Michael Findley alleged that he was injured when his bicycle struck a difficult-to-see guy-wire anchoring a utility pole on a path in an Atlanta park. The City and other defendants moved for summary judgment, and the trial court granted the motions without ruling on Findley’s pending request to amend his complaint to add Georgia Power as a defendant. The Georgia Court of Appeals held that the trial court erred by disposing of the case before considering the motion to add a party. Georgia procedure permits amendment before a pretrial order and requires a court to exercise its discretion when a proposed amendment would add a new party. The appellate court emphasized that its ruling did not decide the merits of the City’s sovereign-immunity or negligence defenses and did not prevent the defendants from renewing their dispositive motions. It vacated the summary-judgment order and remanded for the trial court to rule on the motion to amend and proceed consistently with that ruling.