evidentiary foundations, and the appellate record. Representing the State in Jones v. State, Brite v. State, Scott v. State, and Leary v. State, he briefed and argued questions of sufficiency, hearsay, similar-transaction evidence, bifurcation, witness availability, jury procedure, sentencing, and ineffective assistance.

Ford required a trial record supporting fault allocation. Barnett required a preserved jurisdictional objection. Fields required evidence connecting premises conditions to foreseeability and causation.

Education and Mock-Trial Coaching

Felton grew up in Marshallville, graduated with honors from Morehouse College, and earned his law degree from the University of Tennessee. He coaches students in the Georgia High School Mock Trial Competition, passing the craft to advocates who have not yet stood before their first jury.

What Survives Trial

The results take different forms: a verdict assigning all fault to the hospital, a settlement supporting a lifetime of care, an appellate restoration of the right to an authorized tribunal, a jury question grounded in security and deterrence evidence, and municipal claims preserved after appeal. In each matter, the trial record or the appellate proof determined the route still available to the client.