Articles Posted in Uncategorized

In a car accident case where no one agrees who caused the crash, one key piece of evidence is the “black box” in the car that can contain, speed, braking and steering data. In a new appellate decision, the issue of when the duty to preserve the data and who is responsible to do so was discussed.

The case of French v. Perez, 824 S.E.2d 796 (Ga. App., 2019) addressed a case where French was hurt when the car he was in was hit by Perez’s vehicle. The car was signed over to State Farm by Perez when it was totaled and French’s lawyer sent a letter to State Farm insisting they preserve the car and its black box. One month later the car was destroyed in the crusher.

French ask the Judge to sanction Perez for failing to preserve the evidence in the case, and the Court refused to do so, ultimately leading the case to the Court of Appeals. The Court had to decide; 1) was the letter to State Farm notice to Perez and 2)could Perez do anything about it since they turned it over to State Farm by the time the letter went out.

The insurance adjuster called and asked for a recorded statement; should you give it?

When it comes to car accidents, there are two kinds of insurance adjusters that you will deal with. The insurance adjuster for the car that caused the accident and your insurance adjuster. They each have distinct roles and you have different obligations to each of them. Let’s break it down further.

The Other Guys Insurance Adjuster

“Someone hit my car and their insurance company says they are still investigating even though it has been several weeks!”  It’s is a pretty common call we get and there are a couple of approaches.

1. Remember that contingency fee (no win no pay) lawyers only work on cases with physical injuries involved. There is no way to get paid on property damage only, so if it is only repairs etc. any lawyer will be out of pocket for you.
2. If it is property damage only, go through your own collision coverage as it will be much easier and then your company will get your deductible back in a behind the scenes process called inter-company arbitration.

There are a number of reasons why you might decide to fire your injury lawyer and either go it alone or interview a new lawyer.  The good news is, it is easy and painless to fire an injury lawyer so long as there are no offers on the case yet. These are the common questions;

• I signed a contract, am I stuck?
• If I fire the attorney, am I breaking the contract?

Slip and Fall Cases Come in All Shapes and Sizes

Quick Things to Know

SLIP AND FALL CASES ARE THROWN OUT ON SUMMARY JUDGMENT, BY DIRECTED VERDICT AND THROUGH DEFENSE VERDICTS ALL THE TIME

Many of you are trying out the convenience of the car rental-ish entity, Turo, which allows you to rent people’s private vehicles much in the same way that Airbnb does for houses. One of the key questions is, what if you rent a Turo car and get into a car accident and damage another car or hurt someone?

I scheduled a trip for Labor Day to San Francisco and one of my all time goals was to rent a hot car and drive the Pacific Coast Highway and the Napa and Sonomo Valleys. I got on Turo and found a perfect 2018 Black Jag F-Type convertible for a reasonable $200 a day. Throw in a few taxes etc and then you come to a buy insurance screen. Turo pretty much tells you they have no idea if your car insurance will cover you and suggests you buy a “spot” policy that covers you while driving. This policy is written by Liberty Mutual and comes in either $30,000 in liability coverage or $1,000,000 of liability coverage. The larger policy costs $81 dollars a day! Once you factor this in, the rental rate looks a lot less attractive.

I started poking around. First I checked with American Express, which normally provides coverage for property damage done to rental cars so you don’t have to buy that from Enterprise or Hertz or whatever. Nope, Amex says right on their website “we do not consider Turo to be a car rental company” and therefore their coverage does not apply.

Dr. Dao should not have been asked to leave the United flight he paid for, but he was a fool to behave like he did once he realized leaving was inevitable. Were I the Judge on this case, I would look long and hard at the contract for carriage and what Dr. Dao said on tape before I allowed certain issues to make it to the jury. In this era of fake news I read articles suspiciously and look only for hard facts, so let’s look at this case together.

If you read the passenger accounts and listen to the audio tapes, it all boils down like this; Dao was seated when United asked for four volunteers to give up their seats so a flight crew could make it to their next flight. He initially volunteered, but changed his mind when told about how long it would be till the next flight.

United supervisors then asked him to leave his seat and he would not. At that point, airport security officers got involved. Dr. Dao made his critical mistake when he refused the lawful request of the officers to leave after being told he would be removed. He had every right to be outraged at being asked to leave. He had every right to be furious with the airline, but when a law enforcement officer makes it clear that they are going to forcibly remove you, do not act like a child and scream and throw your body about. His injures were the result of his foolish decision on how to react to an outrageous situation. “You can drag me out, but I’m not going. I’m staying right here,” is not a wise reaction. “I make a lawsuit against United Airlines” is indicative of a lot of what is wrong with the world.   I will give him a hall pass on lying about having to be at work when you are no longer a doctor, but the rest of his decisions from then on were poor.

In a story made for Hollywood, it was recently revealed that billionaire Peter Thiel was quietly funding Hulk Hogan’s litigation against Gawker.com. We have previously discussed the silent emergence of hedge funds investing in high stakes divorce and business litigation for a cut of the winnings. What we are seeing here is a long term revenge play straight out of The Count of Monte Cristo.

The story goes like this:

1. Hulk Hogan had intercourse with a Tampa area woman and he claims he did not know it was recorded. The tape circulated for a while and was then posted on Gawker.com.

There was an article in the New York Times two weeks ago entitled “Phone Makers Could Cut Off Drivers Why Don’t They?” The article asked if it is easy to disable the phone at road speeds, why don’t phone makers do that and cut down on texting and driving. My short answer is an effort to auto disable phones when moving at vehicle speeds would have inherent flaws that could open the phone maker up to legal liability that does not exist if they don’t even try. Moreover, the failure to save us from our own stupidity is not the job of the manufacturer.

None of us want dangerous products on the market. Cigarettes are dangerous, but so long as there are warnings, we can put on our big boy pants and smoke ourselves to death. Knives are supposed to be sharp; we know to be careful with them. We will not tolerate baby cribs with slats so wide that babies can choke to death. We will not accept poisonous drugs. We will not accept aircraft with substandard welds.

Cell phone use in cars whether it is music apps, maps, email or texting, is rampant. The technology is addictive from a sociological perspective, but not in the way that cigarettes are with chemicals added to addict the customer. They are just very sticky technologies. So now lawyers are filing suits against technology manufacturers claiming they should protect the consumer and the motoring public from themselves. The problem with holding them responsible is their decisions are not bad enough to be the proximate cause of the crash. The cause is the driver being careless enough to use technology that everyone knows is dangerous.