Atlanta Injury Attorney Blog

In my practice as an Atlanta injury attorney, clients frequently call me panicking about a notice of a Georgia medical lien they received after their car accident. For those clients with health insurance, I have written previously about whether your health insurance has to pay your bills after a car accident, and the answer is a resounding "yes." I have added a new page on the site that describes your rights and duties when it comes to Georgia medical liens. If you have received notice of a Georgia medical lien as a result of a car accident or other injury, check with an injury lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia to make sure that you are handling your case correctly.

As an Atlanta Injury lawyer with twelve years in the business, I am pleased to report that my clients still call me years down the road with unrelated legal questions. A current client called today and he is changing jobs but his new health insurance won't start for 60 days. His wife is on the plan and is undergoing medical care for a serious neck injury from an Atlanta car accident. The client had just planned on holding off on getting medical care for 60 days. I advised the client that he needs to pay for COBRA continuing coverage with his old plan to make sure there is continuous health insurance coverage. Otherwise, the new plan will exclude medical care for her neck injury for 12-18 months as it is a pre-existing condition and there is no continuing health insurance. By having the COBRA coverage in place, there is continuing coverage and it won't be a problem.

COBRA is just an acronym for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, a Federal law that requires that any employer with more than 20 employees extend health-care coverage to any eligible employee after they leave. Public Law 99-272 Title X and its subsequent amendments require employers to offer continuing coverage to employees and their dependents. It is available to insured employees when they:
1. Quit.
2. Are fired for reasons other than gross misconduct.
3. Are laid off for economic reasons

Health insurance and liability insurance issues are complex and you should be choosy in hiring an Atlanta injury attorney.

In a stunning reversal of course, an Atlanta injury lawyer has convinced the Georgia Court of Appeals to reconsider its February decision and the Court has ruled that when there are medical liens to be paid after a Georgia Car Accident, the amounts to be paid eat into the at fault party's coverages, allowing access to reducing Georgia Uninsured Insurance limits. I know, I know, that is a mouthful.

Let's teach by example. Assume you broke your leg in a Georgia car accident and you don't have health insurance so you have a $15,000.00 bill from Gwinnett Medical Center. Lets assume that the at fault driver has a Georgia minimum limits policy of $25,000.00 and you have a $25,000.00 Georgia Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist policy of the reduced coverage variety. (remember I told you to buy the added-on coverage in this post on Georgia uninsured motorist coverage.)

Continue reading " Atlanta Injury Lawyers Win Reconsideration of Georgia Court of Appeals Opinion and Now Uninsured Motorist Coverage Accesible When Medical Liens are Owed " »

Georgia Wrongful Death lawyers know that in the old days, there was no case to be brought when a person died through the wrongdoing of another. The Georgia legislature passed the Georgia Wrongful Death laws to impose "... a penalty upon the person who causes the death of another by negligence, the penalty to go to the person injured.’ ” Brock v. Wedincamp, 253 Ga.App. 275, 281, 558 S.E.2d 836 (2002).

Each case is different though and a colleague recently called to ask whether the divorced mother of a child could sue the father of the child for causing the child's death on a four wheeler. The answer is yes. I thought I would include the research here so that others can benefit.

Normally, when a person dies, their spouse has the right to bring the wrongful death claim for the value of the life, although children will be entitled to a portion if they exist. If the person is a child, then the right vests in the parents. If there is no spouse and the person has no children, then the right reverts upstream to the deceased person's parents.

In the Georgia wrongful death situation we are addressing though, the question is complicated. Normally, the right of recovery for the death of the child would vest in the mother and father. Here though, the father is the at fault party and you cannot sue yourself.
In the case of Belluso v. Tant, 258 Ga. App. 453, 574 S.E.2d 595 (2002), the Court made it clear that the Superior Court has the equity power to strip claims from the wrongdoer and to preserve the right of recovery at the same time. In Belluso, the Court held that it was within the equity powers of the Court to allow the parent of the deceased to sue the negligent spouse for the death of the child, in effect allowing the Georgia wrongful death claim to leap over the wrongdoer.

Based on the logic of that decision, it would appear that the divorced mother of the child can sue the father. Keep in mind that if they were still married, spousal immunity might bar the claim. Remember that serious injury cases are complicated and an Atlanta Injury Attorney with real experience makes all the difference in the outcome.

If you are hurt at work in Atlanta, an Atlanta Workers Compensation attorney will advise you that you are required to give notice and to bring the claim within certain strict deadlines. Under O.C.G.A. § 34-9-80, if you are injured on the job in Georgia, you must tell your employer with 30 days of the incident.

Then you must file the WC-14 with the Georgia State Board of Workers Compensation within one year from either the date of the injury or the last medical treatment. It is not enough that your boss knew of the situation, you must actually file the claim with the Board. When in doubt it is a good idea to contact an Atlanta workers compensation lawyer to get good advice.

As an Atlanta injury lawyer, most of my clients come to me after serious car accidents and a common question is, "who will pay for surgery if I need it?" Frequently, the question has two aspects. Many are nervous and in the early stages of medical care for a disc herniation or broken bone. They want to know what happens if years from now they need surgery. Who will pick up the tab? Given that the Georgia statute of limitations for injuries is two years, what happens if the surgery is necessary in five years? Can the client recover for that possibility?

Continue reading " After an Atlanta Car Accident, How Do I Know if Surgery Will be Necessary and Who Will Pay For the Surgery? " »

As an Atlanta trucking lawyer, I am often faced with complex insurance coverage scenarios and today we will be discussing the difference between trucking and non-trucking coverage. In the industry, especially among smaller carriers, after dropping off a trailer, a driver will often have to head back to the depot without a trailer attached or he may use the bobtail tractor as personal transportation when not under dispatch. In the industry this is known as "bobtailing." The situation can arise in a Georgia tractor trailer collision where the victim is struck by a tractor trailer running bobtail and in many situations a coverage fight can ensue.

If a truck accident in Georgia occurs because a bobtail truck strikes another vehicle, the trucking company will first want to analyze whose coverage is primary; the trucking or the non-trucking coverage. This is an important issue because in many cases the personality of the insurance company and the amounts of insurance coverage can differ. It is critical to resolve the coverage issue before the litigation goes too far because otherwise the insurance carriers will use the legal uncertainty as their reason for not paying full value on the case.

Continue reading " Georgia Truck Accident Attorneys Must Examine Coverage Issues When Bobtail Tractors are Involved " »

Before I began practicing almost exclusively as an Atlanta injury lawyer, I litigated as an Atlanta Business lawyer and handled business disputes throughout Georgia and represented Cobb County's Department of Transportation in eminent domain cases. Many of my former Georgia clients call me with contract law problems years after their Atlanta injury cases are over and so I thought I would put down some contract law basics here as a resource.

Contracts are the fundamental basis of civilized society. It does not matter if two people make an agreement and shake hands in front of a peanut field or 50 people sign a 700 page contract in an overpriced law firm high above the streets of Atlanta; they are both contracts. Contracts can be oral in many circumstances but I tell all of my clients, if it's not in writing, good luck proving it except through course of dealing. Here are some basic rules to follow:

Continue reading " Atlanta Business Lawyers see Breach of Contract Cases on the Rise with the Tight Economy " »

As an Atlanta injury lawyer, I get numerous calls from people that have been in severe car accidents. Although their main focus is their medical condition, they inevitably want to know how to prevent the insurance company from cheating them on the value of their cars when they are totaled out in the car accident.

The approach I suggest is as follows:

1) Make contact soon after the crash to accelerate the process. Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver's company though.

2) Calculate the real market value of your car by pulling a value up on NADA's Black Book value guide. Kelly Blue Book is not used as much in the insurance industry and NADA will give you a realistic idea of what to expect. Aim for the private party sales price, retail is harder to get.

3) You can expect to recover sales tax on top of the sales price.

4) Above all be logical and business-like in your approach. Use email to communicate if you are a hot head. Ask them politely to explain how they calculated their values for your car. Do understand that currently the resale market is soft and used car prices are down.

5) Remember that the at fault driver is not responsible for the difference between the value of the car and the amount you owe on your loan. If you are upside down on the loan and the crash just makes the negative equity due and payable, that is unfortunately your problem, not theirs. You can finance the amount into a new loan or set up a payment plan. This is why I strongly urge everyone to buy Gap Insurance when the finance a car.

I do help my clients that were injured in a Georgia car accident with their property damage claims.

Some inexperienced Atlanta injury lawyers fail to thoroughly identify all of the Georgia Uninsured Motorist insurance coverage after a serious car accident. I have previously written here about the added on coverage that everyone should select as it stacks on top of the at fault driver's coverage, but stacking is another issue that an injury lawyer should deal with as well.

If you have more than one insurance policy( as opposed to more than one car on the same policy) you can generally stack those Georgia Uninsured Motorist Insurance coverages together. Horace Mann Ins. Corp. v. Mercer, 257 Ga. App. 278, 570 S.E. 2d 589 (2002) For example, I have a client with different four State Farm policies and he is able to stack each of the $250,000.00 policies to provide a total of $1,000,000.00 in coverage for his wife's permanent injury. That would not be true if the four cars were all insured on the same policy. You can also stack motor home policies, motorcycle policies and umbrella uninsured motorist policies.

A new client retained me today as their Atlanta injury lawyer and we will be able to make a substantial and just recovery for them in their case against a tractor trailer company driver who turned across four lanes of traffic in Riverdale, Georgia, causing serious injuries. What shocked me was the recording on her cell phone from Georgia Medical and Legal services and two other lawyer services soliciting her business in the days after the crash. It is illegal for a lawyer to solicit your business with a cold call after a car wreck and only low end attorneys participate in this practice. Here is a good video that an acquaintance made documenting the background on these people.

Continue reading " Do Not Hire Lawyers or Doctors that Call You after an Atlanta Car Accident " »