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Our injury lawyers are representing the family of one of the victim in the Greatime Getaways tour bus that collided with a tractor trailer owned by Polcon Tile & Terrazo on October 13, 2016 in Gilmer County, Georgia.  We are looking to talk to any witnesses or other individuals with information about the accident to assist in our investigation.
The accident occurred on Georgia Highway 515  and preliminary reports suggest that the tractor trailer driver was at fault.  We understand the tractor trailer was traveling on Whitestone Road and attempted to take a left onto 515 southbound.  In doing so, the tractor trailer cut across the 515 northbound lanes and blocked the lane in which the tour bus was traveling, which caused the tour bus to collide with the back end of the tractor trailer.  The collision killed the tour bus driver and injuring 43 passengers.
Left turns are one of the most dangerous maneuvers a tractor trailer can make.  This is even more true when the left turn is made across multiple lane highways.  Both federal and state laws, as well as numerous training manuals and industry policies, govern the process by which left turns are safely made.  One of the hazardous conditions involved in a tractor trailer left turn is the obvious fact that it takes a lot more time to clear a tractor trailer through an intersection than it does the average vehicle.  This is a combination of the added time it takes a heavy tractor trailer to start moving from a complete stop as well as the added time it takes for the lengthy trailer to pass through the intersection. Tractor trailer driver must undergo extensive training and remain highly alert to properly gauge whether the entire tractor trailer will be able to clear the roadway safely and timely without impeding oncoming traffic.
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In most circumstances, you cannot sue the actual owners of a corporation personally for the liabilities of the corporation. This is one of the key reasons that people use companies to insulate themselves from personal liability. Sometimes the company itself can be underfunded and the actual owner, very well off. In those circumstances, the Plaintiff may want to go after the owner. In this recent decision, the Court put some strict limits in place when trying to do that with a case where a bar let a drunk patron get on the roads.

When faced with this situation, plaintiffs will often attempt to “pierce the corporate veil” and impose personal liability on a corporation’s underlying shareholders. However, as the plaintiff in Barnes v. Smith, a recent decision from the Georgia Court of Appeals, now realizes, piercing the corporate veil may be far from a straightforward proposition.

The facts at the center of Barnes occurred on November 19, 2012. On that day, a patron arrived at Hank & Jerry’s Tavern in Rockdale County, Georgia at around 4 p.m. and had a beer and a shot of Jagermeister. The patron left the Tavern but returned at around 11 p.m. and again had half a beer as well as one and a half “Jagermeister bomb” drinks. The night bartender, who was also the supervisor at the Tavern that night and a personal acquaintance of the patron, noticed that the patron’s eyes were glassy and that he was acting belligerently. The bartender unsuccessfully attempted to take the patron’s keys and offered to either call him a cab or drive him home. In an effort to prevent the patron from leaving, the night bartender tried to lock the front door of the Tavern, but a different customer at the Tavern let the patron out in response to his belligerent conduct. The patron told the bartender that he would just rest in his car, which the bartender believed, but shortly thereafter, the patron drove away. The bartender knew that the patron should not be driving, but she did not call the police out of concern about getting the patron in legal trouble.

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In most negligence cases, a plaintiff’s recovery is generally limited to his or her actual damages, both economic and non-economic. Although these damages typically provide sufficient recovery, Georgia law does allow for the recovery of an additional type of damages, punitive damages, when certain conditions are met. The recovery of punitive damages is, however, narrowly circumscribed under Georgia law, and courts tend to be wary in many instances to even let the question of punitive damages go to a jury. For instance, in a recent decision, Minott v. Merrill, a Georgia federal judge explained how narrowly confined punitive damages are under state law.

Minott arose from a motor vehicle accident on a stretch of Interstate 20 in Morgan County, Georgia. The plaintiff alleges that while he was traveling in the right lane, the defendant’s vehicle struck the rear of his vehicle and thereby caused the plaintiff’s vehicle to spin and eventually settle on the side of the road. The plaintiff did not report any injuries at the scene, and officers who reported to the scene to investigate did not issue any citations at that time. In a report on the accident, an investigating officer noted that the defendant acknowledged that at the time his car hit the plaintiff’s vehicle, he had his cell phone resting on his leg and had snatched at his steering wheel while attempting to prevent the phone from slipping. Following the accident, the plaintiff brought suit, alleging negligence and seeking recovery of damages, including punitive damages. At the conclusion of discovery, the defendant moved for summary judgment on the issue of whether the plaintiff was entitled to recover punitive damages as a matter of law.

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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.

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For soon-to-be parents, quality prenatal care is of the utmost importance. Although finding quality prenatal health care providers is often a difficult undertaking for many people, the task can be even more difficult for women who find themselves behind bars during a pregnancy. Indeed, in a recent decision, Durden v. NaphCARE, Inc., a Georgia federal district court needed to address a medical malpractice claim brought by a female inmate who suffered a stillborn birth while serving time in a detention facility.

The plaintiff in this action learned that she was pregnant in November 2011, shortly before she was to report to Newton County Detention Center (“NCDC”) to serve a sentence for a state court conviction. The principal defendant in this action, NaphCARE, Inc., is a contractor hired by Newton County to provide healthcare and nursing services to inmates at NCDC. The plaintiff had her first appointment with the obstetrician responsible for her care during the course of her pregnancy and incarceration on January 17, 2012. During a visit with the obstetrician on March 13, the plaintiff was diagnosed with an incompetent cervix, a condition that if left untreated could result in a miscarriage or premature delivery. The plaintiff was admitted to Newton Medical Center, where she underwent a procedure involving the insertion of a cervical cerclage to treat the incompetent cervix.  The plaintiff was discharged two days thereafter and returned to the infirmary at NCDC. On the afternoon of the day of her return to the infirmary, the plaintiff began to complain of vaginal discharge. The obstetrician was contacted, and he instructed nurses at the infirmary to continue monitoring the plaintiff’s condition.

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Jury neutrality is a cornerstone principle of American jurisprudence. Accordingly, prior to trial, litigants are entitled to question jurors about a variety of topics that may weigh on each prospective juror’s ability to render judgment in a fair manner. In auto accident cases, specifically, jurors are typically questioned about various issues, including their relationship with the parties and previous driving and litigation histories. Although such questioning does not often lead to disqualification, a failure to permit a sufficient inquiry can lead to the rejection of the jury’s ultimate verdict. For instance, in a recent decision, Mordecai v. Cain, the Georgia Court of Appeals vacated a jury’s ruling in an auto accident dispute because the trial court failed to allow particular questioning regarding the prospective jurors’ relationships to a non-party auto insurer.

Mordecai started with an auto accident caused by the defendant, who was driving in the wrong direction on a local roadway when his vehicle collided with the car being operated by the plaintiff. Prior to trial, the defendant and the plaintiff’s uninsured motorist provider moved to exclude all questions related to the prospective jurors’ relationships with the insurance provider unless a juror stated when asked about employment that he or she was currently employed by an insurance company. Alternatively, they argued that if jurors were to be questioned about their relationships with the insurance company, it should be done in the jury assembly area prior to trial. The trial court concurred with the defendant and auto insurer and allowed questions regarding connections to the auto insurer to only be performed by a jury assembly administrator. The administrator testified that she asked the prospective jurors if they were “an officer, employee, stockholder, agent, director or policyholder of State Farm Automobile Mutual Insurance Holding” and that all prospective jurors who answered “yes” were excluded from the panel ultimately sent to the court for voir dire. The case proceeded to trial, after which a verdict was rendered. Finding the judgment unsatisfactory, the plaintiff appealed, arguing, among other things, that the trial court’s preclusion of in-court questioning about the jurors’ connection to State Farm was reversible error.

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In 2007, the Georgia legislature adapted existing state laws concerning powers of attorney and living wills and adopted the Advance Directive Act. This Act streamlined existing state laws to make it simpler for a citizen to declare preferences for medical treatment and appoint someone to make medical decisions on his or her behalf. Beyond clarifying rights associated with medical decision-making, the Act provided immunity to health care providers in certain situations when care is administered in contravention of the terms of an advance directive. Given the law’s newness, many of these contours of the Act’s provisions have yet to be tested through litigation. However, in a recent decision, Doctors Hosp. of Augusta v. Alicea, the Supreme Court of Georgia took the opportunity to weigh in on the scope of this important law.

The plaintiff in Alicea is the granddaughter of a deceased woman who received care at Doctors Hospital in Augusta, Georgia. The decedent had been brought to the hospital on March 3, 2012, and preliminary tests showed that she was suffering from pneumonia, sepsis, and acute renal failure. About two years earlier, the decedent had executed an advance directive that generally gave the plaintiff the authority to make medical decisions on her behalf, including decisions related to artificial life support treatments. The decedent had repeatedly told her family members that she did not want rely on machines to live and that her family should let her pass when it was time. In addition, the advance directive contained particular provisions expressing the decedent’s desire to not have her life prolonged artificially. At the time the decedent was admitted to the hospital, the plaintiff gave a copy of the advance directive to the staff.

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In many of the rural parts of our state, it’s not uncommon for property owners to burn vegetation or other materials on their property. Although these burnings are regulated and are typically performed without incident, they do pose some hazards. Indeed, in a recent decision, Grant v. Georgia Forestry Comm., the Georgia Court of Appeals needed to determine what, if any, liability existed against the Georgia Forestry Commission for an auto accident caused, in part, by smoke from a regulated burning.

The accident at issue in this case occurred in the early morning of March 17, 2011. On the day before, the Georgia Forestry Commission (“GFC”) issued a burn permit to a property owner who lived near Interstate 16 and wished to burn vegetation on his land. At around 3 p.m. that day, the local Chief Ranger of the Bulloch County GFC fire protection unit received notice of a fire on that property. When he arrived, the ranger observed the fire burning out of control and initiated measures to contain and monitor the fire. Among these measures were the posting of smoke/fog warning signs and the placement of local deputies to handle traffic issues. At around 7 p.m. that day, the Chief Ranger determined that the blaze had been contained, although the burned area continued to smoke. The Chief Ranger saw the smoke drifting toward the southeast away from I-16, which was about three-quarters of a mile to the north of the closest part of the burn area, and he reported seeing no visibility issues on either I-16 or another local thoroughfare. The Chief Ranger nevertheless called 911 to provide notice of smoke in the area and directed the the local county sheriff to continue to monitor the situation. At around 5 p.m. that day, a local official for the Georgia Department of Transportation (“GDOT”) also responded to notice of the fire and placed warning signs in both directions on a local state road. The GDOT official returned to the area at 7:45 and reported no visibility issues but left the signs in place.

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Situated just outside Atlanta, Stone Mountain Park serves as a venue for many important Metro Atlanta outdoor events. Although most are characterized only by revelry, not all go off without incident. Indeed, one such unfortunate event was at the heart of a recent decision from the Georgia Court of Appeals, Stone Mountain Mem. Assn. v. Amestoy, which involved the untimely death of a bicyclist at Stone Mountain.

Viewed in a light favorable to the plaintiff, the widow of the deceased bicyclist, the evidence is as follows. At around 7:30 a.m. on the day of the bicyclist’s death, members of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association Public Safety Department were making preparations on Robert E. Lee Blvd. in anticipation for a 5K run that was set to begin at 8 a.m. These preparations included the placement of side-by-side barricades across the southbound lanes of Robert E. Lee Blvd. The barricade had orange and white strips and bore “do not enter” signs. An official was stationed near the barricade, but he left suddenly at one point in order to urinate. While the official was in the restroom, a different department official saw two bicyclists maneuver around the barricades. About five to ten minutes later, the deceased man was observed riding his bike toward the same barricades at what one witness described as a “normal” speed. The deceased man had his head down, and as he traveled between the barricades, his bike made contact with one of them, causing him to be thrown off. Although he was wearing a helmet, the victim suffered head trauma, which ultimately led to his death.

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