Atlanta Injury Law Blog

The “statutory employee” rules regarding “independent contractor” truck drivers generally are sufficient to hold trucking companies financially responsible for their drivers’ negligence. However, when there are gaps to be filled an old Restatement of Torts rule that was used by courts prior to development of the “statutory employee” rule, may be just the right tool…

During the first half of the twentieth-century, interstate motor carriers attempted to immunize themselves from liability for negligent drivers by hiring inadequately insured, risky trucks and their drivers – like C&C and the Carnleys in this case.  The companies would classify the drivers who operated the trucks as “independent contractors,” and disclaim any association when…

I have written several times this year about proposals for toll lanes for trucks on metro Atlanta interstate highways.  An article this week shows another reason why this may become a necessity. The Georgia Department of Transportation expects to spend $160 billion on road construction projects between 2005 and 2035. But revenues from the motor…

TheFederal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is providing to motor carriers a guide to available onboard safety and security products.  The guide has been published on the FMCSA  website (www.fmcsa.dot.gov). Safety systems highlighted are collision warning systems with adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning systems, rear object detection systems, tire pressure monitoring systems and vehicle stability…

A Vallejo, California jury awarded an 8-year-old Vacaville boy and his mother $11.3 million Thursday in connection with a freeway wreck that killed his father and twin sister.  The jury found Swift Transportation Company liable for the actions of its big rig driver, who cut across two lanes of traffic on westbound Interstate 80 to…

A federal jury in Tucson, Ariz., has awarded $15 million to a tow-truck operator who lost his right leg after being hit by a tractor-trailer on Christmas Eve 2002, according to news reports.  Jurors on Nov. 8 ordered Little Bear Transport of Salt Lake City to pay Bruce Austin of Bowie, Ariz., $5 million in…

One of the perennial annoyances in personal injury law practice is the need to deal with the Medicare bureaucracy regarding the claims for reimbursement out of personal injury recoveries of a portion of funds paid by Medicare for medical expense.  It’s bad enough to have to send them money, but it’s worse to have to…

The attempt of corporations and billionaires to buy the Georgia Supreme Court fell far short this week, as Presiding Justice Carol Hunstein was re-elected with more than 61% of the votes cast. Apparently about $3 million  was spent by out of state interests funding the “independent” committees and the Georgia Republican Party, all to defeat…

In 1953, the United States Supreme Court described motor carriers’ use of independent owner-operators who lacked adequate insurance in order to avoid financial responsibility to injured members of the public as “evils that had grown up” in the industry. American Trucking Ass’ns v. United States, 344 U.S. 298, 301 (1953).  More recently, one court described…

I have been writing to everyone I know this week to urge them to vote to reelect Justice Carol Hunstein to the Supreme Court of Georgia.  The future of an independent judiciary in Georgia is at stake.  We cannot afford to stand by and allow the financial assassination of our judiciary by big business. The…