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The good news coming from Saturday’s Greyhound bus crash is that none of the injuries were life threatening but that does not mean they were not serious. The preliminary reports are that the single vehicle collision occurred as a result of a tire blowout. Many people wrongly assume that the bus company will be legally responsible for the medical bills, but the legal analysis is more complex than that.

In order to hold Greyhound liable, we would need to show that the bus company was negligent in their inspections or maintenance of the tire. As a common carrier of people with a DOT number, there are strict pre and post trip inspection requirements as well as a strict maintenance schedule for tire replacements.

Under OCGA 46-9-132, a carrier of passengers like the Greyhound bus at issue owes the passengers a duty of extraordinary care, as opposed to the normal duty of ordinary negligence owed by average people.

One of the sad truths of the industry is that many attorneys are too lazy to take on difficult cases. If the injuries are serious or it involves a wrongful death, we will sit down with you and analyze all of the possible evidence and approaches to proving responsibility.

Even if other lawyers have turned your case down, we are more experienced than most in how to develop new theories of recovery and at tracking down evidence they overlooked.

In a wrongful death case that recently went to trial, the mother of a young man came to us after he died in a single car collision because two other lawyers told her she had no case and that it was his fault. We dug into the matter and found the City Ordinances that showed that the City was responsible for not removing a stone wall from its property that was a mere 5 feet off of a 45 mph road and an obvious hazard.  The City never offered any money on the case until one month before trial when they offered $1,000,000. We turned it down and the jury awarded $32.5 million dollars.

“Danger invites Rescue.” A lot of lawyers confuse the Rescuer Doctrine with the Good Samaritan Doctrine, so I thought we would explore them and draw the distinction. The most basic distinction is one is a sword and one is a shield. The Rescuer Doctrine allows you to sue the original wrongdoer if you go to save someone who has been put in danger by the negligence of another. Imagine that a person causes a car crash and you stop to help the victims and are then hit yourself. You have a cause of action against whomever negligently caused the original crash. On the other hand, the Good Samaritan Doctrine is a shield that protects you from being sued if you go help or rescue someone.

Let’s explore further.

Staying on top of the Georgia Appellate decisions that affect our practice is always a good idea and here is a summary of the most recent decisions.

A23A0430. PHILLIS GRAHAM, as surviving spouse of O’BRIAN

GRAHAM, Deceased v. HOSPICE SAVANNAH, INC.

Many folks have been following the developments in the Petito case and with the Order from the Court saying that the “Burn After Reading” letter is discoverable, the question is; is there enough here for a civil jury to consider awarding a judgment against the Laundrie parents? 

First let’s recap what has happened so far:

1. Brian Laundrie confessed to killing his fiance by strangulation.

Here is the link to the PDFs of my powerpoint presentation from the Plaintiff’s Personal Injury CLE.

Handling Auto Accident Cases Simon

In the Supreme Court of Georgia ruled on February 7, 2023, in the case of Hamon v. Connell et al., that Diane Dickens Hamon could file a medical malpractice action for the wrongful death of her father, James Isaac Dickens, Jr. against William Clark Connell, M.D., and South Georgia Emergency Medicine Associates, P.C. (collectively “Appellees”).

As you may recall, the list of who has the right to file a wrongful death lawsuit in Georgia is strictly controlled. If the decedent is married, that spouse has the sole right. If they are not married, the right goes to any children, if there are no children then it goes to the parents.

In this medical malpractice case, the spouse refused to file a suit, so the Appellees argued that the adult child, Hamon, did not have the right to bring the claim because Dickens had a surviving spouse. The trial court initially denied the motion, but the Court of Appeals reversed the decision. The Supreme Court of Georgia granted Hamon’s petition for certiorari to consider the issue and concluded that the trial court had properly denied the motion for judgment on the pleadings, so the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals decision.

Many years ago, Georgia modified its Uninsured Motorist statute to give some additional protection to consumers. It said that when placing coverage it had to offer you the same uninsured motorist coverage limits as you have for liability coverage. Remember that liability insurance is the protection you buy to insure you if you cause an accident or injury and uninsured motorist insurance is the coverage that you buy to protect yourself if you are hurt by someone with little or no insurance. Basically the UM coverage is for you if something bad happens to you.

Since the State of Georgia only requires that you buy liability coverage, many people try to save money by not getting UM coverage. and in the process screwing themselves. Agents are complicit because they don’t understand how important uninsured motorist insurance is. The end result is people buying top end liability coverage and then, inadvertently, getting a tiny crappy UM policy for marginal savings.

So we turn to the recent case coming out of the Georgia Court of Appeals in the 2023 case of Jones v. Georgia Farm Bureau where the facts showed that a Mr. Jones tragically died in a car accident and when his family wanted to claim the Uninsured Motorist Insurance, Farm Bureau advised him that while he had $1,000,000 in liability coverage, he opted for a tiny $25,000 in UM coverage.

Over the years, we have had numerous clients airlifted from the scene of accidents by air ambulance helicopters only to come home to outrageous bills of $60,000 and $70,000. In recent years, the best policy has been negotiation with the providers but new Georgia and Federal legislation may be changing all of that. Don’t get me wrong, these companies can save your life, but they can also put you in the poorhouse.

So what are the new laws? First let’s review the Georgia Law which became effective on January 1, 2021.

What does it apply to? Any Emergency Medical services.

We had a good friend try a jury trial in Fulton County the first week of November and he ran into a tough reality with some Fulton County juries. The plaintiff was in a car accident and underwent an arthroscopic shoulder surgery and had a manipulation of frozen shoulder under anesthesia some months later. The medical bills totaled $55,000. The Plaintiff’s lawyer took the policy limits of the at fault driver of $100,000 in a partial settlement well before trial, a fact not known to the jury. They tried the case as the next layer of insurance with the uninsured motorist insurer would not offer anything. They asked the jury to award $550,000.

So, what is an arthroscopic shoulder surgery worth in Fulton County in 2022 with $55,000 in bills? When you get a majority North Fulton jury from Buckhead, Alpharetta etc., not as much as one would think. The jury returned a verdict for only $85,000, meaning the Plaintiff did not receive more than the $100,000 in settlement from the tortfeasor. Fulton can be very conservative when a Northern pool of jurors shows up.

What are the lessons from a result like that? You can try a technically sound case and still not get a conservative group of jurors interested in a substantial verdict for this type of an injury. The surgery is outpatient, it’s not gory and most people know someone who has undergone the procedure without complication. Be careful when overestimating value in a simple non-commercial accident case where there is nothing for the jury to get invested in.