Personal Injury

Catastrophic Brain and Spinal Cord Injuries – Where Is The Safety Net? – Time For Universal Health Care?

Today we had the father of a young man in his early twenties come in to the office. His son was involved in an automobile accident and sustained serious injuries to his spine. It appears that he will be paralyzed for life from the waist down. The young man’s medical bills far exceed the liability insurance coverage, the hospital has filed a lien which will consume all of the available liability coverage and, to make matters worse, the young man has no health insurance.
Last
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Insurers’ Profits Continue To Skyrocket

Insurance companies continue to profit at the expense of their policyholders and Georgia’s serious automobile and truck injury victims. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported today that property and casualty insurers’ profits are continuing to sky rocket. Allstate Insurance Company reported a record $5 billion profit for 2006. State Farm Insurance’s profit climbed 65% for the year. St. Paul/Travelers earnings rose six fold in the fourth quarter and American International Groups rose eight fold.
There are several reasons for these huge profits. First, insurers are shorting the
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Georgia Injury Victims May Benefit From Proposed Change In Uninsured Motorist Law

There may be some relief in sight for some injured Georgia automobile and truck accident victims who are involved in a motor vehicle collision with an uninsured or underinsured vehicle. Last week Senate Bill 276, the Uninsured Motorist Stacking bill, passed the Senate Insurance and Labor committee unanimously. Advocates working for it’s passage are pushing hard for it to come to a floor vote. If passed it will provide uninsured motorist insurance coverage previously unavailable under Georgia’s current law.
Example: Current Law
You have purchased
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Georgia Recognizes Roadside Drunk Driving Victim Memorials

Anyone who has driven the two-lane highway between Georgia and Panama City, Florida has seen the many crosses along the roadside, each representing a victim of a fatal automobile accident. Many of these fatal collisions involved college students and drunk drivers. These unofficial memorials or marker have usually been placed by family and friends.
A young victim killed in a drunk driving accident, seventeen year-old Donny Ray Harris Jr., will be the first drunken driving victim in the state of Georgia to be remembered with
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FUNCTIONAL CAPACITY EVALUATIONS OF INJURED WORKERS IN GEORGIA

In Georgia employees who become disabled, due to injury, and remain out of work for any significant period of time are likely to be sent for a functional capacity evaluation. An FCE is a systematic evaluation process to determine an individual’s tolerance for physical work activities. These evaluations take on many forms. The most common evaluations involve a series of standardized tasks with measured weights and distances, and a trained and presumably an experienced observer to administer the tests. Other methods involve the use of
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Closing Arguments: Trial Techniques for Serious Injury Cases

We continue here with our previous discussion about how experienced trial counsel prepares and delivers closing arguments before juries in serious injury cases. See prior entries of 3/13 and 3/15/07. We continue as follows:
You must close your summation with confidence and with an ending appropriate to the tone of the case that will have the desired impact. Once you have concluded, sit down with an air of confidence that you have clearly won your case.
In every winning summation there is both the logical
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Psychiatric/Psychological Privilege in Injury Cases in Georgia

Many times we represent clients’ who have been seriously injured in automobile, trucking or on-the-job accidents who have sought and received psychological or psychiatric counseling and treatment. During the course of litigation, insurance company lawyers often try to subpoena mental health records from mental health professionals. It is wise to be vigilant in monitoring these requests from insurance defense lawyers and to object to these requests.
Under Georgia law, “Parties may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, which is relevant to the subject matter
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Closing Arguments for Juries in Serious Injury Cases

.We continue in this artice our Previous blog and presentation on the delivery of effective Closing Arguments in jury trials.(See entry of 3/13/07). We continue as follows:
GIVE YOUR REMARKS A STRUCTURE
As discussed above, one should not rely upon the inspiration of the moment to deliver a closing argument. A winning summation is usually the result of meticulous, painstaking preparation done well in advance of the actual delivery of the remarks. In order to insure that such preparation is not wasted, obviously, it is
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Your Duties Under The Georgia Workers’ Compensation Act

We cannot tell people how many times unrepresented, injured workers sabotage their cases by failing to comply with their own obligations under the Georgia Workers’ Compensation Act. At a minimum an employee who sustains an on-the-job injury must do the following:
1. Report any on-the-job injury within 30 days of the date of the injury. Although the law provides that an employee should notify the employer within 30 days, any injury should be reported immediately. If you do not report your injury immediately, you may
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Basic Overview of Benefits Available Under the Georgia Workers’ Compensation Act

Many people are unaware of what benefits are available to an injured worker in Georgia. Accordingly we thought it might be helpful to clients or potential clients to have an overview of the basic benefits.
(A) TEMPORARY TOTAL DISABILITY WEEKLY INCOME BENEFITS:
If you are injured and begin losing time from work, you are entitled to receive 2/3 of your average weekly wage up to a maximum of $450.00 per week. The first seven days of compensation are not payable until or unless you have
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Inexcusable Surgical Mistakes Continue

Outrageous surgical “errors” continue to maim and kill patients throughout Georgia and the United states despite requirements that hospitals and doctors abide by a standard set of procedures to prevent surgical mistakes.
These errors include operating on the wrong patient or the wrong body part.
This inexcusable problem is highlighted in a new study in the Archives of Surgery. The data was drawn from an insurance database in Colorado that included 27,370 self-reported incidents from 6,000 physicians from 2002 to mid-2008. Doctors in the
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Remington Rifles Have Serious Defect

According to a recent CNBC report, Remington Model 700 rifles have a serious and deadly defect, that can cause the rifles to fire without pulling the trigger.
The danger is caused by a defective component in the trigger mechanism called the trigger connector. The system is known as the Walker Fire Control System and Remington is the only gun manufacturer which incorporates it in firearms.
The report revealed that the defect with the trigger connector is that is not bound to the actual trigger. As
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Burn Injuries

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have seen some horrible burn injuries over the years which have resulted from automobile accidents, truck accidents, use of dangerous products and on-the-job accidents. There are few injuries more serious than burns. Burns can all too often be fatal. Even for those who survive, the degree of pain that accompanies a burn is hard to imagine. The debridement of the dead skin, necessary to prevent infection, is one of the most painful treatments in all of medicine. On top of that, burns leave serious scars that last a lifetime and often cause physical restrictions which affect the quality of life.

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Graco Stroller Recall-Four Deaths Reported

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have seen many serious injuries and wrongful death caused by dangerous products. Last week the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in Washington, announced that Graco, a company that specializes in making baby related merchandise, is recalling about 2 million strollers after receiving reports that four infants died in the strollers. They said the four infants became trapped inside the strollers and were strangled. The deaths occurred between 2003 and 2005. According to the announcement, the strollers being recalled are older versions of the Graco Quattro Tour and MetroLite strollers and travel systems, all made before 2007 and distributed by Graco Children’s Products Inc. of Atlanta.

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Workers’ Compensation Claims And Third Party Liability

When someone is injured on-the-job under Georgia law they are entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. These benefits will provide minimal payments for lost wages as well as reimbursement of any medical expenses arising out of the on-the-job injury. In exchange for these statutory benefits the employee may never sue the employer responsible for the on-the-job injury. In short, even if an employer is negligent and/or creates an unsafe situation for an employee, the employer cannot be sued, instead as a tradeoff for not being sued,
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Police Chase Cases And Sovereign Immunity

As we have blogged about on many occasions in the past, there are many unfortunate situations where third party innocent victims become involved in reckless and dangerous police chases. If the police are chasing a juvenile, a traffic offender or some other non-violent offender and while traveling at high speeds continues to chase the suspect under such dangerous conditions that they crash into an innocent third party, there should be legal liability for a reckless disregard of proper police procedure in this context. Indeed, under Georgia law, O.C.G.A. § 40-6-6 specifies that where there is evidence of a reckless disregard of proper police procedure in the decision to either initiate or continue a high speed pursuit, such reckless disregard can be the basis of liability against the police if an innocent third party is injured due to such recklessness. Notwithstanding the statute, it is commonplace in any case brought by an innocent victim against the police for the government entity involved to assert sovereign immunity as a defense.

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On-The-Job Deaths Decreased 47% In 2009

In the late 70’s and early 80’s while I was employed in the Georgia claims department of a major insurance company, we had a very significant number of workers compensation death cases. Part of the reason was that the company wrote alot of assigned risk business but another reason was that the economy was doing well. Construction was booming and there were lots of jobs, especially construction jobs. Recently released statistics demonstrate that this is not the case now..

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Employer Liability For The Acts of Employees

Under Georgia law, employers are vicariously liable for the acts of the employees provided such acts are performed within the scope of their employment. If an employee is working on behalf of an employer and is acting within the scope of his or her duties, an employer will be liable if the employee negligently injuries a third party. The reasons for such liability are due to the fact that the injury arose out of and was caused by the performance of duties being performed on
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Mediating Personal Injury Claims

In a case where an innocent victim is victimized by the negligence of a third party, whether it be as a result of the negligent acts of a truck driver or due to medical malpractice committed by a doctor, a question often arises: Should a claimant in such a case consider mediation as a way of resolving their claims against the negligent defendant? Experience indicates that mediation is successful approximately eighty percent (80%) of the time so logic would dictate that all serious personal injury
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Cadillac Recalls SRX Vehicles

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have represented victims of dangerous products for over 40 years. These products which range from defective automobiles to defective humidifiers can cause serious injury or even death if they malfunction after being purchased by the innocent consumer.
Just last week, General Motors recalled over 4000 2010 Cadillac SRX crossover vehicles because of power steering problems. According to the company, power steering fluid could leak, causing a fire in the engine compartment. All of these cars were manufactured in 2009.
Although this may not seem like a significant problem, it could potentially be very dangerous if the vehicle were to catch on fire after being parked in a home garage or carport. Ford Motor Company found out they had significant exposure when Ford F series trucks with defective cruise control switches caused such fires. Those fires lead to a recall by Ford.

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