Atlanta Injury Law Blog

SB 3, effective 2/16/05, requires reporting of all medical malpractice judgments and settlements, in any amount, to the Composite State Board of Medical Examiners. Whenever there is a judgment or settlement of at least $100,000, and whenever a physician has a third judgment or settlement in any amount, the board must investigate the doctor’s fitness…

Georgia’s tort reform bill (SB 3, effective in all pending cases effective 2/16/05) includes the adoption of Federal Rule of Evidence 702 regarding expert testimony, in civil cases only. Some have observed that “junk science” is now good enough to support capital punishment in Georgia, but not good enough to require an insurance company to…

SB 3, effective 2/16/05, includes a provision that in the event of an “unanticipated outcome resulting from medical care” a health care provider’s “statements, affirmations, gestures, activities or conduct expressing benevolence, regret, apology, sympathy, commiseration, condolence, compassion, mistake, error, or a general sense of benevolence” are not admissible in evidence. The word “fault” was deleted…

SB 3, effective in all cases on 2/16/05, requires that the plaintiff in a medical malpractice case provide with the complaint a signed authorization for defense counsel to obtain all protected health information in medeical records, and to have ex parte discussions with all of the plaintiff’s (or plaintiff’s decedent’s) treating physicians. This section may…

Since 1987, Georgia has required that in any professional malpractice case that the plaintiff file with the complaint an affidavit from a member of the same profession stating how the applicable standard of care was allegedly violated. If the complaint was filed within ten days prior to expiration of the statute of limitation there was…

The new Georgia tort reform legislation (SB 3) brings back the old rule of “vanishing venue” in which a case could go all the way through trial and then be sent back to the court of another county if no defendant residing in the forum county was held liable. The new law also adopts a…

In the spasm of tort reform (SB 3) that passed with scant discussion of details, Georgia has replaced the ancient rule of joint and several liability with a new rule of proportional liability. Applying to cases arising after Gov. Perdue signed it on 2/16/05, the new law (text below) provides that a jury is required…

In Timpson, TX, on 2/28/05, a tractor trailer driver dozed off and hit a guard rail, whereupon the truck burst into flames and another tractor trailer was unable to avoid hitting it. See news story. While the report lacks detail, this incident highlights the chronic problem of fatigue and sleep deprivation among long-haul truck drivers.…