Current Feed Content from 17 Nov 08 14:29
Carbon Monoxide Poisoning is a Winter Danger for Georgia Homeowners and Renters
Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:35:55 -0500I have represented a number of families in Columbus Georgia, Albany Georgia and Atlanta Georgia over the last few years where the heating systems malfunction and release carbon monoxide gas into the living area, poisoning the residents. Carbon monoxide is so dangerous because it is colorless and odorless, giving no warning.
Attacking the central nervous system, in low concentrations the gas makes you tired and gives you severe headaches, almost like the flu.
At higher concentrations it will knock you out in minutes. The severity of the effects are determined by the concentration and duration of the exposure. Below is an idea of what concentrations will have what effects.At 100 ppm, there is a slight headache within 2-3 hours.
At 800 ppm, the victim will feel dizzy and nauseous and begin to convulse within 45 minutes.
At 1, 600 ppm, the victim will feel the above effects within 20 minutes and can die if exposed for 2 hours.
At more severe concentrations, death can result in as little as 10 minutes.
Before the heating season in Georgia starts, you should have your heating system inspected and install a carbon monoxide detector. Look for rusting vent pipes and burners and follow the diagram above. If you have any concerns about symptoms from carbon monoxide poisoning, be sure to call a licensed inspector.
If you have any questions be sure to ask an injury lawyer that deals with carbon monoxide poisoning cases as the science is complex enough to require experts in the fields of biochemistry and engineering.
The Impact of Paying an Atlanta Georgia Car Accident Ticket
Sun, 16 Nov 2008 15:44:48 -0500Many clients have come to me explaining that even though the officer ticketed them, the crash was the other driver's fault and they wonder what they should do with the traffic ticket from the City of Atlanta.
If the injury is serious, I will take a hard look at the evidence to determine if the officer just got it wrong, and sometimes they do.For people involved in Georgia car collisions where there is an injury and the probability of a subsequent lawsuit, the outcome of the traffic ticket can be critical. People that sustain serious injuries in Atlanta should be careful with how they handle the citation they are given.
Atlanta Injury Victims Can Celebrate Another Positive Georgia Supreme Court Decision on HIPAA
Sun, 09 Nov 2008 08:39:27 -0500The Georgia Supreme Court issued a major decision last week in Moreland v. Austin which holds that HIPAA, the Federal law protecting the privacy of your medical records, preempts the Georgia State law saying that your doctors can talk to the defense attorney without your knowledge. That means that insurance defense lawyers in Georgia can no longer meet with your doctors privately and spin the truth to damage your case. This is a very positive development.
Moreland is a medical malpractice case wherein the insurance defense lawyer had met with the injured person's Atlanta doctor in an effort to hurt the Plaintiff''s case. The Supreme Court overturned the Appellate Court decision and held that unless a Plaintiff specifically grants permission, the Defense may not speak with the Plaintiff's treating doctors. The Court even went to far as to hold that "(w)e will not presume a plaintiff consented to such communications simply because the plaintiff did not object when defendant sought plaintiff’s medical records pursuant to a subpoena or request for production of documents."When I was a defense lawyer and before HIPAA came into effect, I would always set an appointment with the Plaintiff's treating and family doctors and establish a rapport. I would never fabricate things but I would certainly bring the accident photos in lower impact collisions to try to win the doctor over to my side of the argument. Now as a practicing Atlanta injury lawyer, I have had to be careful in modifying the HIPAA releases that defense lawyers send to my clients. Many insurance companies will try to get the injured person to sign a HIPAA release in the early days following the crash so that they insurance company can get access to records and documents but this is a huge mistake.
This decision by the Georgia Supreme Court clears up years of fighting and establishes a major right for litigants. The defense can still talk to your doctors but they must do it either with your lawyer present or under whatever other terms you see fit. It is nice to see HIPAA fulfilling its original purpose.
When handling an Atlanta Georgia Injury Claim, Coordinating Health Benefits Can Be Critical
Sun, 02 Nov 2008 21:03:46 -0500What are some of the pitfalls of representing yourself and not hiring an Atlanta Georgia injury attorney after you have been injured in a car accident in Georgia? One of the major challenges is how to coordinate medical care benefits.
Many people are hesitant to hire a personal injury attorney, worrying that they would have done better in their quest for just compensation without paying the lawyer one third of the recovery. It is a good analysis to go through. I have written extensively on the subject of when you need and attorney and when you don’t after a Georgia collision injury and you can see that article here. This entry will get into a real world example of the value a lawyer can bring.
New Georgia Uninsured Motorist Laws Voted in by Legislature in Atlanta
Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:57:59 -0500The Georgia legislature in Atlanta passed a sweeping change to Georgia Uninsured Motorist Insurance coverage law this past session and the law goes into effect on January 1, 2009. Most Georgia drivers should expect to see a mailing asking them to make their new selections this winter.
The change is significant and it can be confusing. Under the old scheme, you either chose to have uninsured and underinsured motorist insurance coverage or you chose to waive it. If you did have it and you were injured in a car accident in Georgia, the first inquiry was "how much insurance does the other driver have?" Let's assume the bad driver had the minimum limits of $25, 000.00 and that you had $50, 000.00 in Uninsured coverage. You would be entitled to seek the bad guys $25, 000.00 and then another $25, 000.00 from your own policy. (there are certain exceptions under which you could recover more but they involve situations where the insured had to repay certain Federal programs)
Under the new scheme as laid out in O.C.G.A. §33-7-11(b), the consumer can now make three basic choices. First you can chose to waive the coverage entirely. (bad idea) Second you can get Add-On type Uninsured Motorist Insurance Coverage. This is the best choice. Going back to the example above, if the bad guy has $25, 000.00 and you have $50, 000.00 of Add-On type Uninsured Motorist coverage then you can recover up to $75, 000.00 for a serious injury.
The final variety is Reduced Uninsured Coverage which functions exactly like the current Uninsured Motorist Insurance does in Georgia.
It is challenging, but the bottom line is that you should buy as much coverage as you can possibly afford because once the collision occurs, it is too late. I have had countless clients in my Atlanta Georgia injury law practice that are frustrated when they learn that despite sustaining a serious injury, the maximum recovery is capped by the bad guy's minimum limits policy.
Burn Injuries Occur in Atlanta Georgia More Frequently Than You Think
Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:12:50 -0500Over the last six months, my Atlanta Injury law practice has received a staggering number of calls from clients that have been burned through the negligence of others. I have represented a Decatur, Georgia woman burned at a Stone Mountain spa by hot stone therapy that resulted in second degree burns and permanent scarring; a Gainesville Georgia toddler that received skin grafts after having hot grits spilled on her hands at day care; an Atlanta Georgia woman that was burned when the drive through attendant spilled coffee on her resulting in second degree burns and permanent scarring and just this past week I spoke with a woman whose 22 month old had to receive skin grafts after the gravy at Dairy Queen spilled on them.Put simply, these companies are actively ignoring the acute danger that scalding foods and liquids pose.
Let's talk about burns for a moment. First, it is important to know that adult skin is more that 4 times as thick as a child's and therefore, a child will sustain a full thickness burn much more quickly than an adult. According to the National Burn Victim Foundation, it would take a liquid at 140 degrees 5 seconds on adult skin to cause a 3rd degree burn. On a child it would only take 1 second.A First Degree burn is painful but only involves the out layer of the skin, the epidermis.
A Second Degree burn will show blistering and can get into the reticular layer of the dermis. They can result in scarring and can require grafts when they are partial thickness burns instead of superficial only.
A Third Degree burn will cause loss of the epidermis and damage to the hypodermis. They result in scarring and can require grafts.
Burn cases, especially ones involving children, can be disturbing but that does not mean that there is always liability. Many people remember the Liebeck v. McDonalds case where the 79 year old spilled coffee on her own lap and sustained third degree burns and skin grafts. What bothered people so much about the case was the fact that she spilled it on herself. The jury focused however on McDonald's lack of concern over the 700 prior burn complaints. Restaurants increased the number and size of the warnings and a great number of cases like this no longer reach the jury.
I focus on food and liquid burn cases in Georgia where there are second acts of negligence. One example is where the store employee is the one that spills the liquid on the customer. In a such a case, the liability is clear. In the example of the day care center, the day care center owes a duty of care to the toddlers not to serve overheated foods and not to spill them on the children. As parents we all know to check the temperatures on foods before we serve them to our children.
Our laws are a fairly good reflection of the values of our society. If you spill the substance on yourself, barring some obscene temperature in excess of 200 degrees, the court will often find that the blame lies with you. On the other hand, if the substance gets on you through the negligence of others, then a jury will be sympathetic. If you want to discuss a burn case with an Atlanta injury attorney, let me know.
Atlanta Dog Bite Victims are Sometimes Dogs Too
Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:43:55 -0500An Atlanta man's dog was attacked in Piedmont Park recently and his Chau died as a result. As detailed in this article, Dog Dies After Being Attacked At Piedmont Park by a local Atlanta TV Station, this dog was viciously attacked and ultimately died of its bite wounds. This issue has received a lot of press recently and there are strong arguments to be made by dog lovers who claim that it is unfair that all that can be sought under Georgia Law is the value of the animal.
Georgia Property law has long held that animals are chattels or property and when they are injured or killed, the value of the property is what the tortfeasor owes. Over the past month, several lawsuits have brought the issue to the forefront including ones regarding owners whose pets died as a result of melamine poisoning from Chinese dog food. These owners legitimately ask, how will will dissuade this type of behavior by manufacturers when the damages are $800 at worst.
When I represented Liberty Mutual Insurance, we defended several cases involving injuries to animals and I saw the other side of the issue too. If you accidentally run over the neighbors cat, do we want these cases going to suit over the "pain and suffering" of an animal that is impossible to know because they cannot talk? Do we as a society want lawsuits in our courts with multi-thousand dollar hip operations to fix animals injured in car accidents in Atlanta?
I feel badly for the families of these animals, but I don't think the Court's can provide the solace these families seek and for now at least I do not advocate the undoing of the property status of animals.
Is the Settlement my Atlanta Injury Lawyer Obtains for Me Taxable?
Sun, 21 Sep 2008 11:53:44 -0500Assume that we tried or settled your Atlanta Car Accident Injury case and now you are trying to determine what your actual recovery will be. Many of my clients call and ask, what will I have to pay in taxes? The answer is, probably nothing. Compensation for pain and injuries is not gross income under the tax code. Generally speaking, unless you received money for punitive damages, there is no tax on the money recovered.
Under Federal Treasury Regulation § 104(a)(2) Gross Income:“Section 104(a)(2) excludes from gross income the amount of any damages received (whether by suit or agreement) on account of personal injuries or sickness. The term “damages received (whether by suit or agreement)” means an amount received (other than workmen’s compensation) through prosecution of a legal suit or action based upon tort or tort type rights, or through a settlement agreement entered into in lieu of such prosecution.”
If you have any further questions for this Atlanta Injury Lawyer, please give me a call.
Floyd County Woman stuck and Killed by Tractor Trailer while Changing Her Tire
Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:29:52 -0500A Floyd County Georgia woman was killed on I-75 in a collision with a tractor trailer while she was trying to change her tire. According to this article by Kim Sloan, Help Sought in Fatal Accident" the Serious Collision Reconstruction Team of the Georgia State Patrol is looking for eyewitnesses to the incident.
Courtney Adcock, of Shannon, Georgia near Rome, Georgia was struck and killed by a passing tractor trailer in Whitfield County while helping a friend with a disabled vehicle on the highway at at night. The SCRT unit investigates all fatality accidents on state roads and they do an excellent job of examining the evidence to determine if the trucker was at fault for the collision. In this one, it sounds like they have not made a determination of blame yet and that is the reason for the search for eyewitnesses. When I was defending tractor trailer companies, fully 30% of the fatal incidents I looked into had to do with disabled vehicles on the side of the road. Although it may seem obvious, many people with blown tires and other mechanical troubles chose to work on their vehicles or stay in their cars with tractor trailers whizzing by at 70 miles per hour and that is a terrible risk to run. The physics of an impact over 45 miles per hour are often fatal as passenger vehicles and SUVs are unable to absorb that kind of energy, especially when the mass moving at those speeds or above is close to the 80, 000lb weight of many tractor trailers.
My plea to my readers is this; if something goes wrong with your car, do not stay with it on the side of the interstate. Gather your family and move as far off the roadway as possible and then call for help. The risks of staying next to a lane of travel are astronomical and please don't even think of trying to change a tire on the interstate. Risking your life to save a $50.00 tire change fee with a wrecker service is a bad way to save money. As a tractor trailer injury attorney I would rather go broke for lack of clients than see another senselessly wasted life. These accidents can be avoided with a little common sense.
Atlanta Georgia Collisions are Frequently Filmed but Accessing the Video can Be Challenging
Sun, 24 Aug 2008 10:55:17 -0500As the number of car crashes with injuries in Atlanta, Georgia continues to rise, I am litigating more and more cases where the insurance company disputes liability and tries to scare off the injured party. This often leads to the litigation of "swearing contest" cases where there are no eyewitnesses and the jury is left to judge the credibility of the parties without further aid. What is odd about this predicament is that there are increasing numbers of cameras and yet it is very difficult to get the police and DOT to produce the records.
As any Atlanta motorist knows, there are a series of video cameras covering not only all major highways, but increasingly we are seeing video and still cameras at major intersections. Through the years, I have sent Open Records Requests and Subpoenas and the response has been "we don't record that information." The lack of access to those videos leads to needless litigation by both sides to the dispute. There are situations where the trucking company was clearly in the wrong but litigated the case because of the chance that a jury would see it their way and when I was defending insurance companies, I handled many a case where the passenger car driver was clearly at fault and the video would have exonerated the tractor trailer driver.
Albany Georgia struggles with Pros and Cons of Restricting Certain Breeds to Prevent Dog Bites
Sun, 24 Aug 2008 10:25:06 -0500I ran across this editorial on an Albany Georgia television site about dog bites and vicious dog attacks. The author tackled a difficult issue: what controls should there be on the ownership of certain breeds of dogs including Pitt Bulls, Dobermans and some strains of German Shepherd. Some of those breeds can be very aggressive to humans and can cause serious injuries when they are. According to the article, there are a number of States that are considering a ban on certain breeds.
The most interesting proposal on the piece is the bond proposal and I will tell you why it is meritorious. I have a client that was in his own yard when he was attacked by the neighbor down the road's unrestrained Pit Bull. The County where the attack occurred had leash laws and the owner was clearly in the wrong. The problem is, the owner had allegedly allowed their homeowner's insurance to lapse. We are now litigating that issue in Court but the issue is this. Many owners of aggressive dogs have no insurance and no assets to pay for injuries when they happen.
Atlanta Bicycle Riders Getting Hit by Cars at an Increased Rate
Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:26:29 -0500The number of bike riders in Buckhead and the Metro Atlanta area is increasing and so is the number of riders being hit by cars. As I was mulling over whether to ride my 10 year old Mongoose Trail Bike to work to help the environment, I ran across this Atlanta Journal Constitution article by Thomas Stinson entitled "Rookie and rusty cyclists hit streets ... and hospitals" published in late July. Mr. Stinson profiles a local rider that ended up with both elbows being fractured for his efforts at reducing his carbon signature.
All joking aside, bike riders have long know that Atlanta traffic is notoriously unfriendly to riders. There are very few dedicated lanes and none on the major thoroughfares. I used to ride from Midtown Atlanta down to the Public Defenders office on Peachtree Street downtown and remember getting nailed by several errant motorists. The only long term cure to the problem is oddly, more cyclists. The more common the practice is, the better motorists will be at avoiding collisions with them.
As you might imagine, injuries are way up due to the flood of riders. The best thing you can do as a rider is to wear your helmet, ride in the daylight and make sure that your uninsured motorist insurance is on par with your liability coverage. If you are hit by a car while riding your bike in Atlanta, Marietta or Sandy Springs and you suffer from an injury, be sure you work with an attorney that has handled bicycling cases before as their are nuances to them that a generic lawyer will not appreciate.
Speeding Tractor Trailer Fails to Stop and Crushes 3 Vehicles in Bainbridge Georgia
Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:32:42 -0500In yet another example of a tractor-trailer driver failing to follow the speed limit and keep a lookout ahead I read this article about a Bainbridge Georgia collision on Friday. In the unattributed article the local paper states that the trucker crested a hill on a rural highway and plowed into several vehicles, also striking a grandmother standing on the side of the road to walk her grandchildren home.
What infuriates me about this is how preventable this collision was. Professional drivers operate on these roads on a daily basis and know exactly what time of day school buses pass through the area. They should know better than to come flying over a hill top. That area frequently has slow moving farm equipment not to mention school buses. We can only hope that the trucker has his license revoked and the injured heal up. Lawyers that deal with trucking cases like me can only shake their heads in knowing sadness because we see the same inattention leading to tragedy again and again.Instructional Video on Handling Georgia Diminution in Value Claims
Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:07:01 -0500I am going to be producing a series of video observations on handling certain aspects of casualty claims over the next few months. Here is the first of them.
Georgia Drivers still Dying as a Result of Trucker Fatigue
Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:27:35 -0500The regulations on the number of hours a commercial truck driver can drive have been changed twice over the last 5 years but unfortunately Georgia drivers are continuing to die and suffer catastrophic injuries as a result of tractor trailer driver fatigue. The most recent study from 2005 shows that nationally 5, 212 died as a result of tractor trailer collisions. When the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration revised the rules drastically in December 2003, they sold it to the public as a safety improvement but in reality it allows truckers to driver for 11 hours straight before having to take 10 hours off! I don't know about you but I cannot maintain my focus driving for even 7 hours before I have to take an entire day off and here the government is authorizing 11 hours.
To make matters worse, the government continues to play with their numbers and in December 2007, the FMCSA released a statement saying that despite the increase in hours since 2003, deaths per mile were down. The problem with that claim is the fact that they started counting the miles driven by passenger buses, which don't make long hauls like truckers do. This had the effect of diluting the fatality numbers and making them look better.
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