Atlanta Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Published on: August 10, 2009

Malpractice Versus Negligence

Malpractice means so many different things to different people, that the term when used in a legal setting really needs to be expanded upon for the sake of clarity.

The most crucial thing is to be able to distinguish between malpractice and other kinds of negligence. “Generally speaking the term malpractice refers to a set of circumstances when a professional (doctor, lawyer, dentist, accountant, etc.) fails to use the proper level of skill, diligence or care to perform their professional services. In failing to perform properly, this causes harm to patients or customers,” said Stephen Ozcomert, an Atlanta personal injury lawyer.

In general, a professional may be sued if s/he fails to perform their “professional” duties using the accepted standard of care, level of learning and skill one should reasonably expect from a person in their particular position. “Or to put this in simpler terms, the professional’s performance is held up in comparison to the performance standards of other professionals in the same field. So, if the level of performance is of a lesser standard than others, that person may be accused of malpractice,” added Ozcomert, who practices Atlanta personal injury law.

Published on: August 10, 2009

Medical Errors May Cost Lives

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

Every year there are more deaths across America chalked up to medical errors. This is when a health care professional doesn’t offer the patient quality care, and injuries or death may result.

Medical malpractice/medical errors don’t just happen in the hospital, although this is the association that many people have when they think about this term. In addition, it’s not just physicians that may make the errors. Those who may make an error in medical management include surgeons, dentists, nurses, hospital workers, eye doctors and general practitioners.

If you have questions about the statistics, then make it a point to check out the Journal of the American Medical Association. One of their most notable articles indicates that roughly 12,000 deaths happen yearly thanks to unnecessary surgery. Close to 7,000 fatalities were the result of medication errors in hospital and nearly 20,000 deaths were the end result of other errors in a hospital setting. The dollar amount that goes along with these errors is astronomical.

Published on: August 10, 2009

Whoops – that Fall Hurt

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

Premises liability law has been around for a lot of years, but still, many people don’t really understand what it means.

To put this simply, premises liability is all about someone falling and injuring themselves due to the carelessness or negligence of a business or property owner. If this happens, the victim has a right to pursue compensation for those injuries.

Typically, the person who owns a business or operates it, is liable for dangerous conditions that they know about and either don’t deal with them, and/or don’t warn people about the potentially dangerous situation. The other side of the coin is that they “should” have known about the dangerous condition by regularly inspecting the property.

Published on: August 5, 2009

Helmet Hair May Save a Life

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

It should go without saying that wearing a motorcycle helmet will save lives, but many people opt not to wear them because they don’t look cool – a potentially deadly decision.

It’s cool to own and ride a motorbike or some other mode of transportation like that these days. It’s also economical because there isn’t as much gas being used, not to mention parking is a breeze. The point, however, is that despite the fact that motorcycles are cool in a lot of people’s books, they have the potential to be deadly – more deadly than a car if the truth were known.

Part of the truth lies in the number of accidents over the last few years involving motorcycles has increased by a staggering 50%. Throw in sales stats and it’s evident motorcycle sales are hopping. It’s the latest rage to beat the cost of gas. The latest rage has also cost over 4,700 deaths in the U.S.

Published on: August 4, 2009

Med Mal May Be Tricky

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

Medical malpractice is most often considered to be a lawsuit filed against a doctor for some form of negligence that caused a patient harm. In reality, there are numerous kinds of malpractice lawsuits.

These days when people read about medical malpractice in the media, they assume that the story will be about a doctor doing something negligently that severely injured or caused the death of someone. Not many people realize that malpractice law includes not only medical malpractice, but legal, dental, accounting, real estate and other types of malpractice.

The difficulty here is in knowing if a professional did act negligently. While it’s true that trying to pinpoint negligence when dealing with a doctor or lawyer, etc., is like trying to capture the wind at times, there are some signs and red flags that will indicate something is amiss.

Published on: July 1, 2009

Are Your Premises Safe?

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

If you have dangerous or hazardous conditions on your property, it would be wise to know the ins and outs of premises liability before someone injures themselves.

Basically the law of premises liability is a branch of personal injury law that covers injuries sustained as a result of dangerous or hazardous conditions on a piece of property. The major premise here is that a person who owns property – homeowner or commercial property – is (to a certain extent) responsible for what happens on that property. This means the owner is obligated to make sure the property and/or any buildings on that land are in safe condition for others.

The other name for cases in this area of law — perhaps you don’t recognize the term premises liability — is slip and fall cases. The bulk of cases in this area usually do deal with falls on slippery surfaces, trips over various hazards and other things, such as stairs in poor repair. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that this area of law is connected to several others as well.

Published on: July 1, 2009

Surgical Malpractice

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

Having an operation ranks as number one on a list of things people would rather not do. There is an enormous amount of trust placed in the hands of a surgeon, and one hopes there are no surgical errors.

It’s tough enough to get up the courage to face major surgery without also having to worry if the surgeon is in top form and able to do the job. Unfortunately however, surgical medical malpractice results in approximately 98,000 deaths a year. These statistics, courtesy of the Institute of Medicine, further suggest that total does not include patients who have wound up with life altering injuries due to surgery.

What is surgical medical malpractice? Most commonly it is the result of a surgeon failing to give their patient proper care, and that failure ends up causing serious injuries or death. Typically, this would have to do with a surgeon not adhering to accepted medical standards or not properly utilizing their skills.

Published on: July 1, 2009

Unusual Defective Products Resulting in Personal Injury

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

The last thing one would think of causing serious personal injuries is a laptop computer. Nonetheless, a defective product is a defective product, no matter what it happens to be.

Every year thousands of Americans buy products that cause them personal injuries. Every year there are also thousands of product recalls for a variety of glitches ranging from annoying to capable of causing severe harm or death.

The last thing consumers expect when they buy a product is that it will harm them, and the last thing they also expect is that a company they rely on would ever put out a faulty product. “Unfortunately, this happens a great deal with everything from medical devices to baby car seats,” explained Georgia super lawyer Stephen M. Ozcomert of Atlanta.

Published on: July 1, 2009

The Blame Game

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

Proving who is at fault in a premises liability case is sometimes quite difficult.

At the very heart of the matter of premises liability law is the question “Who is to blame?” This isn’t the easiest thing to figure out, and that is why many premises liability lawyers will comment that each and every case is unique and has very little in common with any other case of the same nature. The circumstances of the case are what tend to make each one different.

“In a nutshell, the concept of premises liability boils down to this: a person who owns or occupies land (controls it) is responsible to make sure that the land is safe and hazard free for other people,” explained Georgia super lawyer Stephen M. Ozcomert of Atlanta.

Published on: April 28, 2009

The Seat Belt Controversy

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

Are seat belts a dangerous product? This is a very interesting question and brings up the vigorous debate surrounding the mandated use of seat belts.

Most people have had the safety message drummed into their heads that wearing a seat belt saves lives. There are numerous commercials on TV, the radio, in magazines and newspapers that tout the effectiveness of using a seat belt. “Buckle Up” campaigns in some form or another have been launched in just about every state in effort to reduce the number of traffic fatalities. Every state, but New Hampshire, has laws mandating seat belt use in some form or another.

Traffic safety stats show that the lowly seat belt has been credited with saving at least 9,500 lives per year. These same statistics are also showing that virtually 60% of those who die in car crashes were not wearing seat belts. So what is going on here?