Georgia has seen two catastrophic armored truck accidents within the past week, at Calhoun and Tucker.
Gordon County officer killed.
Near Calhoun on August 22nd , Gordon County ordinance enforcement officer Kathy Cox was killed when a Loomis Fargo armored truck failed to stop behind a slowing vehicle, swerved into the oncoming lane, and hit Mrs. Cox’s vehicle head on. Both vehicles burst into flames, and she died in the conflagration.
Kathy Cox’s older sister, Karen, was in my class at Douglas County High School in the late sixties. I remember Cathy as a child of 9 or 10, hanging around the house when I was in their home to work on some class project. Karen died in a motor vehicle accident roughly probably 20 or so years ago. That family has been through a lot.
The Loomis armored truck from Chattanooga, where I was taking depositions this week, was driven by Daniel Allen Clark of Fort Payne, Ala., where I was born. The wreck occurred in Gordon County, where last year we won the largest jury verdict in the history of the county.
Loomis Armored, USA, Inc., now part of an international conglomerate of cash handling businesses, started out as Wells Fargo in the days of the California gold rush of the nineteenth century. It has 2,992 drivers of 4,575 armored trucks nationwide.
Ironically, Loomis announced on August 26th its acquisition in Georgia of EM Armored Car Service, Inc., in Savannah.
DeKalb County school bus hit, child critically injured.
Just five days later on August 27th in Tucker, a Garda armored struck struck a school bus that was stopped with its lights flashing and sign extended. A 13-year-old girl who was boarding the bus at the time of impact was transported to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in critical condition.
Garda is a global security and cash logistics company based in Montreal, Canada.
Garda has nine regional operating companies, including Garda Southeast based in Smyrna, GA, with 106 power units and 315 drivers.
Both Loomis and Garda are interstate motor carriers required to comply with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. Both can be held accountable by Georgia juries if the families select a lawyer who knows how to use those regulations.
Ken Shigley served as chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Litigation Institute, co-sponsored by the Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina Trial Lawyers Associations. He is on the National Advisory Board for the Association of Interstate Trucking Lawyers of America, and is actively involved in the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group of the American Association for Justice. A member of the Million Dollar Advocates, he has successfully tried trucking accident cases to multimillion dollar verdict. He has lectured on trucking litigation topics at continuing legal education programs both at home in Georgia and in Nashville, New Orleans and St. Louis, and is scheduled to do so in Chicago this fall. A Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, he is also a Master of the Lamar Inn of Court at Emory Law School, a faculty member for ten years at the Emory University Law School Trial Techniques Program, and was recently elected Secretary of the 39,000 member State Bar of Georgia.