Today a tractor trailer rear-ended a car near the campus of my undergraduate alma mater, Furman University in Greenville, SC. The lady in the car was airlifted by helicopter to Greenville Memorial Hospital. How many hundred times have I passed that spot? I’m scheduled to help judge the collegiate mock trial competition at Furman in…
Continue reading ›Here’s an excellent post by Ron Fox at the Lawyer Satisfaction Blog about how poorly law schools prepare their students to actually practice law and run a law office and something called “Solo Practice University.” Nothing in law school prepares one for the responsibility of running the business of a law practice. Law schools traditionally…
Continue reading ›As a personal injury trial lawyer in Atlanta, I wind up answering a lot of questions. Here’s one that came to me recently: Q. Is the diagnosis from a chiropractor allowed in personal injury cases in Georgia? A. A chiropractor can testify to document complaints and symptoms and regarding treatment within the scope of chiropractic care.…
Continue reading ›Q. Can I sue an animal doctor for giving my dog a vaccination shot that made him so sick that he had to be put down? A. Theoretically yes. Practically, it’s probably not worth it. The measure of damage for death of an animal in Georgia — even the most beloved family pet — is…
Continue reading ›Once again, the politicians who complain about frivolous lawsuits should see the ones lawyers screen out. Here’s a recent question and my response. Q. My friends and I recently ate at a restaurant and found numerous bugs in ALL of our to go cups. We had already drank from our cups and because a manager…
Continue reading ›Here’s a sample of the sort of questions I get from folks in my practice as an personal injury trial attorney in Atlanta: Q: What does general damages mean in context to auto accident personal injury claim in Georgia? A: This is more than you asked for, but here is a portion of the Georgia Pattern…
Continue reading ›The $350,000 cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases, which was enacted by the Georgia legislature in 2005 as part of an omnibus tort reform bill known as SB3, faces another constitutional challenge this week. Yesterday, Fulton County State Court Judge Diane Bessen held the cap unconstitutional in the case of Nestlehutt v. Atlanta…
Continue reading ›The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended that the DOT explore requiring fatigue monitoring systems. Those could include included lane departure warning systems, driver monitoring systems such as PERCLOS (which measures the rate of eyelid closure), and electronic onboard recorders. In addition, the NTSB spokesman said that “Both active braking and ESC technologies represent opportunities…
Continue reading ›Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, at 49 CFR 391.11, requires that in order to get a Commercial Driver’s License, an applicant must be able to “read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and…
Continue reading ›Obviously my trucking litigation practice in Atlanta, Georgia, is in the wrong place or wrong specialty. This week a federal judge in California ordered Taser, Inc. to pay $1.4 million in attorney fees to the lawyers whose client only collected $183,000. The family of a man who was Tasered multiple times by police trying to…
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