Atlanta Injury Law Blog

Truckers tell of enormous pressure to make deliveries on time. Falsifying their handwritten logbooks of hours is still common, and very hard for police or inspectors to catch. See Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times article. The Shigley Law Firm represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide in Georgia, and in other states subject to…

Abuse of injured immigrants is an old story. I once knew an insurance claims manager who was very proud of his tactics in dealing with Hispanic immigrants who had injury claims. First, he told them, “No English, no dinero.” Second, he would schedule meetings with claimants and get someone from INS to show up, check…

Richard S. Markovits, a professor at the University of Texas Law School, has recently published an interesting but academically dense article, “Liberalism and Tort Law: On the Content and Economic Efficiency of a Liberal Common Law of Torts.” While I wish he hadn’t used the political perjorative “L word” (“liberal”), I’ll assume he intended the…

The hours of service rule — either the new rule or the old rule — is not enough to assure truck driver alertness, even if the rule is followed. Mark Rosekind, Ph.D., who formerly led the Fatigue Countermeasures Program at NASA Ames Research Center, and now runs Alertness Solutions, a scientific consulting firm that addresses…

According a survey conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, truck drivers are driving longer hours and dozing off behind the wheel more often since new U.S. hours-of-service rules went into effect in January 2004. The new rule lengthens the mandatory rest period by two hours but lets drivers stay on the road an…

Sleep apnea is a sleeping disorder which can leave people with excessive tiredness, and lethargy. An Austrailian news report discusses research on sleep apnea as a cause of road crashes. See story. The Shigley Law Firm represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide in Georgia, and in other states subject to the…

In the wake of the Fulton County courthouse murders, everyone is asking how there could be such a breach of security involving a felony defendant who had been caught with homemade knives (shanks) in his shoes earlier in the week? See AJC article. Personally, I have often observed how easy it would be for a…

A bill offered by a Macon legislator would strip the Georgia Supreme Court of the authority to set educational qualifications for Bar applicants who are already admitted in another state. Paul Kilpatrick, speaking for the Board of Bar Examiners, said that under the bill, “Georgia’s standard would be reduced to the lowest standard in the…

At 1 AM on 3/11/05, on I-35 near Austin, TX, a tractor trailer hit the concrete median with such force that it moved one of the concrete barriers into the lane of traffic, and dragged against the median for several hundred feet. The fuel tank on the truck caught fire and the truck disintegrated along…

Research indicates that fatigue can play a major role in accidents, particularly for older drivers and for drivers on the road for 12 hours or more. What causes fatigue? According to Amerisafe workers compensation administrators, normal fatigue can be caused by three categories of stress factors: – Physical environment such as temperature and vibration. –…