Timothy Coen sued his former employer, its successor, and their lawyers for abusive litigation based on tactics used in an earlier severance-pay lawsuit. In that underlying case, the trial court had awarded Coen attorney fees after finding that the defendants pursued baseless defenses as a strategy of litigation by attrition. The trial court dismissed Coen’s later statutory abusive-litigation complaint, reasoning that he had not pleaded special damages and could not seek punitive damages. The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part. A plaintiff bringing a statutory abusive-litigation claim need not plead special damages and may elect to seek general damages for mental distress caused by malicious, willful, or wanton misconduct. But existing precedent barred punitive damages under the statute. The court also held that the statutory deadline was a statute of limitation rather than a statute of repose, so the defendants could not use that theory to sustain dismissal. The case was remanded for the surviving claim to proceed under the correct damages rules.