Finch McCranie, LLP

Sexual Predators in the Workplace

Many employment lawyers are confronted with hostile environment claims where managers exploit their positions to seek sexual favors from employees working underneath them. Such an employment case obviously involves sexual harassment but is entirely different and generally far less devastating to a victim when a sexual predator is hired by an employer and is allowed to gain access to vulnerable victims through their jobs. As an example, if a mental health facility hires someone unsuitable for a position and that person takes sexual advantage of
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Board of Commissioners To Conduct Independent Investigation of Fatal High Speed Chase

From newspaper accounts it appears that the Board of Commissioners of Clayton County may conduct an independent investigation into a police chase which resulted in the wrongful death of two innocent women who were returning from bible study when a pickup truck fleeing from a Clayton County police officer slammed into their vehicle on Old National Highway in Atlanta. The deadly pursuit began when the police noticed a suspect allegedly soliciting a prostitute. Even though this is a misdemeanor and a minor offense, Clayton County
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Georgia Man’s Wrongful Death- Was Alcohol A Factor?

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have handled many wrongful death lawsuits where alcohol was a factor in causing or contributing to our client’s death. Some of these cases have involved our representation of a guest passenger who was killed as a result of the negligence of the host driver. Such could have been the case on Friday evening when an Augusta, Georgia man, Earl Clark, died in an accident on Mike Padgett Highway. Clark was the passenger of a
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Clayton County Police Chase Resulting in Wrongful Death of Two Innocent Victims Is an Outrage

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have sued a number of police departments around the State of Georgia for the wrongful death of innocent citizens caused by police chases. Our experience has shown that following a high speed pursuit, the police begin immediately to plan their defense. We have already seen this in last week’s outrageous police chase in Clayton County. The police have told reporters that the officer had already slowed down “hoping that the fleeing suspect would slow
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Dangerous Drawstrings In Children Clothing

Our Atlanta product liability attorneys have represented parents of children killed and seriously injured by dangerous products.
Drawstrings in hooded sweatshirts have been long recognized as a danger to small children. There have been many reports of children strangled after the drawstrings have been accidently caught in various devices. Some of these incidents have resulted in death.
In November 2008, a 3-year-old boy died in Fresno, Calif., when the drawstring on his Hill Sportswear hooded sweatshirt became stuck on a playground set strangling him.
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Clayton County Georgia Police Chase Leads To Wrongful Death of Two Innocent Victims

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have several wrongful death lawsuits pending against various police departments throughout the state. They all involve police chases.They all involve police officers violating their own department policy with respect to police chases. They all involve the wrongful death of innocent victims and several involve the Clayton County Police. Will they ever get the message? Yesterday, Clayton County Police officers saw two men in a pickup truck appear to solicit a known
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Big Business Trys To Derail Financial Reform

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is again launching an attempt to protect its mega business members at the expense of ordinary U.S. citizens. The Chamber has been at the forefront in attempts to mislead Americans about a multitude of issues which affect millions of people, all to protect the profits of its controlling members. Now, the Chamber is rolling out an advertising campaign of at least $2 million aimed at defeating a central plank of the Obama administration’s financial-regulation overhaul.
But there won’t be any
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$5.3 MILLION WRONGFUL DEATH AWARD IN SMOKER’S DEATH

A Florida jury awarded a 92-year-old man over $5.3 million in his wrongful death lawsuit against Phillip Morris, the cigarette maker according to The Miami Herald. The man’s wife died in 1996 at the age of 63 from lung cancer after smoking 2 packs of Marlboro’s a day since she was 16-years of age. The apparent theory of the case was that the tobacco industry, including Philip Morris, misrepresented the risk of smoking in its advertising and knowingly sold a product which was addictive. Notwithstanding

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Google Alerts Demonstrate Dangers of Police Chases

If you go on Google and take advantage of a tool known as “Google News Alerts,” Google will send to you via e-mail news accounts in which certain terms are used. I typed in today the terms “police chase killed.” The following are headlines received from newspapers across the country which I received from this Google News Alert:
1) Victim In Police Chase Remembered as Caring Mom;
2) Woman Killed In Crash During Oakland Police Chase;
3) Toddler Killed In Police Chase;
4) One Man
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Wrongful Death Verdict For $13.8 Million Against Cigarette Maker

Georgia injury lawyers have not forgotten the sworn testimony the CEO’s of all of the major tobacco companies gave Congress a few years ago. Who could forget when these prominent men raised their right hands and swore that “Nicotine is not addictive”. Apparently a jury has not forgotten their testimony. Bloomberg reported that in a wrongful death case, a California jury has ordered Altria Group, Inc., the parent company of Philip Morris USA, maker of Marlboro cigarettes to pay $13.8 million in punitive
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In An Accident While Traveling Out Of Town: What Law Controls?

We are often called by clients who have traveled through the Atlanta area only to be the unfortunate victim of a third party’s negligence. Calls usually come from those in car accidents or tractor-trailer collisions. Sometimes a slip and fall is involved or a defective product. These innocent persons sometimes are hospitalized following the incident in Georgia and then sent back to their home states for follow up treatment. When they reach out to an attorney the usually are being overwhelmed with medical
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Wrongful Death Cases: Who Has The Claim?

It is not unusual for our firm to be contacted by family members who are bereaved over the death of a close family relative. Oftentimes the individual is killed through the negligence of a third party and the family member simply wants to understand the law that pertains to the claim. Sometimes, however, family members can get in an argument among themselves as to who has the right to pursue the claim for the wrongful death. While Georgia, like many states, has a statutory scheme
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Structured Settlements In Serious Injury Cases

In any serious injury case involving permanent or lifetime injuries, careful consideration should be given to whether a structured settlement should be part of any settlement of such a case. A structured settlement agreement is a device whereby if the overall lump sum amount can be agreed upon, a certain percentage of it can be set aside and invested in an annuity that will pay benefits over the victim’s lifetime, usually on a monthly basis. Such benefits are extremely important for people who are disabled because it provides them a safety net and allows them to pay rent and other necessary living expenses as they grow older. Particularly in those cases where a victim is incapacitated and unable to work, a structured settlement agreement can provide a lifetime of revenue for necessary living expenses.

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Hospital And Medical Liens: What Should A Victim Do?

In a serious injury case the victim is usually overwhelmed with medical expenses, lost wages, terrible pain and suffering, and a total disruption in their personal, family and home life. If they are fortunate enough to have good counsel and they are fortunate enough to get a good settlement from the third party responsible for inflicting the injuries upon them, it will not be uncommon for such a victim to have to deal with a host of medical lien issues. The most common medical liens
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Implantable Defibrillators Frequently Used In Inappropriate Cases

More than 20% of patients who received an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator — a high-tech device that produces electrical impulses to regulate heartbeats and prevent life-threatening arrhythmias — in recent years were not good candidates to receive the device, a new study suggests.
Researchers at Duke University looked at more than 111,000 patients who received ICD implants between 2006 and 2009. More than 25,000 of those patients did not meet evidence-based criteria for receiving the device, according to the study.
The risk of dying in the hospital
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Inhalers Recalled Due To Mislabeling

The Food and Drug Administration is also concerned that hospital, med-center and emergency patients may be given the higher dose, as correctly labeled outer packaging is generally discarded.
Health care providers seeing only the mislabeled bottle would be very likely to give the wrong dose, especially since the two solution strengths are distilled in equal sized bottles. The .05 mg/3 ml bottles look just like the 2.5 mg./ 3 ml bottles. Only the strength differs.
Albuterol Sulfate Inhalation is sold in single use dosage bottles,
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Subrogation Claims In Personal Injury Cases

In car accidents, tractor-trailer accidents, medical malpractice or other serious injury cases, in the event a settlement is reached, there is always the possibility of a subrogation claim being asserted by a third party against the settlement proceeds. Subrogation claims are usually claims held by insurance carriers that have paid medical benefits. The victim who was injured by the negligent truck driver, for example, may have incurred hundreds of thousands in medical bills for expensive surgery. If a third party health insurance carrier pays these
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Food-Borne Safety Bill Signed But in Trouble

Each year, according to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, 48 million people, that is one in six Americans, are sickened by food-borne illnesses. Of those, 180,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die.
The first major overhaul of the nation’s food-safety infrastructure since 1938 was signed into law yesterday by President Obama.
The Food Safety Modernization Act moves the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) away from its early-20th-century role of responding to adulterated food to a more modern one of requiring companies
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Electric Adjustable Beds Singled Out For Dangers

Electric adjustable beds have been singled out for causing serious injuries and death. Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to Invacare Corp. for failing to report and address malfunctions with its electric beds, including electronics that allegedly caught on fire causing injury and death.
The FDA posted a warning letter to the Ohio-based company Tuesday morning. Invacare makes a variety of medical equipment, including wheelchairs, oxygen tanks and electric beds.
In its Dec. 15 warning letter, the FDA said the company
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Settlement Releases In Personal Injury Cases

Anytime a serious injury case is settled for a particular amount of money, the insurance company for the at fault third party involved will insist on a Release of all claims, not only against their insured responsible for the damages but also for the insurance company issuing the check on their behalf. This is standard as part of any serious injury or personal injury case whereby monies are paid as consideration for a settlement. In all such cases, counsel should be conferred with because the
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