Atlanta Injury Attorney Blog

Many of our client's receive notice of a Georgia Medical Lien soon after they are discharged from the emergency room and in previous articles, we have documented what your rights are. Some clients move or keep less than perfect paper records and as they near settlement of their claim through their Georgia injury lawyer, they worry that after settlement, they will be sued by a hospital or a doctor for an unpaid bill. Thankfully, there is a free public database to search for medical liens. You should know that experience has proven this database is not perfect and you should still physically go to the Superior Court Clerk's Office where you live to be 100% sure. Nonetheless, this resource is a great place to start. Here is the link to the free Georgia Medical Lien database.

The family of Robert Neuman has retained Simon and Faenza as the Georgia wrongful death lawyers to represent them in their claim against Prisoner Transport Services of America and PTS Vans, LLC. Although the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the crash in Greene County, Georgia has not been completed by the Georgia State Patrol, it is clear that the van driver plowed into the back of a tractor trailer at high speed. The company driver, his wife and Mr. Neuman died in the crash and there were multiple severe injuries. Any time there are multiple claimants and potentially aggravating circumstances, litigation is necessary to explore the allegations that the driver had been driving for an excessive period of time.

Mr. Neuman was a prisoner on board the PTS Van being transported from Florida to Tennessee to face charges for allegedly taking $2,600.00 from the cash register at a hotel where he worked. On such a relatively minor criminal charge where he hotly disputed his liability, it is a complete tragedy that he lost his life when the PTS Vans, LLC driver, Randall Bowman apparently fell asleep and slammed into the back of a tractor trailer.

There are a number of disturbing allegations on this blog claiming that the drivers were forced to drive long hours in poorly maintained vans. If supporting evidence bears this out during discovery, what was already a tragedy may turn into an expose on these companies.

It should be noted that Prisoner Transport Services was already under scrutiny for losing inmates as was revealed in this article in USA Today. In addition another Prisoner Transport Services driver died in a PTS van crash on September 7, 2009.

If you have any information regarding the circumstances surrounding this crash or are a witness, please contact our Atlanta injury attorneys.

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?" »

One of the most commonly asked questions is whether an injured client without health insurance can expect the at fault driver in a Georgia car crash to pay their medical bills. On a simple trip to the emergency room in Georgia, an average ambulance ride is $500.00, the ER physician is $250 and the ER itself is another $500.00.

The short answer is the other driver's insurance will not pay your medical bills soon but eventually they will. When people are injured in a car wreck in Atlanta and they speak with the other driver's insurance company, they are usually asked if they are hurt and then the adjuster will dissuade the client from getting any follow up medical care with a statement like this "we will only pay for medical care that we think is reasonable."

To put it simply, if you have an injury and are seeing a doctor, the other driver's insurance will not pay the bills as you go, even though they may give you that false impression by telling you to send over the bills. Do not become confused with your own vehicle's Georgia medical payments insurance provisions as they will pay as you go.

When you have medically stabilized and your care is at an end, you can gather your medical records and submit them to the at fault driver. Keep in mind that you may not need a Atlanta injury lawyer if your case is minor. If you have medical bills totaling over $2,000.00, if you have been injured by a drunk driver, or you are dealing with a fracture or disk herniation then you should speak with an Atlanta car accident attorney.

I have had many clients that have been seriously injured in Atlanta in car crashes and treated at Grady Hospital. The clients come to me without health insurance and with staggering medical bills and they wonder how they will pay for the medical care, especially if the policy limits for the at fault driver are low and there is not enough Uninsured Motorist coverage.

Grady is the largest trauma hospital in Georgia and they have recently made the news for their financial troubles, but, their financial aid programs remain largely in effect. If you were involved in a Georgia car accident and received emergency care at Grady and have no other insurance options, you can visit the financial aid office and look into getting a Grady Card. The Grady Card entitles the client to 50% off of their medical care. Understand that this is only available to persons with serious emergency care that have no medical payments insurance and no health insurance. In situations where there is no tortfeasor to recover from or the wrongdoer has no insurance Grady will also work out long term extended payment plans.

With so many people going without health insurance these days, access to quality medical care is a constant challenge. If the injuries occur due to the negligence or recklessness of other though, there are options.

In cases where there are substantial medical bills to be repaid that were incurred before your loved on died, you should retain a Georgia wrongful death attorney to coordinate the settlement and structure it so that the hospital gets some repayment but does not take a disproportionate share. This can be accomplished by structuring the payments so that the estate of deceased does not receive the majority of the settlement funds and they instead go to the Georgia wrongful death statutory claimants.

Many clients come to me and want to know how long it takes an Atlanta injury lawyer to handle a case. The answer is that it depends on the case. I generally classify cases into three categories For Class I cases involving catastrophic injuries and Georgia wrongful death cases, the time line is not predictable. Class II injuries involve a Georgia car accident that results in fractures, ligament tears, surgeries and other major injuries. Class III cases are injuries that involve strains and sprains or other soft tissue injuries that the client is able to make a full recovery from.

For Class II and III injuries much will depend on how long the medical care continues but the following is a general outline of what to expect.

Continue reading "How Long Does it Take for a Atlanta Injury Lawyer to Handle My Case?" »

The Georgia Supreme Court issued a major decision last week in Moreland v. Austin which effects Georgia car accident victims by holding that HIPAA, the Federal law protecting the privacy of your medical records, preempts the Georgia State law saying that your doctors can talk to the defense attorney without your knowledge. That means that insurance defense lawyers in Georgia can no longer meet with your doctors privately and spin the truth to damage your case. As an Atlanta car accident lawyer who frequently has to guard his clients against these kind of aggressive defense tactics, I was thrilled with this decision.

Moreland is a medical malpractice case wherein the insurance defense lawyer had met with the injured person's Atlanta doctor in an effort to hurt the Plaintiff''s case. The Supreme Court overturned the Appellate Court decision and held that unless a Plaintiff specifically grants permission, the Defense may not speak with the Plaintiff's treating doctors. The Court even went to far as to hold that "(w)e will not presume a plaintiff consented to such communications simply because the plaintiff did not object when defendant sought plaintiff’s medical records pursuant to a subpoena or request for production of documents."

When I was a defense lawyer and before HIPAA came into effect, I would try to set an appointment with the Plaintiff's treating and family doctors and establish rapport. I would never fabricate things but I would certainly bring the accident photos in lower impact collisions to try to win the doctor over to my side of the argument. Now as a practicing Atlanta injury lawyer, I have had to be careful in modifying the HIPAA releases that defense lawyers send to my clients. Many insurance companies will try to get the injured person to sign a HIPAA release in the early days following the crash so that they insurance company can get access to records and documents but this is a huge mistake.

This decision by the Georgia Supreme Court clears up years of fighting and establishes a major right for litigants. The defense can still talk to your doctors but they must do it either with your lawyer present or under whatever other terms you see fit. It is nice to see HIPAA fulfilling its original purpose. Remember to hire an Atlanta car accident lawyer before you sign a medical records release because you are opening your entire medical history up to a complete stranger when sign the document over to the insurance company.

Over the last six months, my Atlanta Injury law practice has received a staggering number of calls from clients that have been burned through the negligence of others. I have represented a Decatur, Georgia woman burned at a Stone Mountain spa by hot stone therapy that resulted in second degree burns and permanent scarring; a Gainesville Georgia toddler that received skin grafts after having hot grits spilled on her hands at day care; an Atlanta Georgia woman that was burned when the drive through attendant spilled coffee on her resulting in second degree burns and permanent scarring and just this past week I spoke with a woman whose 22 month old had to receive skin grafts after the gravy at Dairy Queen spilled on them.Put simply, these companies are actively ignoring the acute danger that scalding foods and liquids pose.

Let's talk about burns for a moment. First, it is important to know that adult skin is more that 4 times as thick as a child's and therefore, a child will sustain a full thickness burn much more quickly than an adult. According to the National Burn Victim Foundation, it would take a liquid at 140 degrees 5 seconds on adult skin to cause a 3rd degree burn. On a child it would only take 1 second.

A First Degree burn is painful but only involves the out layer of the skin, the epidermis.

A Second Degree burn will show blistering and can get into the reticular layer of the dermis. They can result in scarring and can require grafts when they are partial thickness burns instead of superficial only.

A Third Degree burn will cause loss of the epidermis and damage to the hypodermis. They result in scarring and can require grafts.

Burn cases, especially ones involving children, can be disturbing but that does not mean that there is always liability. Many people remember the Liebeck v. McDonalds case where the 79 year old spilled coffee on her own lap and sustained third degree burns and skin grafts. What bothered people so much about the case was the fact that she spilled it on herself. The jury focused however on McDonald's lack of concern over the 700 prior burn complaints. Restaurants increased the number and size of the warnings and a great number of cases like this no longer reach the jury.

I focus on food and liquid burn cases in Georgia where there are second acts of negligence. One example is where the store employee is the one that spills the liquid on the customer. In a such a case, the liability is clear. In the example of the day care center, the day care center owes a duty of care to the toddlers not to serve overheated foods and not to spill them on the children. As parents we all know to check the temperatures on foods before we serve them to our children.

Our laws are a fairly good reflection of the values of our society. If you spill the substance on yourself, barring some obscene temperature in excess of 200 degrees, the court will often find that the blame lies with you. On the other hand, if the substance gets on you through the negligence of others, then a jury will be sympathetic. If you want to discuss a burn case with anAtlanta burn injury attorney, let me know.

When a person is injured through no fault of their own, Georgia State Law and Federal Law provide that there should be a remedy against the at-fault party. One of the more confusing things for clients to understand is that in the eyes of the law, determining who is responsible is not always a slam dunk.

In order to recover money damages to compensate you for your medical bills, lost wages and suffering, there are three hurdles that must be cleared.

Duty
First you must identify the duty that the wrongdoer owed to you. It may be a public duty like the duty of ordinary reasonable care that we all owe to each other when driving, or it may be laid out by State Law or City Codes. We recently handled a case where a three year old sustained a hip fracture when he was run over by a man in a jacked up pick up truck with limo tinted windows in Riverdale, Georgia. The defendant argued that the child walked into his path and that there was nothing he could do. As an Atlanta injury lawyer I had the lift kit and the windows tested and determined that he was in violation of State Law in both categories. So in that example, the duty is the duty not to blackout tint your windows and not to get a lift kit more than 2 inches over factory settings.

Breach
Once you have established the duty, you then have to establish that the wrongdoer breached the duty to you. The most common example is a rear end collision where the following driving carelessly follows you too closely and collides with you. Using the example of the pick up truck above, the breach was the driver's decision to drive the vehicle with an illegal tint and an illegal lift kit.

Causation
Even if you can establish that there is a duty and that the wrongdoer breached it, these actions must have caused the injury in order for the law to provide a remedy. For example, when I was working for as a lawyer for Liberty Mutual Insurance, I defended a tractor trailer company where the driver was parked too far from the curb in an industrial area and a lady was driving home from work and plowed into his parked truck in Conyers, Georgia due to the sun being in her eyes. As a Conyers, Georgia injury lawyer, we learned that she was on her cell phone, driving into the sun, speeding and did not wear sunglasses or deploy the sun visor. She was literally driving blind. In that instance where I was defending the trucking company, we showed that even if the truck had been six inches more to the right, as required under the law, the catastrophic impact still would have occurred and she still would have died. The breach of duties by the trucker were not the proximate cause of the death of the plaintiff and there was no recovery.

In short, the wrongdoing must be the proximate cause of the injury or death in order for the plaintiff to recover. When my clients come to me, we spend a great deal of time going through these elements so that the client feels comfortable with the strengths and weaknesses of the case.

If you have further questions, feel free to contact me as I am an Atlanta Georgia Personal Injury Attorney