Articles Posted in Personal Injury

A South Carolina jury recently returned a verdict for a woman who was wrongfully accused by Target of attempting to pay for an item of merchandise with an allegedly counterfeit $100 bill. Target violated its own procedures by sending out email with surveillance photos of the plaintiff attached. After suspecting the plaintiff was trying to use a counterfeit bill, Target then took it upon itself to notify 31 other businesses about her, telling them to keep an eye out for the plaintiff in their stores. The Secret Service then visited the plaintiff and determined her $100 bill was legitimate! The stress of the investigation and the false accusations made against her reputation caused the plaintiff to lose 40 pounds.

Do American corporations simply have no common sense any more?

Cantrell v. Target Corp., U.S.D.C. (S.C.), October 22, 2008

We have just recently observed the one year anniversary of the tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota that killed thirteen people on August 2, 2007. Our hearts and prayers remain with those families as they continue to heal from that horrible accident. The National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) ruled that the collapse occurred because the bridge design was inadequate. The new bridge currently being built in its place across the Mississippi River costs $235 Million and is to finished by December 24, 2008. You may remember that this Minnesota tragedy exposed the Georgia Department of Transportation’s failure to inspect Georgia bridges adequately and I blogged on that back in August 2007. The Minnesota bridge collapse anniversary was a good excuse to reexamine where Georgia is regarding the safety of its bridges.

Unfortunately, the answer is not good news. A recent review from the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts found about 9 percent of the state’s bridges were classified as structurally deficient in 2007. According to TRIP, a national transportation research group, however, twenty percent of Georgia’s bridges are structurally deficient or obsolete. What is going on? Is the Georgia DOT doing anything differently to discover dangerous bridges in Georgia? Or must Georgia citizens wait until a tragedy hits the citizens of this State, as it did the helpless citizens of Minnesota, before our bridges are made safe? Who is looking out for Georgians’ safety on bridges in Georgia?

GDOT spokeswoman Crystal Buchanan says “You should go over a bridge and you shouldn’t worry about that bridge falling down.” Do you trust her with your life??

A very sad article appears in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution today about the unnecessary and tragic death of a North Georgia youth at an alternative school. The child hanged himself after being left for hours alone in a “seclusion” room. My friend Wyc Orr represents the mother and father of the child and they are in good hands.

The school’s actions really are indefensible with obviously tragic results. This school had put the child in the “seclusion” room 19 times in his final two months there. The school’s own policy required the teachers not to leave a student in the room for more than 25 minutes, but this poor child was left alone for over seven hours. And in an unbelievable act of stupidity, a teacher gave this child some string to hold up his pants and then left him alone for hours on end, during a time when this child was having a difficult time emotionally. The mother states had they just called her she would have come and picked him up. So one has to wonder “if only….”

Why didn’t the school call the mom? Why did the school callously leave the student alone for seven hours? Why did the teacher give the child the rope with which to hang himself? What is going on here?

Once again, in typical corporate fashion, the Ruby Tuesday restaurant in Lovejoy, Georgia, has denied any responsibility for its role in serving a customer a meal that, literally, killed him. The customer, who was allergic to crab meat, ordered Chicken Fresco, but, instead, was served Chicken Oscar, which has crab meat on it. Within thirty minutes of eating his meal, this poor customer died.

Now the Ruby Tuesday restaurant denies any culpability and says they served the customer what he ordered. Now let’s stop for a moment and think about that. An adult who knows he is deadly allergic to crab meat orders a dish with crab meat on it. How likely is that to have happened? No chance! It is idiotic for the Ruby Tuesday corporation even to insinuate it, much less blame their own customer who KNEW he was allergic to crab meat.

What is wrong with corporate America today in refusing to accept responsibility for its wrongdoing? It is absurd to blame their own customer, and yet here they are doing that to avoid admitting their own tragic conduct. This is the prevailing sentiment in corporate America today. Even a death in their own restaurant after eating their own food doesn’t make them admit fault! I certainly hope this family is able to get some justice for this death with Ruby Tuesday. It, apparently, is going to take the Georgia Civil Justice System to make Ruby Tuesday take ownership of killing its customer. How absurd!

Today is Day 37 (out of 40) of the Georgia Legislature and it can be a dangerous time for Georgia citizens’ rights during these last four days. A prime example is what occurred last Friday when an amendment was attached to a bill at the last moment that would adversely affect Georgia citizens’ rights who wish to bring a products liability case against certain manufacturers. This products liability amendment was attached to, of all things, a bill that seeks to change the words “seat belt” to “life belt” in the Georgia Code. Fortunately, the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association was ready to defend Georgia citizens’ rights and not let the Civil Justice Dismantlers get away with it. For an inside look at this, below is the “Political Insider’s” take from The Atlanta Journal and Constitution this morning.

Buckle up your life belts. We’re in for a bumpy finish

Sunday, March 30, 2008, 04:00 PM

Finally, scientific proof that car accident victims aren’t crazy, they really are in pain. If only their doctors would listen to them and take them seriously when they say, even a full year after the car wreck, they are still in pain. A recent study published on Monday in the medical journal Archives of Surgery showed a year after the injury, 63 percent of car wreck victims reported that they still experienced pain related to the injury, with most having pain in more than one region of the body. On average, the patients assessed their pain at 5.5 on a 10-point scale — a level at which they would be expected to have moderate to severe interference with daily activities. The overall conclusion of the study: physicians need to offer better treatment for their patients.

As a plaintiff’s personal injury attorney here in Atlanta, Georgia, whose practice consists largely of helping people who have been severely injured in car wrecks or trucking wrecks, I have heard this from my clients consistently over the last twenty years. Yet, they often can’t seem to get the right treatment from their doctors, or even appropriate referrals to other physicians who might be able to help with alternative treatments. I have always suspected the physicians, strapped for time due to health insurers’ controlling their practices, just aren’t listening to their patients’ complaints. This study seems to confirm exactly what I have thought, and validates the complaints of many of my clients. Doctors simply need to do a better job listening to their patients.

The physician who led the study admitted as much. “I was surprised that the pain was as common and as severe as they reported it to be,” said Dr. Frederick Rivara of the University of Washington in Seattle, who led the study. “The implications are that we need to do a much better job of identifying pain in these patients, treating it adequately and treating it early,” Rivara added in a telephone interview.

The Georgia General Assembly remains in session today, and with every day, some other Georgia citizen’s rights are limited or even eliminated by that body. The latest example is the attempt by the Georgia Senate to extinguish a landowner’s liabilty when that landowner operates, for profit, a business that could loosely be described as agricultural in nature. This would include lucrative dove and quail hunting plantations, as well as the pick-your-own strawberry and pumpkin patches that many of our school age children go to on school sponsored field trips. The Georgia Trial Lawyers Association has consistently opposed giving immunity to the landowner in that scenario, especially where the landowner has advertised to get you to come onto their land and then has charged you a fee for being there. I think any normal Georgia citizen would believe and expect that landowner to make sure his premises were safe for his customers in that setting. But the current bill, passed by the Georgia Senate last week, would allow that landowner to get off scott free from any responsibility for injuries his property, if not kept in good repair, may cause a paying business visitor.

The editorial board of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution has published an opinion against the bill in today’s paper and I have copied it for you below. The bill now goes to the Georgia House to be voted on. Georgia citizens should call their respective State Representatives and ask they vote “no” on the so-called Agritourism Bill, Senate Bill 449. It is a cop-out for wealthy landowners and leaves ordinary Georgia citizens, like you and me, and our precious children, to hang out to dry. Whatever happened to taking responsibility for your actions? Under this bill, landowners could take your money and never worry about whether you’re safe on their property. Outrageous.

OUR OPINIONS: No immunity for agritourism

Congratulations to Patsy Bates of Los Angeles, California, who just was awarded a $9 Million arbitration award by an arbitration panel against HealthNet, her health insurance carrier, for it’s illegal cancellation of her coverage at the beginning of her treatment for breast cancer. The award came a day after the Los Angeles city attorney sued Health Net, claiming it illegally canceled the coverage of about 1,600 patients. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo also said the company illegally ran an incentive program in which it paid bonuses to an administrator for meeting targets of policy cancelations. Health Net acknowledged that such a program existed in 2002 and 2003 but was subsequently scrapped.

This is a clear example of the callousness, and sometimes outright illegality, of the way in which insurance carriers attempt to avoid payment of legitimate insurace claims. Only this time, HealthNet got caught. This was an unusual situation because, apparently, there was an arbitration clause in the health insurance policy that allowed for pain and suffering damages. Most issues regarding payment of claims by a health insurance carrier are preempted by ERISA, and the injured policyholder is unable to sue in court to assert his or her rights under the policy.

Can we presume insurance carriers right here in Georgia are doing the same thing, i.e., cancelling a policy to avoid paying out on a legitimate claim? Yes, probably, they are. The little guy who is injured must continue fight the denial decision, and often at a time in that person’s life when he or she needs to be focusing on another fight, like one against breast cancer, as Ms. Bates did. Fortunately, we have Georgia trial lawyers, like me, ready to take on that fight!

I am proud to be a Past President of Georgia Trial Lawyers Association. It is made up of true trial lawyers who love representing the underdog against enormous odds. Our members are some of the finest lawyers in the State of Georgia and professionalism in all aspects of the practice of law is our hallmark.

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution has reported that following the Savannah Sugar Refinery blast last week, a lawyer from Texas took out a full page advertisement in the Savannah paper soliciting victims of the blast. There have also been reports that lawyers from a silk stocking law firm here in Atlanta, with an office in Augusta, has been soliciting victims who are currently being treated in the burn clinic in Augusta. This silk stocking (meaning big and expensive) firm typically defends very big corporations rather than representing individuals who have been harmed by the negligence of big corporations.

To be absolutely clear, the leadership of Georgia Trial Lawyers Association (GTLA) condemns such solicitation. These victims and their families need to be focusing on healing, not on such high pressure tactics as direct solicitation of victims immediately after the tragedy. Below is a statement from the President of Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, Joe Watkins, on behalf of Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, condemning the practice and rightfully putting focus on the needs of the victims and their families. Our thoughts and prayers are with them during this difficult time.