In a recent decision, Barking Hound Village, LLC v. Monyak, the Georgia Court of Appeals addressed an interesting question arising from a lawsuit brought against a kennel by the owners of a deceased daschund. On appeal, one of the questions the court needed to answer was whether the trial court…
Georgia’s impact rule has been around for over 100 years and basically holds that you cannot sue for witnessing a horrific injury unless you were also physically injured in the incident. The rule is formally stated thusly; the current Georgia impact rule has three elements: (1) a physical impact to…
The tragic Georgia Sugar Refinery explosion made national news and took the lives of numerous employees. 7 years later, the courts are still struggling with issues in the case. In a recent case, Bing v. Zurich Services Co., the Georgia Court of Appeals addressed whether a company hired to perform inspections…
I was looking through some case law on recent developments about intra-family exclusions and reductions when I came across the last holding of an interesting case. In the case a lady had died and her passenger children were injured when she drove through an intersection. The ex-husband had filed suit…
Public transportation is certainly a benefit, if not a necessity, for many in the Atlanta metropolitan area. However, travel on the rails or in buses, like driving in a car, is not free of risk. In a recent decision, Maloof v. Metropolitan Rapid Transit Authority, the Georgia Court of Appeals…
Although the courthouse typically serves as a venue for resolving legal disputes, occasionally it can be the setting for their creation. For instance, the Atlanta Division of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia recently addressed liability arising from a scuffle between an attorney and a…
Although lawsuits can spur public interest based simply on the parties or issues involved, attorneys can – and in some instances, do – play a role in stoking public curiosity. The permissible bounds of attorney-instigated publicity were addressed in a recent decision from the U.S. District Court for the Northern…
Although most recent conversations regarding the Fair Labor and Standards Act (“FLSA”), legislation establishing a minimum wage and other compensation rules for most U.S. employees, has focused on the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, lower federal courts on a daily basis address many questions…
Although they are designed to provide efficient and speedy financial recovery to injured employees, workers’ compensation schemes can and do occasion protracted legal battles that are not dissimilar from the tort litigation for which they were intended to substitute. Indeed, it is not uncommon, considering the amount that can be…
The first line of the Georgia Court of Appeals’ recent decision in Justice v. SCI Georgia Funeral Services Inc. (PDF-embedded link) is enough to inform the reader that what follows will be an interesting read. In short, this case arose from a funeral home mistakenly giving an empty urn to the principal…