We have had a number of calls from people in Atlanta hurt in car accidents recently where they receive phone calls from runners after the crash. As we discussed previously “runners” are scumbags hired by some lawyers and chiropractors to drive business to their practices. They sometimes claim to be a referral service and sometimes they are calling on behalf of a specific chiropractic clinic. What they all share in common is a sleaze factor a mile wide. These people cannot get business in a legitimate fashion so they resort to taking advantage of confused consumers.
The call I received on Friday was from a school teacher in the Cobb County School system who had received two different calls from runners. One was from a man who claimed to work with the “Marietta Injury Center”. (realize that they make a lot of these names up so don’t assume that they work for a legit business with a similar name) He advised her that he was calling to help her get medical attention. She asked if the clinic was a chiropractic office and he assured her that it was not. She then looked the clinic up on the web and realized it was a chiropractic office. That’s when she decided to call our law offices and we have advised her to continue her medical care with her primary care physician and the orthopedist suggested by the hospital.
I explained to her that these people hang around police stations and buy police reports so that they call call the driver that did not receive a traffic ticket and direct them to sleazy lawyers and doctors. They are usually paid a fee by whomever they send the case to. This practice is illegal in Georgia but, unfortunately it is very common.
We have seen multiple cases where people have been approached by law office agents while in the hospital at Grady and AMC. If someone comes up to your hospital bed and tries to get you to hire a lawyer on the spot, call the State Bar of Georgia immediately as this is illegal in Georgia.
For an article detailing how this practice functions on a macro scale, read this article on a case runner from Texas.
If someone calls you on the phone after a car accident offering medical or legal referrals often with names like “Peachtree Injury Helpline” and “Atlanta Injury Referral Service” run the other direction. No one should be calling you after a car accident except the car insurance companies. Help to stamp these people out by reporting them to the State Bar of Georgia as soon as possible and if you have a serious injury, at least discuss the case with an experienced lawyer.
Just to update this article on the “case runner” problem in Georgia, I received multiple calls from clients in 2024 stating they had bee contacted by Arrowhead Clinics and a guy calling himself Alvin Wood with Citywide Legal Referrals. These people are calling our client the day after the crash which means they are paying off whomever is doing the data entry on the police report.