Personal Injury & Wrongful Death

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 a mentally ill patient, it can readily be seen that such an occurrence could be extremely devastating to the victim and his or her family. The question is how to best deal with such a situation from a legal standpoint when such a case is brought to the attention of an attorney.

Here at Finch McCranie we have seen many unfortunate cases where patients have been raped and sodomized at health care facilities. We have had cases where patients have been raped by other patients who were not properly supervised and/or situations where patients were raped by employees of the staff of the health care provider. In the latter situation, one of the best legal remedies available to the innocent victim is to file a claim against the employer for negligent hiring and retention of the sexual predator/employee.

An employer has a duty to exercise ordinary care not to hire or retain an employee the employer knew or should have known poses a risk of harm to others where it is reasonably foreseeable from the employee’s “tendencies” or “propensities” that the employee could cause the type of harm sustained by the victim. Thus, if an employer knew or in the exercise of ordinary care should have known that an employee hired and retained to perform duties involving personal contact with medicated or vulnerable patients was unsuitable for that position because he or she posed a reasonably foreseeable risk of personal harm to patients then, in that event, the employer can be held legally liable for having negligently hired and retained the unsuitable employee.

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 police officers began a high speed pursuit of the suspect which ended with deadly results. Even though the Clayton County Police Department policy does not allow for high speed pursuits of misdemeanor offenders, nonetheless, the Police Department has publicly come out in defense of its officers claiming that the pursuit was justified under the circumstances.
There is a way that the Clayton County Board of Commissioners can protect its tax payers and save lives at the same time. The Board of Commissioners should restrict police pursuits to cases involving violent crimes. Unless the fleeing suspect is known to be violent or known to have committed a violent felony, it hardly makes sense to pursue non-violent suspects at high speeds particularly when it is foreseeable that innocent third parties can be killed. If the Board of Commissioners investigates this incident, it should find that a restrictive policy would have protected these women and that there would be no unnecessary loss of life caused by a restrictive policy.
It simply is not worth taking a human life to capture someone for soliciting a prostitute. The need to immediately apprehend the suspect in this case was clearly outweighed by the danger of the chase to the public. And yet, as long as the police department allows its officers to chase under circumstances whenever they individually deem it appropriate, the public will be at risk. Rather than relying upon the judgment of an officer involved in a high speed pursuit, where his adrenalin is pumping and where his judgment may be altered by the natural desire to apprehend a suspect, the Clayton County Police Department should adopt a restrictive police policy which does not allow the public to be exposed to risk of serious injury or death unless a potentially dangerous chase is justified. In our judgment, the only chase that is ever warranted is where the police are pursuing someone for a violent felony. Under such circumstances, the danger to the public posed by the suspect is equal to the danger caused by the chase itself. For non-violent offenses, the dangers presented by the chase will typically always exceed the danger presented by non-violent suspect. We hope the Board of Commissioners will save lives and adopt a restrictive policy. If not the public is at risk, the officer chasing the suspect is a risk and yes, even the non-violent suspect is at risk. Again, the death penalty to the innocent is not worth capturing a “John” in a solicitation case. This may very will happen again if the policy is not changed.

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 1988 Toyota Camry traveling north on Mike Padgett Highway. The host driver of the Toyota apparently attempted to turn left onto Clark Road and was struck by two vehicles traveling southbound. The southbound vehicles struck the passenger side of Toyota, trapping Clark in the vehicle. After he was extricated by emergency workers, he was taken to the Medical College of Georgia where he was pronounced dead. According to authorities, alcohol could have been a factor in the accident.
Under Georgia law, a host driver may be liable to the estate of a guest passenger, if the host driver’s negligence caused the death. Unfortunately, most people driving around Georgia’s roads do not have sufficient coverage to satisfy a judgment in a wrongful death case. For that reason, it is important to look to see if a third party may be liable. For instance, if the host driver of Clark’s car had been drinking it would be important to determine who provided alcohol to the driver. Until 1988, Georgia had no statute imposing liability upon bars or other commercial providers of alcoholic beverages for injuries or damages which resulted from the drunk driving of the person served. In fact, the Georgia courts had consistently held that the provider of alcohol could not be liable for the drunk driver’s misdeeds. In other words, they were insulated from liability. However, in 1985, the Georgia Supreme Court, in Sutter v. Hutchings, imposed, for the first time, liability upon the provider of alcoholic beverages for the consequences of the consumer’s drunk driving. Now, a commercial vendor of alcohol, such as a bar, who serves adult guests who are “noticeably intoxicated” at the time they are served may be liable to innocent third parties who are seriously injured or killed in an automobile accident. The Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 51-1-40(b) states that a provider of alcohol may be liable where he 1) willfully, knowingly, and unlawfully sells, furnishes, or serves alcoholic beverages to a person not of lawful drinking age, knowing that such a person will soon be driving a motor vehicle, or 2) knowingly sells, furnishes, or serves alcoholic beverages to a person who is in a state of noticeable intoxication, knowing that such person will soon be driving a motor vehicle.
If your loved one has died as a result of the negligence of a drunk or impaired driver, call the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP for a free consultation. We have over forty years experience handling wrongful death cases.

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 down”. In other words, the police will say, as they always do, that they were not “in pursuit” at the time of the collision. Oh yes, they often contend they had “terminated the pursuit” by the time of the fatal crash. Trying now to put as much distance between the pursuing officer and the crash, they say the officer didn’t even see the collision! I wonder whether the police videotape will bear this out or whether it will mysteriously disappear as it does in so many police chase cases. We see the same lame excuses for bad police conduct over and over. Where was the pursuing police officers supervisor in all of this. Did he radio the speeding officer and tell him to back off or terminate the chase or did he not hear such commands, if made.Will this be another case where the radio was not working properly? In handling many of these police chase cases, we discovered a woman whose own innocent daughter was killed as a result of a police chase case. She has a website which every citizen should check out. http://pursuitsafety.org/index.html She posts the photograph of every innocent victim of police chases. When you see the faces of some of the thousands of innocent victims who have lost their livesas a result of “cowboy” police chases over misdemeanor criminal offenses and traffic offenses, you can see why the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP feel passionate about these cases.
If you have a loved one that has been killed as a result of a police chase, the experienced Georgia police chase lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP would be more than happy to discuss the rights you have to pursue justice. Call us at (404) 658-9070 or toll free at (800) 228-9159.

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. Hill Sportswear and the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall of the sweatshirts in February of this year.

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 prostitute. When they attempted to detain them, the men took off and the police took off in hot pursuit putting innocent citizens at risk of serious injury or death. During the course of the police chase which began in Clayton County and ended in Fulton County, two innocent women were killed when the fleeing suspects slammed head-on into the women’s car. Is it worth imposing the death sentence on innocent citizens to catch two men who have allegedly propositioned a prostitute? I am sure that the families of the two innocent victims don’t think so and most rational people don’t either. Maybe when the counties employing these officers get hit with large enough verdicts, they will either change their chase/pursuit policies or enforce the ones on the books.
If you have lost loved ones as a result of police officers negligently chasing fleeing suspects over minor offenses such as soliciting a prostitute, traffic offenses or misdemeanor criminal offenses, call the Atlanta Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP. We have been representing the families of innocent police chase victims in wrongful death lawsuits for years and have substantial experience handling such cases. For a free consultation call us at 800 228-9159.

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 mention of banks, Wall Street groups, and insurance companies whose interests the Chamber is seeking to protect.

The ads are aimed at the administration’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would regulate consumer products including mortgages and credit cards, some of the areas which were unregulated for years and led directly to the economic disaster the country is now facing. It would have the power to ban certain practices and require financial firms to offer loans with simple terms and clear disclosure.

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 the ridiculous 1994 sworn testimony of the tobacco industry CEO’s to Congress that “nicotine is not addictive”, this jury found otherwise.
Losing a loved one is difficult especially when that loss is due to the negligence of another person or persons. Finch McCranie, LLP has over 40 years experience pursuing wrongful death lawsuits. If you have lost a loved one and feel you have a wrongful death claim, call our experienced Georgia injury lawyers at 1-800-228-9159 for a free consultation of your case.

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;

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 damages to the daughter of a smoker who died of lung cancer. According to the original lawsuit, the cigarette maker misrepresented the risk of smoking in its advertising. In 2002, a jury awarded $28 million to the plaintiff. That award was later reduced and eventually thrown out prior to the most recent trial. The deceased plaintiff who was 64 at the time of the original trial had smoked since she was 17. According to her lawyer, Philip Morris misrepresented the risks of smoking for 50 years.
The Georgia injury law firm of Finch McCranie, LLP have over 40 years experience pursuing wrongful death lawsuits. If you have lost a loved one and feel you have a wrongful death claim, call our experienced attorneys at 1 (800) 228-9159 for a free consultation.