The attorney for a man who suffered catastrophic injuries when his tractor was rear-ended by a dump truck Thursday asked the Georgia Supreme Court to reinstate an $18 million verdict scrapped by the Court of Appeals over a lawyer’s remark in closing that a damages award only sufficient to support lifetime care in a nursing home would be “death warrant.” 

Defense attorneys did not object at the time but later appealed arguing, among other things, that the remark violated the judge’s warning against evidence or statements “offered predominantly to overly inflame the emotions of the jury” or to elicit “excessive or undue sympathy, hostility or prejudice” in favor of either party.