New Jersey, 4/22/05. At 1:10 AM, a tractor-trailer’s failed to slow in a construction zone, causing a fiery chain-reaction crash killed 3 and and closed a 16-mile section of the New Jersey Turnpike for 15 hours. An investigator described the scene as the “most horrific crash” he had ever seen. The truck driver and two…
Continue reading ›A leading scholarly commentator on insurance law has explained the “reasonable expectations” principle as follows: The objectively reasonable expectations of applicants and intended beneficiaries regarding the terms of insurance contracts will be honored even though painstaking study of the policy provisions would have negated those expectations. R. Keeton, “Insurance Law Rights at Variance with Policy…
Continue reading ›The Fulton County Daily Report (subscription required, $) published an article on 4/20/05, reporting that the tort reform lobby isn’t finished in Georgia. According to the article, there are plans to come back in 2006 with proposals to limit contingent attorney fees with some sort of sliding scale, and to make “collateral sources” (payments that…
Continue reading ›And they call some tort cases frivolous!? In Caincare Inc. v. Ellison, decided 3/15/05 in the Georgia Court of Appeals, a contract for sale of a pharmacy provided liquidated damages if the buyer failed to cease all use of the old store name within six months. An employee programmed the old name in the header…
Continue reading ›4/12/05 – U.S. Senate members heard testimony that if electronic on-board recording devices are not eventually required, stronger deterrents are necessary to deter “egregious” hour-of-service violations. Kenneth Mead, U.S. Transportation Department inspector general, testified April 5 before the Senate Commerce Committee on transportation safety programs. “We have conducted criminal investigations of egregious cases in which…
Continue reading ›The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has announced it has terminated the collection and dissemination of motor carrier financial and operating statistics. See article in Fleet Owner. The program was designed to collect annual and quarterly data from motor carriers including balance sheet and income statement data along with information on tonnage, mileage, employees,…
Continue reading ›In Fellows v. All Star Inc., decided 3/17/05, the Georgia Court of Appeals held that the non-competition covenant in an employment contract was unreasonable and overbroad when it prohibited the former employees from contacting or soliciting any customer of the employer, no matter where located and no matter whether the employees had had contact with…
Continue reading ›Ante litem (before suit) notice is a trapdoor through which many tort claims against government fall to their doom. In Shelnutt v. DOT, decided 3/10/05, it happened again. The plaintiffs, represented by out of state counsel, sent ante litem notice under the State Tort Claims Act to the Commissioner of the Department of Administrative Services…
Continue reading ›Affirming a ruling by the late Judge Rowland Barnes, who was murdered in his courtroom a few weeks ago, the Court of Appeals has held that the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) is not subject to punitive damages. Ironically, the case arose from a brutal assault at the Lindbergh MARTA station, for which the…
Continue reading ›According to an article in the New York Times (free registration required) on 3/31/05, a study from the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and documents from a recent lawsuit against the Ford Motor Company suggest that Ford ignored evidence that stronger roofs would lead to fewer injuries. Also on Wednesday, a plaintiffs’ lawyer in several…
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