Atlanta Injury Attorney Blog

Several weeks ago you may recall I wrote a piece decrying the decision making on a number of cases involving Geico insurance. While I am outspoken when I see injustice, it is only fair to also recognize improvement.

In the DUI case that I described, Geico went on to reverse their liability decision and has now taken care of the property damage that the clients sustained at the hands of the drunk driver. What happens with the husbands injured shoulder remains to be seen but for now the universe is back in order and functioning as it should for that family.

On the case involving two carpal tunnel surgeries that I mentioned was getting close to trial with a totally unfair offer in light of the jury value, Geico also reassessed the situation and ended up doing the right thing and resolving the claim. Do I wish for the client’s sake that they had done this a year ago? Absolutely, but as I said earlier, in the field of injury law justice delayed is still better than no justice at all.

The motorcycle case was put into litigation two weeks ago and we are now waiting for the defense to file an answer. Whether the adjuster on that file is given the latitude to better assess the risk remains to be seen but as the old song says, “two out of three ain’t bad.”

I do not inherently believe that first tier insurance companies are evil as some of my brothers at the bar do, but they can go through periods where their decision making is profoundly obtuse.

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Because we are known to handle a lot of slip and fall claims in the Atlanta area, we get frequent calls from people with fractured ankles, concussions and compression fractures.My clients are generally conservative Georgians who would not ordinarily think of filing a claim, much less calling a lawyer. Suddenly they find themselves looking at an unwelcome surgery. Most folks don’t want to make a claim if they are reaching, they just want to know what their rights are. This is especially true when the way the fall happened was preventable had the owner been paying attention and taking care of business.

So, the question arises; what are you rights when you seriously hurt yourself in a slip and fall? If it is just a mildly sprained ankle or something equally minor, use common sense and don’t make a big deal out of it. Stuff happens, move on. On the other hand, if you broke a bone and it was not your own fault, a thinking person will make a further inquiry into their rights.

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Georgia Semi truck crashes devastate families and yet year after year, some tractor trailer companies push their drivers well beyond their capacity as “big box” companies squeeze the drivers down to the penny on their margins. All of this downward price pressure creates a deadly combination of tired truck drivers and worn out equipment. The DOT is spread thin and relies on traffic enforcement to pull drivers off the road and that system typically misses 99% of the violators.

After spending seven years defending semi truck drivers and trucking insurance companies after serious crashes, we formed our firm to represent the victim’s families. Civil law attorneys are not effective in prosecuting cases on behalf of victims unless there are bright and experienced lawyers representing the families. If you are reading this article after a family member has been hit by a tractor trailer in Georgia, there are some key things you should know.

Hire a Georgia Semi Truck Crash Lawyer Early

Hiring a trucking lawyer early on will drastically increase your success rate because without a thorough investigation, evidence will disappear. Even though many families are in the middle of the grieving or healing process, for serious cases, it is essential that you hire a semi truck crash law firm immediately.

A case we recently took in is illustrative. We are handling a case involving a gentleman rear-ended on the interstate by a tractor trailer. He sustained a fractured shoulder and has undergone two surgeries to repair the clavicle. Without critical recordings from the 911 call center we would have been unable to prove that the truck driver was lying about not seeing the victim prior to the crash. If we had been contacted 2 months later, the evidence would have been gone. In Georgia, police departments only retain 911 records for a certain period of time, often only 90 days. If the request for the records is not received in a timely fashion, the records can be overwritten.

Skid marks and yaw marks get washed away within a week of the crash in most cases and the paint marks from the SCRT (Georgia State Patrol Serious Collision Reconstruction Team) unit will wash off within months. Witnesses move away and forget. Most importantly, operational documents from the trucking company can be destroyed and without a strong spoliation letter from the trucking lawyers, it is more difficult to argue that the trucking company should have retained the records beyond the six months required by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.

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If you read our Georgia Car Accident Guide book, you know that it does not make much sense to hire a Georgia injury lawyer for a case with $3,000.00 or less in medical bills. So lets assume that you followed the do it yourself guide in our book and now the insurance company is being ridiculous and is offering less than the medical bills. The only remaining option is to file suit.

Do understand that the other driver is going to get a free lawyer to defend them if they have insurance and that puts you at a serious disadvantage. Sometimes however, filing suit on your own will get you an increase on the offer. With small cases, you should file in the Georgia Magistrate Court for the County where the defendant lives. The Magistrate Court is small claims court and only handles cases seeking under $15,000.00.

Key Points to remember:

1) Sue the other driver, not the insurance company.
2) Sue in their home county or review our article on Georgia venue and personal jurisdiction requirements.
3) Make sure you keep an eye on the Georgia statute of limitations on injury claims.
4) Make sure the sheriff actually serves the defendant. Failure to serve kills the case.
5) Keep the complaint (document that starts the lawsuit) simple. What did the other driver do wrong. What did it do to you and how much were the bills. (submit the gross amount of the medical bills)

If it proceeds all the way to trial, keep in mind you may get overwhelmed on a technical defense.

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A large number of my clients come to my after firing their first injury lawyer. We recently wrote an article addressing the questions:

1) Can you fire your injury lawyer and hire another one?

2) What do you have to pay them if you do?

On July 1, 2010 Georgia’s new texting while driving ban became law.With the words “No person shall operate a motor vehicle while using a wireless device to write, send, read any text based communication” we will hopefully see a reduction in the number of Georgia car accidents.addition to banning all drivers from texting while driving, the law bans teens under 18 from even talking on a cell phone while driving. Named for a Georgia teenager who died while texting and driving, the new law calls for a $150 fine and one point added to the offender’s driver’s license.
The head if the US DOT already banned texting and driving for bus and tractor trailer operators in January. The U.S. DOT estimates that in 2008 alone 500,000 drivers were injured in car accidents caused by distracted driving and another 6,000 died. Enforcement will present its own unique headache as Georgia joins 19 other states with a texting ban but some states like New Jersey have successfully prosecuted drivers. New Jersey told NPR that its officers are writing 10,000 tickets a month. Talk about a revenue stream!

There is no doubt that cell phones and texting while driving are major distractions to the average driver and even though the ban won’t completely fix the problem, it is a step in the right direction. As a practicing Georgia car accident lawyer I know that more than 30% of the crashes I review involve cell phone use of some type. For a client of mine struck in the rear by a teenager on a cell phone on June 30th, the law did not come quickly enough.

In a frustrating decision, the Georgia Court of Appeals has ruled that the Georgia Dramshop Act , OCGA §51-1-40, does not apply to convenience stores or vendors where the alcohol will not be served on the premises. Flores v. Exprezit A10A0703 (2010). Continue reading

According to a new study in the journal, Pediatrics, if a person is able to tense up their neck muscles, they may be able to minimize the whipsaw effect on the head and thereby reduce the incidence of concussion. Although the study was conducted on hockey player impacts, it has obvious implications for people involved in car accidents.

The study conducted by Jason Mihalik with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill involved attaching accelerometers to ice hockey players’ heads. The device would measure the degree of acceleration experienced by the player on impact. They then compared the video of the hit to the recorded data to determine whether the player was prepared for ht hit or not. The conclusion was that if the player is prepared and can brace their neck for impact, they lessen the acceleration of the head and the resulting movement of the brain.

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A neighbor of mine came to me for help after she fractured her tooth on a pebble that was in a salad she ordered at a local Mexican restaurant. Typically, these cases can be resolved with the insurance company for the restaurant fairly easily, but in this case my neighbor is not litigious and naively thought the restaurant would just voluntarily pay for the damage the rock caused. Two years later with the statute of limitations about to run out, she finally came to me with over $9,000.00 in dental bills for a root canal and a new implant saying the insurer would not respond.

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Over the last two to three years it has become clear that Geico Insurance has changed course and in certain cases has adopted a policy of denying valid claims and delaying payment to deserving Georgia car accident victims. The latest case that the firm took in illustrates the untenable positions that some Geico adjusters are being asked to take.

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