Atlanta Injury Lawyer Blog

Progressive Insurance Admits to Violating the Privacy of Its Insureds in Georgia

September 30, 2007 | Robin Frazer Clark

Here in Georgia, Progressive Insurance Company has admitted to spying on its own insureds in a confidential church group.

Progressive Insurance Company hired two private eyes to spy on Progressive’s own insureds by infiltrating the couple’s private, confidential church group, lying about their identities and their motives, so that they might be able to find out some kind of personal “dirt” on the insureds so Progressive could use it against them in an uninsured motorist lawsuit. Progressive’s CEO has now “apologized.” And Progressive has the unmitigated gall to claim “it’s all about you” on their website!

It’s absolutely appalling and disgusting, but should give you a real life glimpse into the way insurance companies work to do everything in their power, including outright deception and invasion of privacy, to avoid paying legitimate personal injury claims. It’s sickening. The Progressive CEO said “What the investigators and Progressive people did was wrong – period,” Renwick, head of the third-largest U.S. auto insurer, said in a statement. “I personally want to apologize to anyone who was affected by this.” He apologized the day after the article exposing Progressive’s deception was published in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Sounds like to me the Progressive CEO was sorry they got caught, not sorry they engaged in fraud. This is made clear by the fact that Progressive continues to deny liability in a lawsuit brought against Progressive by the two insureds for invasion of privacy. Seems to me if Progressive was truly contrite it would simply admit the allegations of that lawsuit and take responsibility for its actions. But, as usual, it refuses to do so.

Georgia State Bar Takes Corporate America to Task

September 18, 2007 | Robin Frazer Clark

Thanks go out to Jay Cook, Immediate Past President of the State Bar of Georgia, for calling a spade a spade when it comes to the complete abdication of responsibility by Corporate America. President Cook’s op-ed piece in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution today tells the truth:American Corporations routinely put profits over people, including Georgia citizens, every day. For example, the Wall Street Journal reported that Mattel, which has recalled more than 20 million dangerous toys this summer alone, has delayed reporting product defects because it finds the reporting rules “unreasonable.” According to The New York Times, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has fined Mattel twice for such delays since 2001. I would venture a guess that many American parents find it “unreasonable” for a company to sell toys containing lead in them, too.

And that’s just one example out of thousands. Corporate America wants to make millions of dollars on the backs of hard-working Everyday Americans and Everyday Georgians, but also wants a “get out of jail free” card when caught red-handed endangering the public. It has been shown time after the time the only institution that can possibly hold Corporate America responsible is the American Civil Justice System. The Seventh Amendment guarantee to a trial by jury in the United States Constitution is the mechanism by which Everyday Americans can still obtain just a little bit of justice for the abuse heaped on them by Corporate America. Justice for All: It’s a Beautiful Thing.

Teen Cellphone Use in Atlanta, Georgia Illegal?

September 14, 2007 | Robin Frazer Clark

Teen cellphone use while driving is not illegal yet in Georgia, or in Metropolitan Georgia, but it should be. Too many teens are getting killed or injured, or killing others, while using the cellphone while driving. As a trial lawyer here in Metropolitan Atlanta, I see it all too often, usually while meeting with the grieving parents who have just lost their child at the hands of a teen driver. I have posted other blogs on this in the past, and it continues to be a subject near and dear to my heart, with a thirteen year old son who will want to start driving in a few years and who already is addicted to his cellphone.

I raise the issue again because California’s Legislature, in its wisdom, has banned Californians under age 18 from using cellphones, text message devices and laptop computers while driving. When signing the legislation, which goes into effect in 2008, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used his own two daughters as examples: “I told my daughters: ‘I give you the car. I give you the cellphone, but if I see you one time using both at the same time, both of them are gone,’ ” he said.

Georgia should have a similar law. Teenagers are dying behind the wheel, and killing others, because of poor judgment. Yesterday in Savannah, a Georgia 17 year old was charged with vehicular homicide for the deaths of three other teenagers who were in his truck with him when he wrecked due to driving erratically. Nationwide, teen drivers have the highest risk of crashing out of any age group.

Georgians Should Be Made Aware of Lawnmower Dangers

August 31, 2007 | Robin Frazer Clark

Each year, 9,400 children are injured in lawn mower accidents, and 7 percent of those injuries involve amputations or torn nerves, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. One-fifth of childhood amputations are caused by lawn mowers. Recently, an Ila, Georgia child lost her left leg below the knee and her right foot July 18, when her father accidentally ran over the child with a riding lawn mower. Unfortunately, this type of accident is becoming more prevalent in Georgia. Children’s Healthcare System of Atlanta, which includes Egleston and Scottish Rite, is treating three children who lost limbs in lawn mower accidents, according to Colleen Coulter-O’Berry, who’s worked in the system’s amputee program for 25 years. Nationwide, the estimated number of children with lawnmower related injuries, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics is 560 injuries to children each year.

A tragedy, yes. But don’t blame the parent. If the lawnmower had been equipped with a safety feature called the “no-mow-in-reverse” feature, this accident and thousands of others never would have happened. Trial lawyers across the United States are pursuing personal injury claims against the lawnmower manufacturers in product liability or product safety cases in an effort to make manufacturers equip their mowers with these safety devices. There have been mixed results, but one of the greatest accomplishments that some personal injury litigation can sometimes have is to force a manufacturer to make its product safe before selling it to the public, and I hope these lawnmower lawsuits will, ultimately, effect a change in that regard.

An easy solution would be for lawnmower manufacturers to fix their riding lawnmowers by including the “no-mow-in-reverse” safety feature. Then hundreds of Georgia kids would be spared a devastating injury such as losing a leg or a foot and then having to go through life disabled. I and other trial lawyers will continue to pursue these cases until these manufacturers listen and, hopefully, we’ll save a few Georgia children in the process.

Are Georgia Bridges Unsafe?

August 11, 2007 | Robin Frazer Clark

The recent horrible tragedy of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota raises the question, and rightly so, of whether Georgia bridges are unsafe, also.

Unfortunately, the answer is probably “yes.” The Georgia Department of Transportation takes responsibility for inspecting roadway bridges throughout the state. It has a grading system of ranking the safety of Georgia bridges from 1-100, 1 being the least safe (or possibly dangerous) and 100 being the most safe. It might surprise many Georgia citizens to learn that 18 local bridges rated less than 10 on a 100-point scale were not closed and were listed as open in the federal database. Something is obviously wrong here. Many Georgia bridges are, apparently, unsafe, and yet remain open to use. This may have to do with a faulty rating system used by the Georgia DOT. Each bridge is rated on a 100-point scale. Those determined to be 50 or below are considered “structurally deficient.”

More than 1,100 roadway bridges in Georgia are in such bad shape that they need renovation or rebuilding, state and federal records show. Another 1,800 Georgia bridges are considered functionally obsolete: They aren’t designed to meet new standards. Nearly 500 of the problem bridges are in metro Atlanta. But while one in five Georgia bridges are considered by the government to be structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, the state Department of Transportation says no roads now open to traffic are unsafe for the vehicles that travel them. How can this be? Can Georgia citizens rely on what the Georgia DOT is telling us about the safety of our bridges? Or does Georgia have to experience something as utterly horrible and tragic as the Minneapolis bridge collapse before we get the Georgia DOT’s attention that something needs to be done to make Georgia bridges safe? And I don’t mean “safer”: I mean simply “safe.” Remember, this is the same Georgia DOT who immediately proclaimed nothing was wrong with its left-hand exit from I-75 at Northside Drive after the bus carrying the Bluffton, Ohio baseball team accidently drove up this exit and crashed off the overhead pass when the driver at last realized it was not the continuation of the bus lane on I-75.

Georgia Children Are Dying From Defective SUV’s That Lack Back-up Cameras

August 1, 2007 | Robin Frazer Clark

The loss of a child saddens me and it is especially tough when the child’s death was preventable. In the last two weeks, children in two separate incidents were killed when they were run over by one of their parents who was driving an SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle). The first incident, in Savannah, Georgia, involved a mother who ran over her twenty month old daughter as she backed up in her Isuzu Ascension, an SUV. To read more of that horrible story, click here.http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/stories/2007/07/20/toddlerkilled.html Then I see today that in Ohio, a father backed over his own child yesterday while heading out to church. This father was driving a Chevrolet Suburban. For more on this tragedy, click here. http://www.wlwt.com/news/13778230/detail.html

I am willing to bet that neither the Chevrolet Suburban nor the Isuzu Ascension had a back-up camera in them, which easily allows an SUV driver to see what is behind the car before backing up. In fact, this type of camera automatically comes on anytime the vehicle is in reverse. Also, they are cheap, costing only approximately $150.00. These back-up cameras are crucial in SUVs, in which the driver is sitting so high off the ground and the SUV is so long that it is almost impossible to see everything behind the SUV clearly. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in a report to Congress in November, said backover accidents are not a recent phenomenon. But NHTSA disputes perceptions that the number of accidents is increasing as the size of the nation’s vehicle fleet grows — led by SUVs and minivans, which tend to have larger rear blind zones.

A study by Consumer Reports magazine suggests SUVs, pickups and minivans are longer and taller and their blind zones extend as much as 50 feet from the rear bumper. These factors contribute to poor visibility, the report says.

Back-up cameras would have prevented both of these tragic deaths.

Something obviously needs to be done. The statistics are alarming: 1,200 children under 15 who have been killed since 2000 in nontraffic motor-vehicle accidents in the United States. Half of those fatalities were in backovers, almost all of them involving children under 5, according to Kids and Cars, a child-safety advocacy group in Leawood, Kan.http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/64616.html

What is $150.00 if it will save the life of a child? A child’s life is priceless. It is time Congress mandated the inclusion of these inexpensive, but absolutely life-saving, back-up cameras in all new SUVs before another child dies needlessly, and another family is tortured with the guilt of running over their own child. Enough is enough.

Cobb County, Georgia Verdict for $151,000.00 in Automobile Wreck Case

July 30, 2007 | Robin Frazer Clark

Friends, I have been out of the office for the last week or so trying a case in Cobb County Georgia State Court and successfully won my client a $151,000.00 verdict! I tried the case last week in front of the Honorable Judge Katherine Tanksley and she did an outstanding job as a jurist. (During the trial Governor Purdue named Judge Tanksley to the short list for the opening on the Cobb County Superior Court, which is seen as a promotion from State Court. From what I have seen, she would do a fabulous job in Superior Court).

This was a case against State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company in which State Farm had only offered a measley $10,000.00 before trial. Long-time State Farm defense attorney Blair Craig represented State Farm. This case involved a rather bad car wreck in which my client was hit on his driver’s side door. He had initial complaints of left side pain, chest pain, neck pain and tailbone pain. All of the pain eventually subsided after physical therapy and medication, except for his neck pain. His neck pain continued and only got worse, until one day he got out of bed and his arms felt heavy and different. His physician then recommended he see an orthopedic surgeon, who diagnosed a herniated disc in his neck and operated, performing a surgery that is called an ACDF, an anterior cervical diskectomy and fusion. In this surgery a titanium plate and four screws were implanted in my client’s neck along with some cadaver bone to fuse those two cervical (neck) vertebrae. After the surgery and six weeks rehab, my client did very well and returned to work full duty.

State Farm defended the case on the argument that the point when my client starts having arm symptoms was a “new” injury for which State Farm was not responsible, even though State Farm really had no evidence or proof of any new event or injury that could possibly explain the onset of these symptoms. Also, your should know that in Georgia, although the case was really against State Farm, Georgia law allowed State Farm to defend in the name of the individual who hit my client in the wreck, and the jury never even got to hear that State Farm, my client’s own carrier because this was an underinsured motorist case, was the one who was really not taking responsibility for the wreck.

Toys Made in China Continue to Pose Threat, Even in Georgia

July 10, 2007 | Robin Frazer Clark

I am not at all surprised to see that the fallout from the discovery that many Chinese manufactured toys are hazardous to children’s health continues. I am sure many of these hazardous toys have made their way to Georgia and Atlanta. Every day now it seems as if we learn of new toys from China that should not be bought for children because they pose a health threat to the children who would play with them. The latest such dangerous toys: sets of Essentials for Kids jewelry, 800 Mag Stix magnetic building sets and 68,000 Shape Sorting Toy Castles. These toys have now all been recalled by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. You can find a list of recalled toys by going to http://www.cpsc.gov.
I think it is probably a good idea to check on the USCPS’s list of recalled toys periodically, especially before buying for a birthday or Christmas. My friend and fellow Georgia Trial Lawyer, Don Keenan, also makes a point of including a list of dangerous toys on the Keenan Kids Foundation website, http://www.keenanskidsfoundation.com. Some of these toys were even manufactured right here in the United States. It is senseless that the practice of allowing foreign manufactured toys that can kill children continues. It is only a matter of time before one of these hazardous toys kills a precious child right here in Georgia.

Pool Drains Unfortunately Still a Danger

July 8, 2007 | Robin Frazer Clark

I have just returned from a wonderful beach vacation over the Fourth of July Holiday, during which my two children swam every day in various swimming pools, and I am saddened and shocked to find out that another preventable swimming pool tragedy occurred during what was meant to be a fun summer week. This time the tragedy occurred in Minneapolis at a pool that we now know had some sort of defective drain in it. A six year old girl was eviscerated by the swimming pool drain while doing what normal six year olds are supposed to do in the summer…have fun swimming in a pool. As a mother of two, this news has hit me especially hard. I was under the impression that following several other lawsuits over such defective swimming pool drains and a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission warning in a 2005 report, Guidelines for Entrapment Hazards: Making Pools and Spas Safer, that every commercial pool in the United States had taken the necessary steps to make their pools safe. Also, that many pool owners, at least those in North Carolina, retrofitted their pools to make them safer after Presidential Candidate John Edwards successfully brought a lawsuit against a pool owner and drain manufacturer in an almost identical case in which his clients’ child was disemboweled by a defective pool drain. But, unfortunately, such was not the case, to this little six year old’s (and her parents’) horror. You can read more of the facts of this preventable tragedy here. Either the pool drain’s cover was carelessly off, or the pool had not been retrofitted with other drains to prevent too much suction power from being on this one drain. Either way, the owner of the pool was careless in allowing children to swim in a pool with a defective drain. Because of this carelessness, a young girl’s life is forever changed, to the point where she may have to be fed intravenously for the rest of her life.
Pool owners who fail to make their pools safe and pool drain manufacturers who fail to make safe swimming pool drains must be held accountable for their carelessness in our Civil Justice System. It will be the only justice this little girl will ever realize. Although such blatant corporate negligence really should be a crime. And this should never happen to another family ever again. I urge you to find out about the safety of the pool(s) in which your children are now swimming. Ask whether the pool has been retrofitted as suggested by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Ask how often the owners check to insure all drains are covered. I am going to do so regarding the pools my children swim in. Demand that safety action be taken to correct any such dangerous situation as having a missing pool drain cover. The little Minneapolis six year old will be in my prayers.

Successful 2007 State Bar of Georgia Annual Meeting

June 18, 2007 | Robin Frazer Clark

I attended the 2007 State Bar of Georgia Annual Meeting in Ponte Vedra, Florida last week as a Member of the Board of Governors, Post 36 Atlanta, Georgia. I am happy to report good news for the elections to the Executive Committee of the Georgia State Bar, as the Board of Governors duly elected fellow blogger Ken Shigley from Atlanta, Georgia and fellow Georgia Trial Lawyers Association (GTLA) member Thomas Stubbs from Decatur, Georgia as Members at Large to the Executive Committee. Both of these outstanding lawyers will serve the Georgia Bar well. They, like I, represent plaintiffs in a vast array of personal injury cases and are always fighting for justice for the underdog in the system. Ken, Thomas and I all share the same beliefs in the inherent value of the Georgia Civil Justice System and we will continue to support it and fight to maintain an independent judiciary, something all Americans agree sets our Nation apart from others. There has been an assault on the independence of the judiciary in last year’s Georgia Supreme Court election and I am proud to say that the Georgia lawyers who believe in the integrity of our Civil Justice System fought it off and helped preserve an independent judiciary in Georgia that is not controlled by special political interests. We should all be proud of that. Justice Carol Hunstein, whose seat on the Supreme Court of Georgia was the target of this politicized assault, was awarded the Tradition of Excellence Award in the Judicial Category by the General Practice and Trial Section. Fellow GTLA member Paul Kilpatrick from Columbus, Georgia, was awarded the Tradition of Excellence Award in the Plaintiffs’ Counsel Category and they both gave inspirational acceptance speeches that emphasized the importance of an independent, non-politicized judiciary.

Much of the credit goes to Immediate Past President Jay Cook, as he led the charge to preserve Georgia’s tradition of an independent judiciary. We can expect our new Georgia Bar President, Gerald Edenfield, from Statesboro, Georgia, to follow in Jay Cook’s footsteps on this very important issue.

Additionally, GTLA members Jeff Bramlett and Lester Tate were elected President Elect and Treasurer respectfully, so I can honestly and happily say the State Bar of Georgia is in good hands for years to come. These gentlemen champion the rights of the everyday Georgia citizens, not mammouth corporations or insurance companies.

The Annual Georgia State Bar Meeting is important to attend for many reasons, including legal education, fellowship and doing the Bar’s work, but attending also reinvigorates us for the heavy fight to preserve the Civil Justice System of Georgia at all costs, because there are those out there, who I would refer to as “The Dismantlers” who would “dismantle” or undo the Civil Justice System and eliminate corporate responsibility for wrongdoing altogether. I pledge to every Georgia citizen I will do my utmost never to allow that to happen.