Articles Posted in State Procedure

On a warm October afternoon two years ago, wearing one of the yarmulkes that Jewish funeral directors provide for non-Jewish attendees, I helped shovel red Georgia dirt into the open grave of an old client and friend. As I did so, I pondered the unanswered question whether long-term side effects of her food poisoning a…

When people call us about a potential lawsuit for wrongful death or catastrophic injury in Georgia, one of the topics they sometimes find confusing is the decision about where to file a suit. The choice of court in which to file suit involves the interaction of subject matter jurisdiction, personal jurisdiction, and venue. In general, subject matter…

The leadership of the Georgia State Patrol deserves credit for openness in promptly taking disciplinary action and publicly disclosing that a State Trooper’s reckless conduct caused the deaths of two west Georgia  teenagers and injuries to two others last week. State Trooper Anthony J. Scott, 26, was fired Friday after investigators determined he was driving 91…

  In Georgia wrongful death law, the measure of damages is the “full value of life,” which includes both economic and noneconomic value of the decedent’s life to him or her. Unlike some states, Georgia does not provide for recovery of losses suffered by those left behind, who are deprived of the companionship, advice, counsel,…

  The “laying on of hands” can resonate powerfully. In my background, it has spiritual and theological implications as a ritual of blessing or of healing. Can this and other senses beyond sight and hearing also be part of legitimate trial advocacy in conveying truth to jurors? The Georgia Court of Appeals recently said yes in…

Our home state of Georgia has been ranked #1 in business climate, according to Site Selection magazine’s annual ranking of states’ attractiveness to corporate facility investors. The selection criteria included a survey of corporate site selectors, the states’ competitiveness, qualified projects so far in 2013 on a per capita basis and state tax burdens on…

Ken Shigley has been named a trustee of the Institute for Continuing Judicial Education in Georgia for 2013-14. The ICJE is a resource consortium of the Georgia Judicial Branch, the State Bar of Georgia, and the ABA accredited law schools of the State (Emory, Georgia State, Mercer, Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, and the University…

“You snooze, you lose.” The time limit to file a lawsuit in court for personal injury or wrongful death in Georgia is two years. But the time to present a notice of claim to a city government when one is hurt or killed by a municipal government’s negligence or public nuisance — whether due to…

Most bright middle school students probably have a working knowledge of the concept of hearsay, simply as gossip.  “He said she said” does not mean the statement is true. Hearsay as a legal rather than merely social concept is part of the law of evidence. The Georgia rule on hearsay will change on January 1st,…

Often in trials involving catastrophic brain injury that renders the plaintiff so incompetent as to be unable to assist her lawyers at trial, the defense moves first to bifurcate the trial between liability and damages phases, and then to exclude the plaintiff from the courtroom during the liability phase. The idea is to prevent the…