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In a recent Georgia car accident case before a state appellate court, the plaintiff filed claims arising out of a car accident that killed her husband and seriously injured her son. She filed a claim against the local Emergency Medical Services (EMS), alleging that they failed to properly treat her husband’s and son’s injuries. She also filed a claim against the local County Road Superintendent (Superintendent), alleging that he failed to inspect and maintain the road. Both defendants claimed they were entitled to immunity. The trial court agreed, dismissing the claims against them, and the plaintiff appealed. On appeal, the court considered whether the defendants were protected by immunity.

According to the court’s opinion, the plaintiff’s husband was driving with his 12-year-old son in Atkinson County when he hit a hole in the road, and after he regained control of the truck, he hit a second hole and crashed into a tree. EMS responded to the scene and found the husband trapped on the driver’s side, and the son seated on the passenger side. The son allegedly told one emergency medical technician (EMT) to check on his father who was unconscious, but the EMT told him that they had to “get [him] out first.” The EMT told the son to jump off the truck, and when he said he could not jump, the EMT told him that jumping was the way he would get off. The son did so, and “had to walk” to the stretcher. However, the EMT who assisted the son testified that he picked up the son, laid him onto a stretcher, and carried him to the ambulance. The father was unconscious but breathing, and was removed from the truck, but stopped breathing while he was in the ambulance. EMS tried to resuscitate the husband, but he died of his injuries.

If a lawsuit is filed against a public entity or a public official, the public entity or official may be protected by official immunity. A public official is protected by official immunity if the official “has engaged in discretionary acts that are within the scope of his or her authority, and the official has not acted in a willful or wanton manner; with actual malice; or with the actual intent to cause injury.” In contrast, official immunity does not protect against ministerial acts that are performed negligently. Generally, ministerial acts are acts that are “simple, absolute, and definite,” and require “merely the execution of a specific duty.” In contrast, discretionary acts are acts that “call for the exercise of personal deliberation and judgment,” and acting on one’s own conclusions “in a way not specifically directed.”

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Earlier this year, a state appellate court issued a decision in a Georgia premises liability case that arose out of a slip-and-fall accident that took place inside the defendant grocery store. The court was presented with the question as to whether the plaintiff presented sufficient evidence that the defendant grocery store was aware of the hazard or should have been aware of the hazard that caused the plaintiff’s fall.

According to the court’s written opinion, while the plaintiff was shopping at the defendant grocery store, he slipped in a puddle of liquid and fell to the ground. The plaintiff claimed that he did not see the puddle before stepping in it. As a result of the slip-and-fall accident, the plaintiff injured his shoulder and head, and later filed a premises liability lawsuit against the grocery store.

At trial, surveillance video was presented, showing a store employee walking by the area of the spill moments before the plaintiff’s fall. The employee did not stop to clean up the spill and by all indications did not see the spill. The defense also presented evidence of the store’s safety inspection plan. Apparently, store employees were responsible for sweeping and mopping the floors four times a day. Before beginning these routine sweeps, the employee was to input a code into the store’s computer system, logging in the sweep.

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Earlier this month, the state’s supreme court issued a written opinion in a Georgia dog bite case discussing if a landlord could be liable for injuries that were caused by a tenant’s dog. Ultimately, the court concluded that the plaintiff failed to show that any potential negligence on the landlord’s part was the cause of her injuries.

The Facts of the Case

According to the court’s opinion, the plaintiff was walking her dogs when she was attacked by several dogs that had escaped from a fenced yard a few blocks away. Evidently, the dogs belonged to a family who rented a home that was owned by the defendant. The plaintiff first filed a claim against the dogs’ owners, but later joined the landlord as a defendant. This case involves only the landlord’s potential liability.

The plaintiff’s claimed that the dogs were able to escape from the fenced yard because the landlord failed to repair a broken gate latch. Apparently, shortly after moving in, the gate latch broke. To keep their dogs in the backyard, the tenants came up with a temporary solution involving tying a leash to the fence and using cement blocks to prevent the gate from opening. On the day of the attack, the dogs broke free. It was assumed that the landlord knew the latch was broken and that the tenants kept dogs on the property.

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Georgia personal injury cases generally have to abide by a two-year statute of limitations. This means that plaintiffs have two years after a car crash or other personal injury incident to file a lawsuit in court. However, there are exceptions to that rule, as one recent Georgia case demonstrates. In that case, the plaintiff was able to file the claim beyond the two-year statute of limitations because of the issuance of a traffic citation as a result of the crash.

The Facts of the Case

According to the court’s opinion, the crash occurred between two cars in Fayetteville, Georgia in 2014. The collision took place on October 16, and thus, the statute of limitations would normally have run on October 16, 2016.

The plaintiff filed her lawsuit on November 10, 2016, and the defendant argued that the case was filed after the statute of limitations and should be dismissed. However, the plaintiff contended that the statute of limitations was tolled because the defendant was issued a traffic citation due to the crash.

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Earlier this month, a state appellate court issued a written opinion in a Georgia car accident case requiring the court to determine if the plaintiff’s recovery amount should be reduced by the amount of money that the insurance company paid the plaintiff before the case was resolved. Ultimately, after closely reading the language in the insurance contract, the court concluded that such an offset was appropriate, reducing the plaintiff’s recovery amount by over $22,000.

The Facts of the Case

According to the court’s opinion, the plaintiff had an insurance policy with the defendant insurance company. The case arose when the plaintiff was injured in a Georgia car accident with an uninsured driver. Evidently, the uninsured driver failed to yield at an intersection, striking the plaintiff’s vehicle. The matter of whom was at fault was not important to the court’s opinion; it was assumed that the other driver was responsible for the accident.

The plaintiff filed a personal injury lawsuit against the uninsured driver, and a jury returned a general verdict in the plaintiff’s favor for $157,400. The plaintiff’s insurance company paid the judgment, but requested that the total amount be reduced by the amount of money it paid to the plaintiff during the pendency of the lawsuit.

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Parties in a personal injury case have to take great care in maintaining evidence that may be relevant to the case, even if litigation has not yet begun. In one recent case before Georgia’s Supreme Court, the Court considered whether the defendant was properly sanctioned for failing to preserve evidence. The case may not seem as though it pertains to Georgia personal injury cases, however, the court’s decision applies equally to personal injury cases in which one of the parties is alleged to have destroyed, altered, or failed to preserve necessary evidence.

The Facts of the Case

A woman took photos of what she claimed was a bug in her food while she was eating at a work cafeteria. She emailed photos to the building superintendent, and also sent the photos to Walgreens to be printed before delivering them to her superintendent the following day. The food vendor was removed from the list of qualified vendors and later filed a claim as a result of the incident. Almost ten years later, the vendor became aware that there were printed photos in addition to the emailed photos. The superintendent did not provide the photos to the food vendor and admitted that he lost the printed photos at some point. The digital versions were still available, and the superintendent and the employee testified that the photos were identical, although the defendants disputed that fact.

The plaintiff filed a motion for sanctions for spoliation of evidence due to the defendant’s failure to preserve the printed photos. The trial court found that the superintendent had been aware of the claim but still failed to preserve the printed photos or provide them to his employer’s lawyers. As a result, the trial court imposed a sanction for failing to preserve the printed photos. It decided it would provide a jury instruction stating that “spoliation of evidence creates a rebuttable presumption that the evidence would have been harmful to the spoliator.”

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Last month, a Georgia truck accident resulted in a University of Georgia student losing his life. According to a local news report covering the tragic accident, the collision occurred in the evening hours on Interstate 20, when an eastbound trucker lost control of his rig. Evidently, the truck flipped over onto its side before colliding with two vehicles and then a barrier wall. After the truck smashed into the wall, debris was thrown across the highway.

Apparently, the student was traveling in the westbound lanes on I-20 when debris from the truck struck his vehicle. The student died as a result of the injuries he sustained in the accident. Police arrested the truck’s driver, charging him with several serious crimes, including second-degree homicide by vehicle.

Georgia Wrongful Death Cases Following Fatal Truck Accidents

In Georgia, family members who have lost a loved one due to another motorist’s negligence can pursue a claim for compensation through a Georgia wrongful death lawsuit. Under Georgia law, a wrongful death claim can be brought by a surviving spouse, child or, if the accident victim as a minor, a parent.

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In February 2015 in Phenix City, Alabama, our client was making a left turn on green at a 3-way intersection when, suddenly, a tractor trailer ran the red light, causing our client to strike the 18-wheeler.  From the beginning the defense tried to get out of compensating our client, putting up a hard fight at every chance and forcing McAleer Law to file a lawsuit against the truck driver and the trucking company.  In the lawsuit, we brought not only claims against the driver for his negligence, but also a claim against his employer for negligent retention.

The driver of the tractor-trailer denied any wrong-doing, even denying running the red light.  In spite of his denials, multiple scene witnesses contradicted the truck driver and testified that the tractor trailer appeared to slow down then accelerated through the red light.  Through documents produced in discovery, McAleer Law’s attorneys found that this truck driver had actually caused previous accidents within his first few weeks at work for the trucking company and the trucking company had decided to retain him as a driver.

Our client suffered from severe spinal injuries and had to undergo 3 surgeries along with months of physical therapy and pain management, which the trucking company clearly did not want to pay for.  Despite providing no evidence to support their arguments, the defense asserted that our client’s injuries were pre-existing to the collision due to our client’s blue-collar work history and even asserted that his surgeries were not necessary.  Such defenses are typical and predictable in automobile or trucking collision cases such as this.

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Earlier this month, a state appellate court issued a written opinion in a Georgia personal injury case that arose after an accident that occurred in the Dominican Republic. The case required the court to determine if the lower court correctly held that the case should be transferred from Georgia, where the plaintiff filed the lawsuit, to the Dominican Republic. Finding that Georgia’s out-of-state venue statute only applied to cases that were being transferred to other states, the court denied the defendant’s request to transfer the case.

The Facts of the Case

According to the court’s opinion, the plaintiff was vacationing in the Dominican Republic when she was injured while on a zip-line course. Evidently, one of the zip-lines collapsed while the plaintiff was on the course.

The plaintiff filed a personal injury lawsuit against the operator of the course. Because the defendant corporation was based out of Georgia, the plaintiff – who was from Michigan – filed the case in Georgia. The defendant filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the “balance of private and public factors” weighed in favor of transferring the case to the Dominican Republic. Relying on OCGA § 9-10-31.1, the trial court agreed and dismissed the plaintiff’s case so that it could be refiled in the Dominican Republic. The plaintiff appealed.

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In 2017, our client was travelling down a 4-lane divided highway when a truck driver, driving only his tractor, pulled out of a parking lot and into the path of his motorcycle. Our client had no chance to avoid the collision and died almost immediately upon impact.

Initially, the trucking company denied responsibility for our client’s death.  However, our thorough investigation and accident reconstruction work ultimately convinced the trucking company to abandon this defense.  One of the key reasons the trucking company initially denied fault for our client’s death in this trucking accident case was because Continue reading