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We have now had two clients tell us that they were called by someone offering to set them up with a chiropractor and an attorney. The worst part is the phone number they are using is spoofing the phone of a well respected real estate closing firm in Atlanta, Campbell and Brannon. Spoofing is where you make your phone number look like the number of another law firm. That law firm has nothing to do with these phone calls and yet this is how the scam is running. This illegal practice of reaching out to accident victims after a crash to cajole them into signing up as injury clients is disgusting and dragging the good name of a law firm along with it is even worse.

The law on the subject can be found below.

Title 33. Insurance § 33-24-53

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Georgia Slip and Fall Law on Open and Obvious

Georgia slip and fall or trip and fall case liability, that is the responsibility of a landowner or occupier to people that legally come onto their property, is based on one simple concept; legal responsibility for an injury only lies on the landowner if the danger that caused the harm was or should have been known to the owner and not to the visitor. That is why slip and fall cases rarely settle without litigation and often get thrown out by the trial judge when it can be shown that either the defendant lacked knowledge of the hazard or the plaintiff would or should have known about it. The common statement amongst Plaintiff’s attorneys, the lawyers that represent the injured, is that if the case can get past summary judgment, it has a chance of resolving. Asphalt Paving Atlanta, | Wildcat Striping

In a recent Georgia Court of Appeals decision, Coral Hospitality-GA, LLC v. Givens et al. (March 2022), it was clear that the injured plaintiff admitted the truth, that she could have seen the hazard herself and therefore had her case thrown out. The Court noted that Plaintiff admitted that had she looked down she easily could have seen the hazard and under the long established doctrine in Georgia, if some is obvious, you can’t trip over it and file a lawsuit. “Watch where you are going” is as true for children as it is in the courts. What is surprising is the fact that the sitting trial judge denied the defenses attempt to throw the case out on summary judgment an the defense had to take it up on appeal to win. This should have been a no brainer.

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Bartenfeld v ChickfilA Inc 815 SE2d 273 Ga App 2018 Youngblood v All Am Quality Foods Inc 792 SE2d 417 338 GaApp 817 Ga App 2016 Jones Lang LaSalle Operations, LLC v. Johnson, 350 Ga.App. 439, 829 S.E.2d 629 (Ga. App. 2019) (1) Cleveland v Team RTR2 LLC 854 SE2d 756 Ga App 2021 River Place at Port Royal Condo Assn Inc v Sapp 358 GaApp 632 856 SE2d 28 Ga App 2021 (1) Stanton v Griffin Ga App 2021 Cabrera v Ellis 358 GaApp 396 855 SE2d 405 Ga App 2021 Bennett v McPhatter Ga App 2021 Cajun Contractors Inc v Peachtree Prop Sub LLC Ga App 2021 Crebs v World Ga App 2021 Moran v Team Elite Realty LLC Ga App 2021 Durham v Dollar Tree Stores Inc 859 SE2d 620 Ga App 2021 Blondell v Courtney Station 300 LLC Ga App 2021 Thurman v TCFPA Family Med Ctrs P C 358 GaApp 439 855 SE2d 431 Ga App 2021 Gatto v City of Statesboro Ga 2021 Caruthers v City of Rochelle 857 SE2d 844 Ga App 2021 Schock v Holy Trinity Catholic Church Ga App 2021 Jones Lang LaSalle Operations, LLC v. Johnson, 350 Ga.App. 439, 829 S.E.2d 629 (Ga. App. 2019)

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A decision that caught a lot of injury attorneys off guard in 2021 said what a lot of us had speculated; the language in the apportionment statute is really messy and doesn’t say what it was supposed to. In  ALSTON & BIRD, LLP v. HATCHER MANAGEMENT

HOLDINGS, LLC , says that OCGA § 51-12-33 is badly written and that where a Plaintiff sues ONLY one Defendant and that Defendant seeks to apportion fault to another non party person or company, that the Judge cannot follow the intent of the statute and reduce the amount of damages by the proportion of the non party’s blame.

Boiling it down; in the old days of joint and several liability, if you sued driver 1 and driver 2 for injuring someone and the jury awarded $1,000,000 then the Plaintiff could collect the full amount of the judgment from either defendant. It meant that if a well insured defendant had only 1 percent of blame and the uninsured defendant had 99% of the blame, the Plaintiff could still collect the whole judgment from the 1 percent at fault party. OCGA § 51-12-33 was designed to fix that unfairness. The drafters in the legislature failed miserably.

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Tripping hazards come in all shapes and sizes including tree roots, whether they are in the dirt or growing through a sidewalk. When they are disrupting sidewalks, its a pretty clear violation if the City has not done anything to repair or visibly paint the roots but tree roots in the dirt are a different challenge.

In a recent opinion, a trial court addressed whether the judge was correct in refusing to throw the case out before reaching a jury (summary judgment). The injury lady filed the Georgia premises liability lawsuit alleging that she broke two bones in her leg after tripping on an exposed root in a dirt area of the restaurant’s parking lot.

In all premises liability suits, the issue is simply this: IF YOU FALL BECAUSE OF SOMETHING ON A PROPERTY, WHETHER LIQUID OR SOLID, IF YOU KNEW AS MUCH AS THE PROPERTY OWNER DID ABOUT IT BEING THERE, YOUR LAWSUIT WILL GET TOSSED OUT. YOU HAVE TO PROVE THEY HAD AT LEAST IMPLIED KNOWLEDGE OF THE DANGER AND YOU DID NOT

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The Court of Appeals recently issued an opinion stemming from a Georgia premises liability lawsuit a woman filed against a shopping center (SC) after she suffered injuries in a car accident in the SC’s parking lot. According to the record, the woman and her daughter were driving in the parking lot when their vehicle collided with an SUV. The parties all exited their vehicles and began shouting and accusing each other. A mall security officer escorted the parties to another location and, after speaking with the other driver, advised everyone that they were free to leave. The other driver got into her vehicle and quickly reversed, knocking the plaintiff to the ground and pinning her leg under the tire, resulting in a complete amputation. A witness heard the altercation and heard the plaintiff’s daughter scream and heard the driver state, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it.”

The plaintiff and her family filed a lawsuit against the other driver, the SC, and the security company that provided services to the shopping center. Amongst other claims, the plaintiff argued that the SC was liable for premises liability, negligent security, and vicarious liability for the security guard’s actions. The defendant’s appealed the trial court’s denial of summary judgment.

The defendant argued that the law entitled them to summary judgment because the incident was not reasonably foreseeable. Under Georgia law, landowners or occupiers maintain a duty to keep their premises and approaches safe for their invitees. The law further explains that a property owner is not an “insurer” of an invitee’s safety from intervening criminal acts unless the criminal act was reasonably foreseeable. However, property owners may be liable if they have reason to anticipate a criminal act. In which case, they must meet their duty to exercise ordinary care to protect against injury from that act.

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5 years ago we covered this topic in a CLE we taught. Georgia has a nice rule where if you screw up on service( the actual handing of the papers to the person being served by the sheriff) and it does not happen within the statute of limitations (or reasonably close on its heels) then so long as you eventually get the person personally served, you can dismiss without prejudice and restart the lawsuit with a new filing, thereby curing the problem. How stupid plaintiff’s attorneys keep screwing this up is beyond me. This is a guy in Augusta who after eons of notice, never got the defendant served and so when they dismissed and refiled the case, the refiling was invalid.

The Court of Appeals  opinion in this personal injury lawsuit arising from a Georgia car accident makes it crystal clear. So long as you actually serve the defendant before dismissing, you are fine. If not, you are toast.

The case arose when the plaintiff filed a lawsuit against the at-fault driver following injuries he suffered in a car accident. In addition to the driver, the plaintiff served his uninsured motorist (UM) insurance carrier. The insurance carrier answered; however, attempts to serve the defendant were unsuccessful. Eventually, the plaintiff filed a motion to serve the defendant by publication, and the trial court granted the motion. The plaintiff did not take any further steps after two additional attempts to serve the defendant were unsuccessful.

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Do you have that feeling in your gut that your lawyer is lazy? Are they very slow to respond, if they do at all? Everyone goes through busy periods, but if the lazy behavior is frequent, it’s not going to get better and it may destroy your case. As the appeals decision below explains, once the two year statute of limitations on personal injury cases approaches, Courts will scrutinize the diligence that people use to get the defendant served.

A personal injury lawsuit has strict procedural rules regarding how and when the defendant is served the paperwork by the sheriff or process server. Failure to follow the court’s procedural rule will often result in the dismissal of a case.

An attorney can help a victim determine whether a legitimate claim exists and draft and submit the appropriate documents to the court. After submitting the documents, the plaintiff must arrange for “service” on the defendant. This is a critical point in a Georgia personal injury lawsuit, and a plaintiff’s failure to effectuate proper service can lead to the dismissal of an otherwise meritorious claim.

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Recently, the Court of Appeals issued an opinion in a Georgia negligence lawsuit in which the victim filed against an electric company and its employee where trial court had foolishly held that there is no duty for people to walk down stairs in a prudent manner. This lends credence to my theory that during COVID, the caseloads are getting so bad that trial judges are erring on the side of granting summary judgment and tossing cases when they should not.

In the underlying injury case, the plaintiff contacted a electric company to service her home. On the day of the incident, the electric company’s employee came to the plaintiff’s home to inspect a heater in the basement. The plaintiff advised the employee to be careful because there was no lighting and no handrail. In response, the employee stated that they were fine; however, seconds later, they fell into the plaintiff, causing her to fall down the stairs and suffer serious injuries.

The plaintiff filed a lawsuit alleging negligence against the employee and negligent hiring, training, and supervising against the company. The trial court found in favor of the defendant, and the plaintiff appealed, arguing amongst several issues, that the employee had a legal duty to exercise ordinary care while walking. The trial court stupidly held that the defendant had no duty to walk down stairs carefully. WTF?

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