Personal Injury

NEW DRUG LABELING LAW

As the Georgia Injury Lawyer Blog attorneys have writtten about before, prescription drug manufacturers can cause serious personal injuries and death by failure to warn of a prescription drug’s hazardous side effects. A new law requires prescription drug companies to take steps to ensure drug safety and eliminate the risks of needless serious personal injury or death.
In late September, President Bush signed into law the Prescription Drug User Fee Reauthorization Act, PDUFA. This Act creates new federal safety requirements for drug companies, and
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Spoliation or Destruction Of Evidence

Spoliation is defined as the destruction or a significant or meaningful alteration of evidence. For many years, in Georgia, spoliation of evidence has given rise to a presumption against the spoliator which has resulted in discovery sanctions in appropriate cases. Many states actually recognize a separate tort of spoliation. However, Georgia courts have not yet embraced that concept.
Spoliation of evidence is actually a type of fraud which interferes with the plaintiff’s opportunity to win a lawsuit. In some cases, it can logically be expanded
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Medical Malpractice or Frivolous Litigation?

It seems that all the time we read articles about the need for reform in the medical malpractice area because of so-called frivolous litigation. The argument always seems to be that claims are being brought which are frivolous and that medical malpractice rarely occurs. The truth is that, like any other human undertaking, malpractice does occur in the field of medicine. Sometimes, the malpractice can be egregious and the mistakes life altering.
Just today we read a story about a lady who had a double
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FORMER CHIEF JUDGE OF CLAYTON COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT JOINS FIRM

Stephen E. Boswell, former Chief Judge of Clayton County Superior Court, has joined one of the Atlanta area’s longest established law firms, Finch McCranie, LLP., according to Richard W. Hendrix, partner in the firm.
Judge Boswell recently retired from the Superior Court bench after serving 13 years as a Superior Court Judge, over two periods of service since 1982. Previously, he was in private practice in the Atlanta area for 16 years, with a variety of experience in civil and criminal jury trials.
As of
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Georgia Motorcycle Accident Kills One, Injures Another

We read in yesterday’s paper where one motorcyclist was killed and another seriously injured after their bikes were involved in a multi-vehicle wreck just outside of Atlanta in Cherokee County. According to the news accounts, the bikers were among a group of 40 to 50 taking part in a charity bike ride when the crash occurred. The news report indicates that a teenage driver struck a lady who was sitting stopped at a stop sign waiting for the motorcyclists to pass her when, after being
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Civil Restitution For Crime Victims In Federal Court

In 1996 the United States Congress enacted the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996, which makes restitution mandatory upon a defendant’s conviction for a federal violent or property crime in which there is an identifiable victim who has directly and proximately suffered physical injury or monetary loss. Upon conviction for other federal crimes, including drug offenses, the imposition of restitution is in the discretion of the sentencing court. In instances in which restitution is imposed, the court “shall order restitution to each victim in the
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Another Chinese Toy Recall

The Associated Press is reporting that yet another massive recall of Chinese-made toys has been issued. Toys and child necklaces made in China were recalled Wednesday because they contain dangerous levels of lead. The recalled toys contained high levels of lead on their surface paint and the necklaces and jewelry sets contain excessive lead in some of their metal parts.
Under current regulations, children’s products which contain more than .06% of lead accessible to users are subject to a recall. The Consumer Product Safety Commission
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Food Poisoning Danger – Recall Due To E. coli

Our firm was recently retained to represent a gentleman who almost died after he consumed a meal at a restaurant in south Georgia. It seems like our food supply is not as safe as it used to be. Time and time again we hear and read about horrific food poisoning injury cases, some resulting in death.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported this week that a New Jersey-based meat processor has voluntarily recalled 331,582 pounds of frozen ground beef products that may be contaminated with
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Effort to Control Hospital Infections

In an analysis made public this week, Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports Magazine, compared data compiled by the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services showing compliance with infection control measures for hospitals in Maryland and Virginia.
Consumers Union is advocating a bill before Congress that will require hospitals to publish their infection rates. The analysis determined that the hospitals in both states generally performed about as well as hospitals nationwide. But, according to the study, the hospitals in each state varied greatly
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Gadolinium Contrast Agent – A Dangerous Drug Under Investigation

Many of us who have handled serious personal injury cases, including those involving brain injury have seen MRI’s performed using various contrast agents for years. One of those agents does not appear to be as safe as once thought. Gadolinium, or gadodiamide, is a contrast agent which allows an MRI to define normal tissue from abnormal tissue in the brain and body. The FDA declared Gadolinium safe for use in contrast MRI’s in 1988.
In June 2006, the FDA first notified health care professionals and
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Skin Warning Issued about Alcoholism Therapy Drug

As Georgia injury lawyers we often see people who have been injured by dangerous prescription drugs. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) is now warning doctors about severe skin reactions in alcoholism patients who use Vivitrol, an injectable treatment made and marked by Cephalon, Inc. Doctors and patients should watch for swelling, injection, and other complications where the drug is injected. The FDA emphasizes that the proper needle must be used when administering Vivitrol. Also, the drug should be injected into muscle, not fatty tissue.
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Insurance Industry Tricks

According to a report by the American Assocaition for Justice, the U.S. insurance industry has trillions of dollars in assets, enjoys average profits of over $30 billion a year, and pays its CEOs more than any other industry. But insurance companies still engage in dirty tricks and unethical behavior to boost their bottom line even further. The current economic turmoil affecting the insurance industry onWall Street has only made the outlook bleaker for consumers living on Main Street. Insurance companies are likely to demand huge
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Traumatic Brain Injury- Georgia Motorcycle Accidents

In November of 2000, while ballots were being counted in Florida, I stood in the trauma unit of the Orlando Regional Medical Center with my daughter who had been assaulted. Over the month she was there, one helicopter after another landed on the roof of the trauma unit delivering victims of automobile accidents and motorcycle accidents with severe injuries. Many of them died and many of them sustained severe brain injuries. Many of those traumatic brain injuries occurred because the person riding the motorcycle
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Serious Accidents -Traumatic Brain Injury

In our Georgia injury practice our lawyers have seen many serious accidents, including automobile accidents and truck accidents, which result in brain injury of varying degrees. Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI’s) contribute to a substantial number of deaths and cases of permanent disability annually. The Centers For Disease Control (CDC) estimates that at least 5.3 million Americans, about 2% of the U.S. population, currently have a long-term or lifelong need for help to perform activities of daily living as a result of a TBI.
The severity
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Feeling Unusually Fatigued after Brain Injury?

Over the years, we have noticed that client’s who have suffered a brain injury as a result of an automobile accident or truck accident often complain about feeling unusually fatigued or tired. An interesting study confirms that following a recovery from brain damage, patients may have to use more of there brains then they did before the brain trauma.
The study published in the September 9th issue of Neurology found that patients who sustained diffuse axonal injury and returned to pre-injury levels of functioning in
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Arbitration Clause Stricken By Court of Appeals

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a ruling which begins to chip away at the anti-consumer arbitration clauses used by many credit card companies to deny justice to consumers. The court held that plaintiffs could not be forced into arbitration because American Express was not a signatory to the MasterCard, Visa and Diners Club credit card agreements that
In the multidistrict currency conversion case, cardholders are claiming that card companies and major issuing banks have engaged in a Sherman Act conspiracy to
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Georgia Injury Lawyers Will Closely Watch A Dangerous Drugs Case

Georgia injury lawyers will closely watch an upcoming U.S. Supreme case having to do with dangerous drugs and the doctrine of pre-emption. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments today in a case that has major implications for consumers who have been harmed by prescription medications. Drugmaker Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and the Bush administration are challenging a $6.7 million verdict to a Vermont musician whose arm was amputated after medical staff improperly administered the Wyeth-produced drug Phenergan. Wyeth and the administration argue people who
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Georgia Nursing Home Abuse & Negligence Cases

For Georgia lawyers handling nursing home abuse and negligence cases, we are seeing new litigation hurdles to overcome. Nursing home owners are creating new corporate structures to disguise the actual ownership of the nursing homes. It is a “corporate shell game” where the actual owners set up holding corporations to avoid responsibility. If you look at the way the facility is established, there will be a contractual relationship between a management company and a nursing home, where the same human being is on both
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81% of Georgia Nursing Homes are Deficient in Quality of Care and Other Services

You don’t have to be an Atlanta injury attorney to know that nursing home abuse and negligence is alive and well in Georgia and across the country. For most elder people, their greatest fear is being put in the dreaded nursing home and for good reason. In our practice, we have noted that more often than not these homes are understaffed by unqualified employees.
The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services recently completed a study and issued

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Off Road Recreational Vehicles Probed

Our serious injury lawyers have investigated cases involving off-road recreational vehicles. Now, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, CPSC, is probing the design of these so-called recreational off- highway vehicles after reports of fatal accidents involving new products which are currently unregulated.
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The investigation involves several brands and more than 30 daeths. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Yamaha Motor Rhino was a focus of the inquiry, with at least 30 deaths.
The investigation has brought attention to gaps in oversight of
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