Atlanta Injury Attorney BlogSo you may have read our previous post about the Beneke v. Parker decision that confirmed that the 2 year statute of limitations on car accident claims in Georgia is extended for the number of days after the crash that it takes to resolve the traffic ticket. One of the other lawyers came to me with a new client the other day and even though the crash is four years old he claimed that the police records showed that the defendant had not shown up for the hearing and therefore a FTA (failure to appear) warrant had issued.
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Failure to Give Notice on a Georgia Uninsured Motorist Insurance Policy
In an earlier post about Mercury Insurance’s Motion for Summary Judgment claiming that their insured had failed to give timely notice within 60 days of a catastrophic crash, I promised I would post the briefs and so here they are. Hope they are helpful. The names have been altered for privacy reasons.
Georgia Insurance Companies and Injury Claims: The Good the Bad and Ugly
Its been a mixed bag the last two weeks for dealing with accident insurance companies in Georgia. Friends and potential clients alike often wonder what their options are with injury claims. The best way to answer that is through a number of examples that illustrate what we do week to week.
Don’t Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Your Georgia Uninsured Motorist Insurance Company Has Counsel, Do You?
We have previously warned about the hidden traps that exist when you try to do it yourself on a significant case and in this post we will examine the battle over an existing case. A client came to the firm more than 60 days after his car accident and it does not appear that he ever told his own car insurance company about the crash. In this particular case, the client has substantial injuries including a fractured pelvis with surgery and over $400,000 in medical bills. The at fault driver only has $50,000 dollars in insurance, so the clients $25,000 in underinsured motorist insurance is important for the client’s recovery.
In Georgia Car Accident Cases, Getting Medical Records into Evidence Just Got Easier in Georgia
The coming of the New Year brings hope for millions and in Georgia it also brought along a seismic shift in the evidence code that means that the plaintiff’s prior and post accident medical records are now coming into evidence and going out with the jury. For the uninitiated, laws come from two places; 1) the code (voted on laws) and 2) case law (the accreted body of decisions about the law from the appellate courts).
Wrongful Death Attorneys Point to Raquel Nelson Case as Example of Broken System
As a law firm that handles numerous pedestrian wrongful death and injury cases, we see the issue of a lack of pedestrian rights over and over again. The tragic case of the death of AJ Nelson and the prosecution of his mother bring these issues to the forefront, where they belong.
Georgia Crashes and Florida Uninsured Motorist Policies; Whose Law Applies?
One of the trickier parts of practicing car accident insurance law comes when the lawyer has to analyze “choice of law” issues, that is lawyer speak for how do you decide which State’s law applies when a case involves multiple states. So how do analyze a situation?
First, the Georgia Ground Rules for Contracts:
The remedies laid out by the contract are controlled by the law of the forum (“lex fori”) which is the place where the lawsuit is filed. Race to the Court for this one people.
How to Settle Your Soft Tissue Injury Car Accident Case for Top Dollar While Paying Reasonable Fees
We would all rather live in a world where lawyers were not necessary for car accidents, but the simple fact is that insurance carriers are so aggressive in their handling of legitimate cases that attorneys are a necessity in many situations. What is the best way to settle your Atlanta car accident injury claim for top dollar then?
Trying a Car Accident Case to a Conservative Jury in Gwinnett County
I spent the past week trying a car accident case in Gwinnett County and am writing to give you an overview of some of the nuances in presenting an injury case to a conservative jury.
The word on the street is that Gwinnett has been growing more and more diverse over the last few years. As Gwinnett’s Hispanic, Asian and African American population has grown, so have their numbers in jury pools. I tried a case in Gwinnett in April last year and had a 6 person white and 6 person other jury. That is not always going to be the case though as our trial this past week demonstrated.
Our client was a 22 year old black female from Southeast Atlanta. She is intelligent and well spoken but works in a case based hair styling business with no tax records. She was a passenger in a vehicle driven by her best friend when a HVAC van turned left across her path a 8:15 AM on the drive to work. The driver of the HVAC van was ticketed but plead Nolo so the outcome of the ticket did not come into evidence. The Defense hired an expert reconstructionist to tell the jury that the crash was caused by the driver of the Plaintiff’s vehicle, claiming that she was not paying attention and that the crash could have been avoided. We did not hire a recon as liability seemed clear to us and their recon was a awful in our opinion.
Turned Down by a Lawyer, Should You Try With a Different Lawyer?
What if I am seriously injured but I got the ticket? Will a lawyer take the case? We finished settling two cases for clients who were turned down by a well know TV lawyer here in Atlanta and the clients were very pleased with the outcome. This begs the question, if your lawyer has turned the case down, is it worth talking to another lawyer?