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When you are in a car accident in Georgia and your car is totaled, if you are “upside down” on your loan you may have to write a big check. As part of my job, I teach my clients that Georgia law provides that a party that damages or destroys property is only responsible for the fair market value of the thing destroyed.

For example: if you own a Ford Fusion and it has a market value of $10,000.00 but you owe $11,000.00 and it is totaled in a car accident in Georgia, the other driver and his insurance company only legally owe you $10,000.00. The gap is $1,000.00 and that comes out of your pocket. The concept is that you were $1,000.00 in the hole while you drove around, it just was not a realized loss yet.

So how do you protect yourself? You buy gap insurance. You can get it through the financing bank or a dealership. It will step in and pay for the gap between the two. Gap coverage applies regardless of whether you caused the crash and your car insurance is paying to total it or if another driver totaled the car.

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Thank you to everyone that put in their edits and comments on the cover. The Georgia Guide to Buying Car Insurance and Handling Car Accident Claims has gone to press and will be up for sale on Amazon just after the New Year! I put a lot of work into this guide and I think it will really help out Georgia Consumers. Continue reading

As an car accident lawyer and a former tractor trailer insurance defense lawyer, I have worked around fatality car accidents for most of my professional life. I have arrived at crash scenes with bodies being removed in pieces and reviewed photos that no one should ever have to see. A lawyer knows that working on these cases and getting to know the families profoundly affects them professionally, but these experiences can also affect the lawyer’s driving.There was a great article in the December 2009 issue of Men’s Health called Dead Man Driving regarding collisions and I thought I would discuss their points and add to it my own impressions.

I view safe driving as 40% your actual driving skill, 40% your decisions on what and when to drive and 20% blind luck. There is nothing we can do about blind luck so we will focus on the other two categories.

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I am preparing to file suit in a case involving a complex analysis of the proper parties to bring the case. Georgia has a complicated set of statutes that lay out the family’s rights after a wrongful death. There are two claims under Georgia wrongful death law; the claims by the remaining family members for the value of the life lost and the claim by estate of the victim. These are two completely separate claims although the claim for the value of the life lost tends to be the one focused on the most by juries.

Typically the right to file the suit for the wrongful death follows a strict statutory order:

1) If there is only a spouse, they hold the claim. see O.C.G.A. §51-4-2
2) If there is a spouse and children, then the spouse brings the claim but shares the proceeds equally with the children.
3) If there is no spouse, it is held equally by any children.
4) If none of the above, then the claim is held by the parents of the victim. O.C.G.A. §19-7-1
5) If there is none of the above, it gets complicated.

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We recently got a call from a client who had been hit from behind by a tractor trailer after midnight on the highway. His truck was knocked into a ditch and he sustained multiple fractures that required surgery. That would seem like an open and shut case right? Wrong, and that is where an experienced Georgia tractor trailer accident lawyer can make a world of difference.

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The Georgia Insurance Commissioner’s Office released a directive last December to all of the insurance companies reminding them that when evaluating Diminution in Value, they cannot simply cite the Mabry v. State Farm decision and declare that their formula is gospel. The directive can be found by clicking here.

I frequently have clients ask me how to handle their diminished value claims and have even shot a video on how to handle diminution in value claims in Georgia. The most frequent response that consumers get from the insurers is “sorry but we use the State approved formula” and that is a corruption of the law. This directive makes it clear that each case is different and the Insurance Commissioner has not endorsed any particular diminution formula. If you are arguing with the insurance company and they cite the formula from the Mabry case, be sure to email them this directive.

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 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.

My family was in a rear-end collision on I-85 on the way home from Virginia last weekend. We were struck by a driver who did not notice that there was construction ahead and two lanes were merging into one. Thankfully we are all “ok” but this crash illustrates one of the most dangerous road operations around. Continue reading

You can fire your Georgia lawyer at any time. After an injury you may hire what you think is the best lawyer in Atlanta and you later come to find out they are a blockhead. So, the question is “can I fire my car accident lawyer?” Is the party over for your lousy lawyer?

As the client, you have a great deal of power, limited only by the contract you sign. For a typical injury lawyer, their contract will provide that they recover a percentage of the the amount they get for you. This is a contingency fee contract. In the contract, it will outline what happens if you fire the firm. Georgia law provides that if you fire the injury lawyer before an offer is made on the case, you owe them for the actual time they put into the case, quantum meruit, as well as any expenses they put up on your behalf. In other words, you have to pay for the their time on the case. If there is already an offer on the table, most contingency contracts provide that the lawyer is entitled to their percentage of the offer on the table. The idea here is that it is not fair to use the lawyer to get the offer and then turn around and try to screw them.

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More than a year after the injury and months of litigation, we mediated and settled a Georgia car accident case for a client yesterday and the client commented to me, “I had no idea it would take this long to settle my case.” While it used to be the exception that a case would go into litigation, it is becoming more and more common due to changing insurance company tactics. The most frequently cited statistics show that 90% of cases settle before trial, but that does not mean they do not get litigated. Many clients want to know “how long will it take to settle my case in Georgia?” Lets go through the steps of a injury case.

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