Atlanta Personal Injury Lawyers Blog

Chris Dronett has filed suit against the NFL on behalf of her deceased husband, former Atlanta Falcon Shane Dronett. After playing for 10 seasons, Shane retired from the NFL in 2003. In 2006, he began to suffer from paranoia, confusion, fear and rage. He subsequently had surgery to remove a brain tumor in 2007. Shane's condition continued to worsen resulting in his tragic suicide in the couple's Duluth, Georgia home in 2009.

The Boston University School of Medicine's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy confirmed that Shane was suffering from a degenerative brain disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) linked to repetitive head trauma.

Researchers believe the beating Shane took as an NFL lineman led to his brain's deterioration. It is estimated that a NFL lineman takes 1,000 or more hits every season accumulating to tens of thousands of ultimately subconcussive hits, resulting in overt concussion symptoms such as dizziness, short-term memory loss and confusion but could still cause brain damage.

The number of subconcussive hits Shane Dronett took likely started when Shane played youth and high school football continuing to accumulate as he became an All-American at The University of Texas. Increasing awareness and understanding of the dangers of concussions have shaped a more proactive approach to the problem on a professional level, but the overwhelming majority of head injuries are suffered by student athletes in a broad range of sports.

There are 1.6 to 3.8 million concussions per year among teenage athletes and as many as 80% go unrecognized or are not treated properly. The NFL has the funds to keep physicians on staff, but most high school athletic departments do not. Students feel pressure to return to the field in hopes of impressing scouts and receiving scholarships. Therefore it is imperative for coaches and parents to monitor the activities of these student athletes and seek the proper medical attention if a head injury occurs.

If you or a loved one experience a head injury, it is important that you see a doctor for appropriate diagnosis especially if you notice a change in sleep patterns, confusion, fatigue or mood swings. If in fact you have suffered a mild traumatic brain injury such as a concussion, seeking help quickly will increase your chances of a full recovery. Athletes with multiple concussions were 7.7 times more likely to experience a major drop in memory performance.

Smart phones are only getting smarter and more popular but which device do you prefer? iPhone? Android? Blackberry? Windows Mobile? Most of these phones use similar technology for calling grandma, emailing a client and running countless applications to keep users entertained.

Taking issue with these similarities, Apple filed a lawsuit with the United States International Trade Commission in Washington, DC, claiming that HTC, a Taiwanese based Android manufacturer, infringed 10 iPhone patents. The International Trade Commission ruled in Apple's favor last month, finding that HTC infringed one of Apple's patents. Specifically, the "data-tap" technology that allows users to dial a number in a text message or email by simply clicking on the number.

The ruling means that HTC can no longer import phones with this dialing technology, starting April 19, 2012. This ends a two year legal battle for Apple, as they are developing a reputation for aggressively protecting their intellectual property through lawsuits. Apple recently lost similar patent cases in Australian Federal Court and U.S. District Court in San Jose, California against Samsung Electronics.

Two high profile Georgia trucking accident lawsuits were resolved recently. The first settled out of court for $8 million when three men were killed after being hit by a tractor trailer in Oglethorpe County on Oct. 15, 2009. The lawsuit was filed by the widows of two of the men and the mother of the third. According to the complaint, plaintiffs were driving in a pickup truck eastbound on Georgia Highway 10, near Athens, when defendant's owned and operated commercial tractor trailer collided with their vehicle from behind. The impact forced the pickup into oncoming traffic and plaintiffs' pickup was then struck head on by another vehicle. The $8 million dollar settlement will be paid to compensate the families for the wrongful death of their loved ones, as well as compensating the deceased for the terror, pain and suffering experienced prior to their deaths.

The other case involved a jury awarding a plaintiff $1.39 million for injuries from two tractor-trailers colliding, even though the plaintiff was cited for negligently following the lead tractor trailer too closely. The trial consisted of opposing witnesses offering different explanations for why the crash happened, as the defendant claimed that he slowed his tractor-trailer to the minimum speed limit because his engine was overheating. Both trucks were destroyed and their black boxes couldn't be recovered, so their exact speeds couldn't be determined, making the fact finding very difficult for the jury. The jury ultimately believed the plaintiff's version of the events leading up to the collision, presumably because he had significantly more truck driving experience than the defendant driver and the severity of the crash showed that the defendant must have been moving very slowly because only a huge speed differential could have done such damage.

Some may ask, how did the plaintiff win a jury verdict if he was determined to be contributorily negligent in the resulting collision? Georgia is a comparative negligence apportionment state, which means a plaintiff may recover damages as long as they are found to be less at fault than the defendant. The Laurens County jury said the plaintiff's negligence should make him responsible for 37 percent of his damages, leaving the defendant responsible for 63 percent of a $2.2 million verdict. The Nov. 18 verdict included $210,401.28 for medical expenses and $2 million for the pain and suffering of the plaintiff.

Most states, including, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia follow rules similar to Georgia. Currently, only five states, and the District of Colombia, bar recovery if the plaintiff is determined to be at all contributorily negligent in the resulting collision. Thirteen (13) states follow a pure comparative negligence system, meaning a plaintiff can recover damages even if they are found to be 99% at fault. These states include Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Washington.

Trucking accidents are different from car accidents and require specialized expertise to navigate through the specific motor carrier laws and rules, both Federal and State, that govern trucking companies and their drivers.

Continue reading "Georgia Trucking Accident Troubles" »

Social networking has made the world smaller, as more and more individuals post more and more personal information on the internet voluntarily. Facebook leads the way, starting as a platform for college students, accumulating over 800 million active users in less than 8 years.

Social networks have become the subject of lawsuits, as misappropriation of personal information has become a lightening rod for litigation. Google recently attracted multiple lawsuits and negative press with the launch of Google Buzz, a social network similar to Twitter. Buzz used deceptive tactics to hack personal information from its E-mail service without users' permission, exposing and sharing private data, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Google led Gmail users to believe that they could choose whether or not they wanted to join the Buzz but the options for declining or leaving the social network were ineffective. Google shut down Buzz, reached a settlement where it must submit to independent privacy audits for the next 20 years, agreed to pay 8.5 million dollars to organizations devoted to internet privacy and is forced to pay out $2,500 to each of the 7 named plaintiffs in a separate suit.

Facebook ran into a similar class action lawsuit when it launched an advertising program in 2007, known as Beacon. Beacon tracked activities of Facebook users on over 40 partner websites (Blockbuster, Fandango, Zappos.com, Overstock.com), even if the users are logged off from Facebook and have declined to have their activities broadcast to their Facebook friends. Tracked activities included purchasing a product, signing up for a service and including an item on a wish list. Facebook eventually agreed to shut down Beacon, was required to set up a $9.5 million fund to support online privacy and must pay $41,500 to the 19 plaintiffs named in the lawsuit.

It is no secret that you should be extremely cautious when sharing personal information over the internet but the lawsuits discussed above raise the stakes concerning internet privacy. Imagine what other traps await on the internet if repeatable websites like Facebook and Google are willing to hack personal information. All parents should monitor the activities of their children and I suggest asking yourself two questions:

1) Do I want my grandmother to see this picture or post?

2) Do I want complete strangers knowing that about me, my locations or my activities?

We get very excited in the office when legal issues collide with college football.

Baylor University claims they are experiencing injuries on and off the field after Texas A&M applied for membership to the South Eastern Conference earlier this fall. On Sept. 26, 2011 the SEC accepted Texas A&M to expand the conference to thirteen teams, leaving the (not so) Big 12 with nine teams.

Baylor University took action, fearing the defection of Texas A&M may lead to a Big 12 breakup, leaving Baylor in a less prestigious league with less TV revenue dollars. Baylor's president, Ken Starr (famous for nearly bringing down President Clinton) sent an email to University of Georgia President Michael Adams outlining potential financial damages if Texas A&M left the Big 12. Baylor is estimated to lose more than $20 million in annual TV revenue and merchandising if the Big 12 dissolved.

This dispute plays out as the typical small town plaintiff, Baylor - a Baptist university with 13,000 students, against big business, Texas A&M - a state school with 50,000 students and NFL alumni. Baylor is situated to lose more money than other schools because it is the only private school in the conference and is considered an afterthought because it does not have the rich traditions, size, public funding and notoriety of conference rivals.

Experts have suggested that the threat of a lawsuit was a legal tactic used to stall Texas A&M from leaving the Big 12. However, conference realignment cases have prevailed in the past. Last fall, the Western Athletic Conference sued Nevada and Fresno State in hopes of keeping them from defecting to the Mountain West Conference. The two schools agreed to remain in the WAC one more year and would pay a buyout of $900,000 each. In 2003, members of the Big East sued to prevent Boston College, the University of Miami and Virginia Tech from joining the Atlantic Coast Conference. A settlement was reached where the five Big East plaintiff schools to receive $1 million each.

The good news is that no matter which conference your team ends up in, they will start the season undefeated 2012.

Slip and fall rates are particularly high among those over 65 years of age. About one third of those injured in a slip and fall will have permanent limitations in their daily living activities.

So what exactly is a slip and fall injury and what damages arise out of the injury? Slip and fall injuries are a category of premises liability and arise out of legal duties of the property owner owed to the general public. For example, a customer in a store slips in a puddle of water created by a leak in the roof. As a result of the fall, he has several broken bones and permanent injuries to his hand. If he is successful at proving the negligence of the property owner in failing to maintain the premises, he can then proceed to request damages.

There are three basic categories of damages: 1) economic damages; 2) noneconomic damages; and 3) punitive damages. Because punitive damages include the extra burden of proving gross negligence, we will not discuss them here.

Economic damages are the money lost due to the injury. Medical expenses and lost wages are the two most common economic damages claimed. Economic damages can be easy to prove through pay stubs, tax returns or W-2 forms. Medical bills will show the exact monetary loss for healthcare related expenses due to your injuries. However, future medical expenses and lost income will often require expert testimony or at least a report from an economist who can estimate the cost of long term care and the loss of future earnings and then place a present value on that number.

Noneconomic damages are often referred to as pain and suffering. This type of damages has no set monetary value and in Georgia is determined by the conscience of an enlightened judge or jury. Pain and suffering includes, physical and emotional or psychological pain. Often, the injured party's own testimony or that of family and friends will be the evidence relied on to award damages for pain and suffering.

Continue reading "Slip and Fall Injuries in Georgia" »

Last week, a Douglas County jury awarded almost one million dollars to a man who was injured in a car accident in April 2008. The former high school cross-country runner suffered a fractured leg and arm leaving him with a permanent limp and other injuries in a horrific car wreck. A car approaching from the opposite direction on a two lane road crossed the center line and hit him head-on. Although the other driver was not charged with DUI there were allegations that he had been drinking.

The only issue before the jury was the amount of damages because the driver conceded liability. An experienced trial attorney can really make a difference for his client in the presentation of damages. Often the damages are the final phase of a trial and are not always completely addressed. Because Georgia law provides for general and special damages, sometimes referred to as noneconomic and economic damages, it is especially important to be prepared with strong numbers to present to the jury.

General damages are those that arise from the car accident such as pain and suffering or, in this case, the permanent limp. The special damages have to be proven; they usually include medical expenses and lost wage and are proved with medical bills and W-2 tax forms. In this case, the attorney was able to not only prove economic damages of medical expenses and lost wages, but general or compensatory damages for the permanent injuries.