June 2012

Recently we concluded settlement of a case in which a drunk on the wrong side of the road struck and killed a woman driving to a church breakfast. One moment she was driving safely and prudently down a quiet country road. The next moment an intoxicated stranger crossed the center line and crashed head-on into her. Instantly she entered eternity, leaving a grieving family behind. Such tragedies occur far too often. It happened again last week in Lawrenceville.

Numerous traffic law violations may be implicated in such a crash, such as operation of a motor vehicle while under the…

Baseball has been called the great American pastime. We all love an occasional trip to Turner Field to watch the Braves, and nothing can compare with family outings to minor league baseball games in smaller cities. I have nothing but pleasant memories of the spring and summer afternoons and evenings rooting for my son in years of Little League baseball.

Against this cultural background, the news story of a New Jersey lawsuit has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. According to an Associated Press report, Elizabeth Lloyd, a woman in Manchester Township, NJ, has sued an 11-year-old…

Often in trials involving catastrophic brain injury that renders the plaintiff so incompetent as to be unable to assist her lawyers at trial, the defense moves first to bifurcate the trial between liability and damages phases, and then to exclude the plaintiff from the courtroom during the liability phase.

The idea is to prevent the jury from mixing sympathy for the plaintiff with determination of fault.

Over the years I have had mixed results in dealing with that issue, with both sides arguing on the basis of court decisions in other jurisdictions, as there has been no definitive Georgia law…

Kids and swimming pools are a delightful part of summer. This time of year I am often reminded of the pleasant memories of taking my two offspring to the neighborhood pool to play in the water with their friends. Memories of many neighborhood swim meets at the end of sweltering days. I never dreamed that those competitions between teams of young children from subdivision swim & tennis clubs in Sandy Springs would eventually lead to one of my little darlings becoming a triathlete.

But each summer the joy of pool play is accompanied by tragedy. The case that led me…

Occasionally we see claims that an accident and injury was caused, in whole or in part, by negligence in the design of a road, intersection or signage. In Georgia, there can be a claim against Georgia DOT if the road design did not conform to design standards when it was built. There may also be claims against an engineering firm for negligent design of a state, county or municipal roadway.

Now the Georgia Court of Appeals has clarified that a statute setting an 8 year time limit to sue after completion of construction to sue applies to road projects just…

When a patron of a business is assaulted and injured by a criminal on the premises, there is sometimes a possibility of suing the business or property owner for negligent security.

When I have handled such cases, the usual drill has been to gather evidence of prior criminal assaults on the premises to prove that the owner was on notice of the need for increased security, and then get an expert to testify about the types of security measures that should have been employed but were not.

Often when we have investigated potential cases of negligent security we have found…

My daughter began running marathons and triathlons in the years since she became deaf at 18. She is one of my heroes. She introduced me to the story of her hero, Scott Rigsby, a double amputee who completed the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon with the help of high tech prosthetic legs.

Last week, I saw Scott leading a “boot camp” type workout group on a run when I was driving to work. Immediately when I got to the office, I had to send a text message to my daughter in Rochester, NY, that I had seen her hero in action.…

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to speak with Colin O’Keefe of LXBN regarding my time as President of the State Bar of Georgia. In the short interview I explain how I came into the role, touch on some of the more memorable accomplishments and offer my thoughts the challenges and opportunities facing lawyers today. (Apologies re: sound and video quality on my end. I have a learning curve to address in the use of Skype via an iPad at home.)

Georgia law allows a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit one chance to dismiss without prejudice and refile. The renewal statute, OCGA § 9–2–61, allows a plaintiff who voluntarily dismisses a timely filed suit to file suit within six months, regardless of whether the statute of limitations has run.

However, a case decided by the Georgia Court of Appeals on May 26, 2012 reveals a trap door for the unwary in the exercise of this right. Cox v. Progressive Bayside Ins. Co., __ Ga. App. __, __ S.E.2d __, 2012 WL 1860704 (Ga.App., 2012).

In that case, Cox filed suit…

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A herniated cervical disc may result from any motor vehicle accident, including an automobile or car wreck or a truck, tractor trailer, semi or big rig accident. It is one of the injuries we see most often see as personal injury law practice.

The spine is a stack of bones called vertebra. The vertebra are separated by shock absorbers called intervertebral discs. The outer layer (the “bread” of the donut) is the annulus fibrosus, a tough tissue comprised of several layers of fibrocartilage.  This layer contains the nucleus pulposus (the “jelly” of…