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At least once a year I get into a lengthy debate with friends about the merits of various tort reform measures including these repeated calls for a “loser pays” system in Georgia. Having just returned from London, I became interested in how the English Rule, “loser pays”, is working for them specifically with regard to car accident injury cases.

First, lets discuss the English Rule. In England, the losing party or the party who dismisses their case and gives up has to pay the other side’s legal fees. This is true in personal injury law as well as all other types. Imagine that a business has been wronged by

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I realize the entire word of medical bills and health insurance is going to change drastically next year. For the time being it is a total clusterfuck for the uninsured and only slightly better for the insured.

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I had a call from a nice lady from Dalton the other day and the reason she called is that Allstate declared that they were assigning 30% of the blame for a crash to her. This is a crash where the Allstate driver left a stop sign and pulled in front of the lady and there was a bad crash that totaled both cars. The lady was interviewed by Allstate and she said she was going 30 in a 25 when the other driver pulled out from the stop sign without looking. Allstate took this lady’s honest statement that she was 5 mph above the speed limit and threw it in her face to refuse to pay for the car in full and to deny $6,000 in medical bills from the hospital.

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When a client is injured in a crash where the other driver leaves the scene, the fleeing driver is liable for punitive damages when they can be identified. We see examples of egregious roadway behavior on a regular basis, and the incidence of Georgia drivers fleeing the scene is on the rise.

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When a driver fails to stop for a collision to render assistance to a person that has been injured, the injured person’s lawyer can explain how to recover punitive damages and get a jury charge on negligence per se for those actions. Cheevers v. Clark 214 Ga.App. 866 (1994).

Perhaps you have read the story of the family in New York that has a filed an $83 million dollar lawsuit against the makers of Red Bull for the death of a 30 year old father on a basketball court. Being a lawyer who regularly files these cases in legitimate cases, I was curious as to what the evidence is. Unfortunately, the case appears to be a total farce and the lawyer will once again do damage to the my profession.

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On Monday we mediated a fascinating case for a client to a successful conclusion. I cannot get into the details because the other half of the case is still to be litigated but the case brought up some novel issues that I thought I would share.

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Causation is one of the four elements that must be proven in an injury case in order to get a judgment in an injury case in Georgia. Insurance defense lawyers will often attack the plaintiff’s ability to prove that the accident caused the specific injury.

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State Supreme Court The state of Georgia’s Highest Appellate Court

Court of Appeals: The intermediate court of Appeals

Superior Court: These courts exist in each county in Georgia and have the ability to hear felony criminal cases, divorce and family law cases and have no jursidictional limits. You can sue for as much as you want to in Superior Court

So you have a car accident in Georgia and three days later the police report comes out. It does not take 5 minutes for the runners to start calling the person who was not ticketed trying to hustle them into a chiropractic clinic or to a shady lawyer.

This practice has always existed but anecdotally it appears to to have exploded in the last few years. Three prospective clients called this week; all of them having been approached by runners.

So I am calling them out. Realize that these names may be fake and may be similar to legitimate businesses. How do you know if the people calling you are legit? If they are calling you within 30 days of the crash and you did not ask them to, they are dirt bags, plain and simple. Stay away because it won’t end well.

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We are representing the Syed family for a tragic crash that also took the life of Caroline Addlesburger and her mother Tracy Bieler on August 7, 2013. In a sadly familiar series of events, Mrs. Bieler was driving down a steep hill on a wet road with unsafe tires when she lost control and crossed in the Syed’s lane and hit them head on. Our client’s daughter broke her leg and underwent an ORIF (Open reduction internal fixation) procedure to put a rod into the femur. A tragic combination of speed, bad judgment and poor maintenance led to the loss of life.

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