Atlanta Injury Attorney Blog

As an Atlanta injury lawyer I am constantly litigating car accident cases where the insurance company disputes liability and tries to scare off the injured party. This often leads to the litigation of "swearing contest" cases where there are no eyewitnesses and the jury is left to judge the credibility of the parties without further aid. What is odd about this predicament is that there are increasing numbers of cameras and yet it is very difficult to get the police and DOT to produce the records.

As any Atlanta motorist knows, there are a series of video cameras covering not only all major highways, but increasingly we are seeing video and still cameras at major intersections. Through the years, I have sent Open Records Requests and Subpoenas and the response has been "we don't record that information." The lack of access to those videos leads to needless litigation by both sides to the dispute. There are situations where the trucking company was clearly in the wrong but litigated the case because of the chance that a jury would see it their way and when I was defending insurance companies, I handled many a case where the passenger car driver was clearly at fault and the video would have exonerated the tractor trailer driver. Georgia car accident lawyers can be severely devalued where there is a solid liability dispute.

Continue reading " Atlanta Georgia Collisions are Frequently Filmed but Accessing the Video can Be Challenging " »

I ran across this editorial on an Albany Georgia television site about dog bites and vicious dog attacks. The author tackled a difficult issue: what controls should there be on the ownership of certain breeds of dogs including Pitt Bulls, Dobermans and some strains of German Shepherd. As an Atlanta dog bite lawyer, I have litigated enough cases to know that some of those breeds can be very aggressive to humans and can cause serious injuries when they are. According to the article, there are a number of States that are considering a ban on certain breeds.

The most interesting proposal on the piece is the bond proposal and I will tell you why it is meritorious. I have a client that was in his own yard when he was attacked by the neighbor down the road's unrestrained Pit Bull. The County where the attack occurred had leash laws and the owner was clearly in the wrong. The problem is, the owner had allegedly allowed their homeowner's insurance to lapse. We are now litigating that issue in Court but it appears that there will be no insurance to cover the matter. As a Georgia dog bite lawyer it is frustrating to watch someone's life turned on its ear because another Georgian ignored the leash laws.

Continue reading " Albany Georgia struggles with Pros and Cons of Restricting Certain Breeds to Prevent Dog Bites " »

The number of bike riders in Buckhead and the Metro Atlanta area is increasing and so is the number of riders being hit by cars. As I was mulling over whether to ride my 10 year old Mongoose Trail Bike to work to help the environment, I ran across this Atlanta Journal Constitution article by Thomas Stinson entitled "Rookie and rusty cyclists hit streets ... and hospitals" published in late July. Mr. Stinson profiles a local rider that ended up with both elbows being fractured for his efforts at reducing his carbon signature.

All joking aside, bike riders have long know that Atlanta traffic is notoriously unfriendly to riders. There are very few dedicated lanes and none on the major thoroughfares. When I was a younger Atlanta injury lawyer, I used to ride from Midtown Atlanta down to the Public Defenders office on Peachtree Street downtown and remember getting nailed by several errant motorists. The only long term cure to the problem is oddly, more cyclists. The more common the practice is, the better motorists will be at avoiding collisions with them.

As you might imagine, injuries are way up due to the flood of riders. The best thing you can do as a rider is to wear your helmet, ride in the daylight and make sure that your Georgia uninsured motorist insurance is on par with your liability coverage. If you are hit by a car while riding your bike in Atlanta, Marietta or Sandy Springs and you suffer from an injury, be sure you work with an Atlanta injury attorney that has handled bicycling cases before as their are nuances to them that a generic lawyer will not appreciate.

As a Georgia trucking injury lawyer, I was saddened another pointless loss of life caused by a Georgia tractor trailer crash. Here, the family was struck when the tractor trailer crashed into them after cresting a hill. This article details the sad outcome of this Bainbridge Georgia collision on Friday. In the unattributed article in the local paper, it states that the trucker crested a hill on a rural highway and plowed into several vehicles, also striking a grandmother standing on the side of the road to walk her grandchildren home.

What infuriates me about this is how preventable this collision was. Georgia tractor trailer drivers operate on these roads on a daily basis and know exactly what time of day school buses pass through the area. They should know better than to come flying over a hill top. That area frequently has slow moving farm equipment, not to mention school buses. We can only hope that the trucker has his license revoked and the injured heal up. Atlanta trucking lawyers that deal with trucking cases can only shake their heads in knowing sadness because we see the same inattention leading to tragedy again and again.

I am going to be producing a series of video observations on handling certain aspects of casualty claims over the next few months. Here is the first of them.

The regulations on the number of hours a commercial truck driver can drive have been changed twice over the last 5 years but unfortunately Georgia drivers are continuing to die and suffer catastrophic injuries as a result of tired tractor trailer drivers in Atlanta. The most recent study from 2005 shows that nationally 5,212 died as a result of tractor trailer collisions. When the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration revised the rules drastically in December 2003, they sold it to the public as a safety improvement but in reality it allows truckers to driver for 11 hours straight before having to take 10 hours off! I don't know about you but I cannot maintain my focus driving for even 7 hours before I have to take an entire day off and here the government is authorizing 11 hours.

To make matters worse, the government continues to play with their numbers and in December 2007, the FMCSA released a statement saying that despite the increase in hours since 2003, deaths per mile were down. The problem with that claim is the fact that they started counting the miles driven by passenger buses, which don't make long hauls like truckers do. This had the effect of diluting the fatality numbers and making them look better.

Continue reading " Georgia Drivers still Dying as a Result of Trucker Fatigue " »

A five year old boy was mauled by a stray dog in Dalton Georgia and it could have been prevented. Unfortunately more and more people are buying Pit Bulls, Dobermans and cross-bred Chau dogs. These dogs can be fine when well trained and restrained but they can be very aggressive with small children.

The problems arise when dog owners either don't take the time to train their dogs or, even worse, ignore and abuse their own dogs. Those dogs become aggressive and pose a serious threat to the public. Most counties and cities require that a dog be kept on leash, on a chain or confined by a fence at all times. In Georgia, if a dog attacks a human and a Plaintiff comes before the Court to hold the owner liable, the Court will inquire as to whether 1) there were prior indications that the dog was aggressive towards humans and if not; 2) whether the owner was in violation of the leash and restraint laws at the time of the attack. Either avenue can support a potential liability claim against a homeowner.

According to the article "Boy mauled by dog" written by reporter Kim Sloan with the Dalton Daily Citizen, Murray County Animal Control had been called several times and failed to take any action at all. This is a serious injury that could have been averted and now will leave the child scarred for life.

If you have other questions please contact me as I handle dog bite cases as I am a Georgia Personal Injury Attorney that handles dog bite cases in Dalton.

Continue reading " Dalton, Georgia Dog Attacks Young Child " »