Atlanta Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Published on: November 27, 2019

Act of God Defense in Georgia Car Accident Case

There are a number of affirmative defenses that may be raised by a Georgia defendant when faced with a lawsuit arising out of a car accident. One of these is the Act of God defense. In a recent Georgia appellate decision, the appeals court considered a lawsuit that involved a woman hitting a man and his dog while they crossed the entrance to a parking lot. The man sued the woman for negligence, requesting compensatory and punitive damages. The defendant argued an Act of God defense.

Discovery was conducted. The plaintiff brought a motion for summary judgment. The lower court denied the motion as to punitive damages, and also granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the act of God defense raised by the plaintiff.

The plaintiff appealed. The appellate court reversed on the denial of the plaintiff’s request for summary judgment as to punitive damages. However, the appellate court also affirmed the lower court’s granting of the defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the Act of God defense.

Published on: October 12, 2019

Negligent Security in Georgia

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

One type of Atlanta premises liability case is the negligent security lawsuit. This is a case in which you can hold a property owner responsible for a third party’s attack on you when you are an invitee, and the property owner knew about prior criminal attacks yet didn’t take safety measures to protect you from attack. In a recent Georgia case, the plaintiff sued a company after he was injured through a third-party attack on the premises of the company’s parking lot, which leased tractor trailer spaces to his employer.

The plaintiff was a truck driver who parked in one of the leased spaces after dropping off a trailer and in order to meet a different driver, a coworker, who was carrying another trailer for him to fault. The premises had a parts shop and a fenced lot with lighting, security cameras, and controlled gate access. He fell asleep in the cab of the truck but was startled to wake up to someone at the window with a tool. He mistakenly believed the person at the window was his coworker and exited the truck. Another cab was parked too close, and so when he got out of his truck, he had to step onto the step of the other cab.

The man drove away with the plaintiff hanging to the side mirror of the cab. He fell off and was run over by the cab several times, and he suffered many injuries as a result. He sued the company that owned the lot. He argued that the reason his employer used the log was that it had better security than the prior lot they used.

Published on: September 15, 2019

When Does Exclusivity Provision of Workers’ Comp Act Allow for Dismissal of Personal Injury Action?

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

If your car accident occurred while you were on the job, you may not be able to recover damages, because your exclusive remedy may be workers’ compensation benefits. In a recent Georgia car accident case, a plaintiff was injured and sued his employers and two individuals. He claimed the employers, for whom he worked as an airport shuttle driver and maintenance worker, were negligent in not letting him get medical care or insurance coverage. He argued that this delay exacerbated his injuries. The employer filed for a dismissal or, in the alternative, summary judgment. It argued that workers’ compensation was the plaintiff’s exclusive remedy. The lower court didn’t address the argument about exclusive remedy, but denied the motion to dismiss.

The case arose when the plaintiff’s car, owned by his employer, was reportedly struck by a car owned and driven by the individual defendants. The plaintiff was driving a car owned by his employer. When he sued, he claimed the employer was negligent in failing to give him access to medical insurance coverage, and this failure exacerbated his injuries and caused him to experience multiple strokes.

The employer answered and admitted the plaintiff was an employee, but then moved to dismiss the claims on the grounds that workers’ compensation was his exclusive remedy. The prior lawsuit he’d filed in 2015 against the employer had alleged an injury in the course of his employment. In interrogatories, he’d claimed he got into an accident when he was going back to work after picking up parts.

Published on: August 22, 2019

Can Georgia Parents Be Held Responsible For Their Daughter’s Accident?

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

There are different theories under which parents can be held vicariously (indirectly) liable for their child’s negligence while driving including the family purpose doctrine and respondeat superior. In a recent Georgia appellate decision, the court considered a Georgia car accident in which one driver sued a second driver for negligence and her parents for vicarious liability. The drivers crashed into each other when the defendant was 28 and living with her parents. The defendant co-owned the car she’d been operating with her mother. Her mother had co-signed for a loan so that the defendant could get the car.

The car insurance policy was in the names of the parents, but the defendant provided the father with the money for the loan payments and reimbursed her father for the insurance premiums. She paid for gas and maintenance and had sole possession of the vehicle’s keys. Her parents didn’t have any say in whether she operated the vehicle. She worked for her father’s company, but at the time of the accident she was driving to go volunteer and wasn’t acting as her father’s agent.

The mother and father filed a motion for summary judgment on the vicarious liability issue. The father argued he didn’t have any ownership of the car, and the mother argued she didn’t have authority or control. The plaintiff argued that there were issues of material fact on whether the parents could be held responsible under respondeat superior or the family purpose doctrine. The parents’ motions were denied.

Published on: July 25, 2019

Injury from a Defective Ladder at a Georgia Jobsite

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

It can be difficult to trace and prove liability if you are injured while using someone else’s tools on another’s property in Atlanta. Sometimes a defendant brings a motion for summary judgment and it is crucial to retain an experienced attorney soon after being injured so that all appropriate evidence can be gathered to build your case. In a recent Georgia appellate case, a plaintiff sued a contractor after falling from a ladder that was allegedly defective. The lower court denied the contractor’s motion for summary judgment, in which it claimed the plaintiff hadn’t come forward with proof to generate a jury question about whether it had actual or constructive knowledge of the ladder’s supposedly defective condition or that it owed the contractor a duty to give a safe working environment. The contractor also argued that undisputed proof showed the plaintiff hadn’t used ordinary care for his own safety.

The contractor reportedly had a single owner and no other employees. The owner would subcontract most jobs his company had been hired to perform. The case arose when a company hired the contractor to repair a damaged wall at a cell phone store. This job was contracted to another, and that subcontractor hired the plaintiff and another man to help him. At their depositions, the plaintiff and other man testified that before they went to the job at the cell phone store, they stopped at the subcontractor’s workshop to pick up materials to do the job. The subcontractor put items into the trailer. These items included the ladder; there were no other ladders inside the trailer. They all drove with the trailer for 3 hours to get to the job site.

The men started work at the Verizon store at night once the store closed. The men took the ladder into the store from the trailer. Two of the men used the ladder without a problem, but neither went higher than the second run. One of the men checked to make sure the braces on the ladder were locked. He thought the ladder looked old but not dangerous.

Published on: June 5, 2019

Plaintiff’s Knowledge of a Dangerous Condition in a Georgia Premises Liability Case

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

A plaintiff’s own knowledge of a dangerous condition on someone else’s property in Atlanta can affect the outcome of a premises liability case. In a recent Georgia appellate case, the plaintiff appealed from a lower court’s granting of summary judgment to a store and the store’s manager. She had sued the store and the manager after tripping and falling over a raised metal part of a cart corral in the parking lot.

The case arose when the plaintiff was leaving the store and putting her groceries in the car. She pushed her cart to the corral and, while leaving it, caught her foot in the crossbar of the corral, resulting in her falling and breaking her arm. The crossbar usually lies flat on the asphalt, but it was raised on one side at about 1 1/8 inches because a delivery truck had once hit the corral.

After the fall, she was certain she’d tripped on the raised portion of the crossbar because she felt her foot catch, and when she looked back, she saw the raised portion of the crossbar. The plaintiff sued the store and the store manager, claiming they knew about the state of the corral and negligently failed to maintain it or warn her about the hazardous condition. The defendants moved for summary judgment, claiming that the state of the corral was an open and obvious condition. They also argued that she’d successfully gone through the air before she later tripped and that she hadn’t used reasonable care.

Published on: May 22, 2019

Trip and Fall at a Georgia Birthday Party

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

Whether you can hold a property owner accountable for premises liability can depend partly on your reason for being on the property, whether you’re an invitee, licensee, or trespasser. In a recent Georgia premises liability lawsuit, a plaintiff was hurt when she tripped and fell down the stairs in a man’s backyard. The defendant had allowed his friend to have a birthday party at his house. The friend wanted to sit on the back porch by the pool to listen to music at the birthday party. There were brick stairs in the backyard, which had tiers. He’d purchased the property 20 years before, and the stairs had been there when he bought it.

The plaintiff was a friend of the woman having her birthday at the defendant’s house. When the plaintiff got to the house, she walked on a path to the back of the defendant’s house and arrived at some brick stairs leading to the area by the pool. She claimed that the lights were dim in that area.

As the plaintiff walked down the stairs, she looked forward, but not down. Her foot hit something and this caused her to trip. Later when she was being carried into the house after the fall, she noticed that there was an orange extension cord lying over three or four stairs where she’d tripped. However, she hadn’t seen the extension cord before falling and didn’t know who placed the cord there or how long it had been there.

Published on: April 15, 2019

Providing Notice in a Car Accident Claim Against the Government

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

Special rules apply if you are injured in a car accident caused by improper maintenance of a public road. You’ll need to provide notice to the government in a very specific way, and failure to do so can result in dismissal of your claim. In a recent Georgia appellate decision, a driver was hurt in a single-car accident on State Route 42. He sued the Georgia Department of Transportation arguing that its improper maintenance of the roadway resulted in too much water accumulating and the accumulation caused his truck to hydroplane into a tree, causing catastrophic injuries.

The Georgia Department of Transportation filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and based on sovereign immunity. It claimed the plaintiff hadn’t complied with the ante litem notice requirements of the Georgia Tort Claims Act. The motion was denied, and the appellate court granted an application for interlocutory appeal.

The appellate court explained that the Georgia Tort Claims Act, found at OCGA section 50-21-20 was enacted to balance strict sovereign immunity against the need for limited exposure of the State treasury to tort liability. The Georgia Tort Claims Act offers a restricted waiver of sovereign immunity in specific cases where a claimant follows the requirements of the Georgia Tort Claims Act. Among other things, these requirements mandate a strict compliance with the ante litem notice provisions of section 50-21-26.

Published on: March 7, 2019

Rental Truck Accidents in Georgia

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

When an Atlanta car accident is the result of a collision with a rental truck, certain issues may arise in connection with the rental company’s potential liability. In a recent Georgia appellate decision, the court considered the wrongful death of a man in a truck accident. The truck was owned by U-Haul of Arizona, but rented from U-Haul of Georgia. The drivers didn’t return the truck at the end of the rental period. One driver crossed the center line and struck a car head-on, killing a man while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He was indicted for homicide. The decedent’s widow sued the U-Haul defendants for negligent entrustment, wrongful death, and punitive damages. The decedent’s surviving spouse sued both U-Hauls as well as the driver of the truck, the renter of the truck, and the driver named on the rental agreement.

The U-Haul defendants moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s complaint. Meanwhile the driver of the U-Haul was incarcerated and asserted his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. He and U-Haul moved for a protective order.

The plaintiff asked for a declaratory judgment that the U-Haul entities didn’t qualify as self-insurers under OCGA §§ 33-34-2 (4) and 33-34-5.1 and could therefore be held accountable for damages that exceeded the minimum insurance coverage provisions. The U-Haul defendants asked the court to dismiss, claiming they weren’t required to register as self-insurers. The lower court denied the motion to dismiss, granted the motion for judgment on the pleadings and granted a defendant’s motion to stay the proceedings and for a protective order. It granted in part the motion to take judicial notice of the U-Haul’s filing with the insurance commissioner.

Published on: February 15, 2019

Settlement Offers and Acceptances in Georgia Car Accident Lawsuits

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

If you’re injured in a Georgia car accident, it is imperative to work with an experienced plaintiff’s attorney, even if you believe a settlement can be reached with an insurer. It is important to retain an attorney before discussing the matter with the other driver’s insurer at all, and certainly before entering into settlement negotiations. In a recent Georgia case, the defendant’s vehicle hit the plaintiff’s vehicle. On appeal, the defendant argued that the lower court had erred in denying his motion to enforce a settlement agreement by prohibiting evidence and questioning about a treating doctor’s financial interest in the case, and by excluding evidence and questioning related to the treating doctor’s credibility and potential bias.

After the plaintiff claimed she’d been injured by the defendant’s car, she hired an attorney. Her attorney sent a settlement demand for the policy limits of $25,000 to the defendant’s insurer. On top of asking for payment, the settlement demand said it was contingent on receipt of certain sworn affidavits about how much insurance coverage was to be had and a limited release. If these conditions weren’t met and payment wasn’t made, the settlement demand would be withdrawn in 30 days.

The defendant’s insurer called to say it would pay policy limits. However, the insurer couldn’t’ issue the check right away and had to wait until defense counsel told her to do so. The plaintiff’s attorney said he would wait to hear back.