Under the Eleventh Amendment to the United States, a state law enforcement official typically cannot be sued in his official capacity for acts done within the scope of his official duties. The reason is the Eleventh Amendment which prohibits lawsuits against a state or “state actors” without state consent. This constitutional prohibition against such lawsuits typically means that if someone has a civil rights claim they wish to assert in court against a law enforcement official then they might need to consider doing so in
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When a law enforcement officer abuses his authority and uses excessive force in an arrest or detention of a suspect, legally, the victim of such excessive force faces some very significant legal hurdles in seeking redress for any injuries caused by the excessive force. What we refer to here is known as the doctrine of qualified immunity. Simply stated, as long as a law enforcement official is acting within the scope of his discretionary authority, he/she essentially has immunity for his acts unless he clearly
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As indicated in our prior blogs on this subject, when a claim is brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act, it must be initiated via the filing of an administrative claim. The administrative claim should not be filled out in the most sparse form imaginable rather all pertinent details of the claim should be provided. This includes providing all relevant documentation which supports the claim. Indeed, it is somewhat analogous to submitting a settlement package to an insurance company. All information concerning when and where
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Mandatory arbitration clauses are contained in almost every consumer transaction agreement, and financial and employment contracts. We have previously written about the fact that these mandatory arbitration clauses benefit only big business. As a result of the unfair nature of these clauses, there has been a movement within the United States to prohibit their inclusion in many consumer, financial, and employment contracts.
The increasingly conservative United States Supreme Court has recently been upholding a wide range of mandatory arbitration clauses. Just recently, the Supreme Court
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Last week we read about what has become an all too familiar pattern, more police chases equal more deaths. In one case in Los Angeles a six year old was killed when the police were chasing suspects who were believed to have been involved in a drug transaction earlier. The death penalty was imposed on this six year old girl in order to catch a suspected drug user. Was the price worth it? Also in Los Angeles, a motorcycle officer was killed during a pursuit when he lost control of the motorcycle. In a police chase in Jacksonville, two police officers and a suspect were hospitalized with serious injuries. These were three separate incidents which occurred on June 10.

Police chases very often end in tragic results. Our Atlanta attorneys have handled many such cases in Georgia which have resulted in the loss of innocent lives while law enforcement officers chased suspects for minor offenses.
Despite the carnage which these chases cause and the pain and grief inflicted upon innocent victims, lawmakers continue to make it more difficult for innocent victims to receive compensation for losses. These restrictions also have the effect of making it easier for law enforcement officers to engage in dangerous
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Under the FTCA, a plaintiff must first submit an administrative claim to the responsible federal agency prior to the initiation of a lawsuit. The courts have held that the filing of such a claim is a jurisdictional requirement meaning that before the United States government can be sued, a written claim must first be made to the responsible federal agency which the claimant contends is liable for their damages. Many federal agencies have their own regulations governing the filing of such claims but in most
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Many Georgia drivers can expect to receive recall notices for vehicles manufactured by General Motors Corp., due to a dangerous defect which can cause the vehicle to catch on fire. In one of the largest recalls of the year, General Motors announced Tuesday that it was recalling almost 1.5 million vehicles because it cannot fix a defect in the system that squirts heated cleaning fluid on the windshield.
The recall covers many vehicles manufactured during the 2006 to 2009 model year. Since GM is
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Atlanta, and other metropolitan areas in the state of Georgia have seen a rapid expansion in the numbers of same-day surgery centers. Yesterday, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article suggesting that lack of infection practices are common in the nations more than 5000 outpatient surgery centers.
The study was prompted by a hepatitis C outbreak in Las Vegas. This outbreak was caused by unsafe injection practices at two outpatient surgery centers.
Failure to wash hands, wear gloves and clean blood glucose
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When it comes to torts committed by the government and/or its employees, the beginning and ending place for any analysis is the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). See 28 U.S.C. § 1346. The Federal Tort Claims Act provides a limited waiver of sovereign immunity and allows for money damages against the government for damages, loss of property, personal injury or death. In order to recover under the FTCA, one must show that the damages claimed resulted from a wrongful or negligent act of a
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