§ 9-3-33.Injuries to the person; injuries to reputation; loss of consortium; exception

O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33 sets the baseline period for personal injury claims in Georgia: two years from when the right of action accrues. That two-year clock is the one most people encounter after a car accident, a slip and fall, or similar harm to the body — subject, as the statute itself notes, to whatever more specific exceptions the rest of this article provides.

Two categories get different treatment. Injury to reputation — defamation-type harm — carries a shorter one-year period, reflecting how quickly reputational claims tend to be pursued or lost. Loss of consortium, the claim a spouse or family member can bring for the loss of companionship, services, or support resulting from a loved one's personal injury, gets a longer four-year period, giving that derivative claim more room than the underlying injury claim itself.

The opening phrase — “except as otherwise provided in this article” — is doing real work here. Childhood sexual abuse claims follow their own extended timetable under a separate section of this article, displacing the two-year default. Medical malpractice claims are not an in-article exception at all — O.C.G.A. § 9-3-34 excludes them from this article entirely, sending them to the wholly separate Article 4 framework built around O.C.G.A. § 9-3-70 and following. This section is the starting point, not the last word, for any personal injury claim governed by this article.