Personal Injury

New Tactic By Defense Attorneys To Prejudice Claimants

Our Atlanta personal injury attorneys are constantly monitoring emerging rends in the legal field. Recently, a controversial test that is supposed to detect “malingering” is gaining popularity among defense experts in personal injury, workers’ compensation and other cases.
The “Fake Bad Scale” is being offered by medical experts as evidence that plaintiffs are fabricating or exaggerating their pain or other medical symptoms.
A few courts have ruled on the admissibility of the test, including three Florida courts that excluded testimony about it last year. In
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Federal Agencies Join Forces Against Consumers

If you think the prescription drug you took for headaches caused your heart attack, the Food and Drug Administration says you can’t sue the maker for injury if it met agency standards. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) says you can’t sue a mattress maker if your mattress bursts into flame despite meeting CPSC standards. Companies making sport utility vehicles would get similar protection from suits brought by people injured or the families of those killed in rollovers under National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
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Home Defibrillator Study

A study released yesterday contained bad news for makers and buyers of portable defibrillators, devices that deliver electrical shocks meant to revive victims of sudden heart In the first major study of their use in household settings, researchers found no evidence that the devices produced significant life-saving benefits. The study, of more than 7,000 heart patients, concluded that patients in homes equipped with the gear died at the same rate as those without it.
Defibrillators were originally designed for ambulance crews. However, they have recently
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Police Use of Taser Kills Teenager

Many wrongful death lawsuits have been brought against the manufacturer of the popular police taser device but according to the manufacturer’s boasts which are in the public record, no such lawsuits have been successful. And yet, practically every week it seems, another person is killed by the use of this product.
Our wrongful death and injury lawyers read last week a news article about a teenager who was killed by the use of a taser after an altercation inside of a grocery store near Charlotte,
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Imperial Sugar Plant Case Becomes More Complicated

Thirteen (13) people have died (and many more injured) as a result of burns and other injuries sustained in the explosion at the Imperial Plant in Port Wentworth, Georgia. Investigators have expressed the opinion that sugar dust ignited and caused the explosion which resulted in these injuries and deaths. Because most of the people burned, injured or killed as a result of the explosion were employees of Imperial Sugar, unfortunately, they will be barred by law from suing their own employer. This is the state
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Surgical Error Causes Removal of Healthy Kidney

Our Atlanta medical malpractice attorneys on occasion review cases in which surgical procedures are performed on the wrong side of the body.
Last Tuesday there was a report of a wrong site surgery at a Minnesota hospital. Surgeons at the hospital mistakenly removed the wrong kidney from a patient. The surgery was performed last Tuesday at Methodist Hospital in Minneapolis, but it wasn’t until the next day that it was discovered that the wrong kidney had been removed. A pathology examination of the removed kidney
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Contaminated Chinese Heparin

At least19 people have died, and hundreds became ill after being given heparin, a blood-thinning drug sold by drug manufacturer Baxter International. Baxter obtained the drug’s active ingredient from a Chinese manufacturer.
A belated inspection of the Chinese plant found substandard conditions. Recent lab tests revealed an unknown contaminant in batches of the drug, but researchers have not identified what precisely caused the allergic reactions which caused the deaths.
The Food and Drug Administration is required to inspect plants such as the one in China
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Surgery Patients Awake During Procedures

Many surgery patients report that they awake during surgery. They say it feels like being trapped in a corpse, unable to move or scream. Some remember hearing their surgeons talk, and a few recall feeling intense pain.
Each year, as many as 40,000 of the 21 million patients undergoing surgery in the United States may experience inadequate anesthesia, leading to anxiety and even post-traumatic stress disorder if patients regain consciousness, according to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
A widely used device that
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Another Police Chase: Another Tragedy

It seems that everyday our personal injury lawyers open the paper, we read about another wrongful death in the context of a high speed police chase. One such case occurred this past weekend in Augusta, Georgia when a Sheriff’s Deputy was chasing a 19-year old suspect. Initially the officer involved pulled the suspect over and was provided his ID and driver’s license. Thus, the officer knew who the suspect was and where he lived. While the officer went back to his car to
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Another Innocent Victim Killed in a Police Chase for a Stolen Car

In February of this year, an active member of the military at Fort Benning, Sgt. Joanna Joy Ringer, age 21, was reportedly killed as yet another innocent victim in a police chase case. This time, the, innocent victim, Ms. Ringer, was killed because the police were chasing a 17 year old teenager for joyriding in a stolen pickup truck. Ms. Ringer, like all such victims, was simply at the wrong place, at the wrong time when the fleeing suspect ran head on into her car.
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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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Drunk Driving Deaths Among Females Shows Alarming Increase

A Douglas County, Georgia woman has been charged with criminal offenses involving drunk driving after a collision early last Monday morning resulted in two deaths of innocent motorists. The Atlanta press reported that Natasha Searcy, 22, was driving drunk in her 1998 Pontiac when she crossed the center line, striking a car driven by 25-year-old Ashley Ingalsbe.
Searcy has been charged with vehicular homicide in the first and second degrees, driving under the influence, not having insurance and failure to maintain lane, and was
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Danger Warning For Weight Loss Drugs

Our Georgia attorneys frequently receive calls about dangerous drugs which seem to be routinely marketed to unsuspecting consumers and health care professionals. Recently, weight-loss drugs made by mega-manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Roche Holding AG were linked to at least 32 reports of serious liver injury from 1999 to October 2008.
The Food and Drug Administration has posted a notice on its web site advising consumers taking Glaxo’s over-the-counter drug Alli or Roche’s prescription Xenical to consult a doctor if they experience weakness, fever, jaundice
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Bassinet Warnings Renewed After Georgia Death

Last September a 2 month old child in Demorest, Georgia, died after being suffocated when she became trapped in a pocket of fabric not securely fastened to her bassinet. In January of this year, a 6 month old child in Fort Worth, Texas, died when a fabric flap on her basinett was undone and she became trapped between exposed bars in the bassinet.
Both children died after getting trapped in previously recalled bassinets manufactured by Simplicity. These deaths follow two prior deaths in 2008 under
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