Trial Attorney Blog

Mandatory arbitration agreements deprive citizens of their right to seek redress in the courts of this country. Many large businesses place these clauses in their consumer agreements as a requirement. It has been consistently shown that the arbitrations which flow from these clauses are skewed in favor of the large corporations. Simply put, arbitrators know that they will not continue to receive business from these companies if they rule against them.

Recently, public pressure has forced many credit card companies to remove these unfair clauses from their contracts. However, they remain in many business agreements which consumer sign every day.

The American Association for Justice won a small victory last month in the long war over mandatory arbitration. Congress banned defense contractors from including in their employment contracts any provisions that require arbitration. This legislation arose from the case of Jamie Leigh Jones, a former employee of defense contractor Kellogg Brown & Root who reported being raped by her coworkers in Iraq.

Children are being exposed to dangerous chemicals in toys and items manufactured in China. In recent years there have been numerous recalls of goods manufactured in China due alarming safety concerns. However, it seems the Chinese are continuing to flood the US market with dangerous and even deadly products.

Lab testing organized by The Associated Press revealed that cadmium is present in children’s jewelry, sometimes at levels exceeding 90 percent of the item’s total weight. Cadmium is a soft, whitish metal that occurs naturally in soil. It’s perhaps best known as one half of rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries, but also is used in pigments, electroplating and plastic.

Most people get a microscopic dose of the heavy metal just by breathing and eating. Plants, including tobacco, take up cadmium through their roots and people absorb it during digestion or inhalation. Without direct exposure, however, people usually don’t experience its nasty side: cancer, kidneys that leak vital protein, bones that spontaneously snap.

The use of unnecessary force by law enforcement officers is a common and inexcusable problem. Many of the attorneys at Finch McCranie LLP have law enforcement backgrounds and recognize the inherent dangers of police work and the need at times to use force. However, this does not justify the use of unnecessary force.

The United States Court of Appeals for Ninth Circuit has recently issued an opinion addressing this issue in the context of Taser use. The Court, headquartered in California has sent a strong warning to law enforcement officers that should make them hesitate before routinely using Tasers. It ruled last week that a police officer can be held liable for delivering a high-level electric shock to an unarmed person who poses no immediate threat.

The case arose out of an incident involving a young man who was driving to his parents’ home when he was stopped for speeding. He had previously been stopped and ticketed for On the same trip, he was pulled over for not wearing a seat belt.

The product liability lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP pay close attention to the recall of dangerous products that can lead to the wrongful death of innocent people. This week, in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Polaris Industries has issued a voluntary recall of approximately 8,500 all-terrain vehicles because of a potentially dangerous steering problem, caused by a defective and dangerous front-end component. The recall applies to 2009-2010 models of the Polaris Sportsman ATV. Although there have been no reported injuries to date, there have been 19 reported incidents involving the ATV. According to Polaris the front suspension ball joint could separate from the steering knuckle, causing the rider to loose the ability to steer the ATV. Depending on the circumstances, if this occured, it could result in the operator being seriously injured or it could result in the wrongful death of the rider.
Anyone who owns a 2009-2010 Polaris Sportsman is encouraged to return it to the closest dealer who will make the necessary repairs free of charge.
The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have represented the victims of dangerous products of all kinds for over 40 years. If you have been injured or lost a loved one as a result of using a dangerous product, the attorneys at Finch McCranie, LLP can help. Call us for a free consultation at 1-800-229-9159.

Georgia injury lawyers know that dog bite incidents often result in very serious injuries and in some cases, death. We have had a number of these cases over the years. The most recent case involved a real estate agent who was attacked by a large dog. Although the dog was tied up at its owners home, it was inadequately restrained by a collar which was itself a defective product. As a result, the dog got loose and literally bit off the entire calf of the female victim. We sued the homeowner for negligence and the manufacturer of the collar on a products liability theory and obtained a sizeable settlement from both.
It was reported today that a former UPS driver has sued Joe Namath alleging that he was attacked and seriously injured by Namath’s dogs while he was making a delivery to his home. It is alleged that the victim in that case has undergone four surgeries and has been totally disabled from work since the incident in 2007. If the allegations are true, lets hope that Namath has a large liability insurance policy.
If you or a loved one have been injured as a result of being attacked by a vicious dog, call the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP who have helped similar victims for over 40 years.

The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP handled a wrongful death case several years ago wherein we represented the family of a young boy who died in a house fire caused by a defective humidifier.
This week it was announced that Home Depot is recalling Chinese manufacture dehumidifiers because they pose a fire hazard according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The recall involves approximately 2,000 Hampton Bay model HB-50 dehumidifiers. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says that an internal component can fail causing it to overheat posing fire and burn hazards to consumers. The dehumidifiers were sold by Home Depot from November 2000 through May 2007. Home Depot has received approximately 18 reports of the dehumidifiers catching fire.
After the wrongful death case that our attorneys handled several years ago, we take these dangerous product recalls seriously as should consumers. If you have been injured or lost a loved one as a result of a defective product, contact the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP who have over 40 years of experience representing injured clients.

As Georgia injury lawyers we have represented many pedestrians who have been struck and seriously injured in automobiles accidents. Just this year we represented a young mother who was crossing a roadway with her two young children when they were struck by a motorist who admitted that she never saw them prior to impact. Unfortunately one of the children died and she sustained serious injuries.
Today it was reported that a car hit an 18-year old pregnant girl and her 4-year old brother as they crossed Roswell Rd. in Atlanta. Unfortunately the child suffered serious head injuries. Allegedly they were not in a crosswalk but were in the turn lane when they were struck by the car. Georgia law makes it difficult to recover damages for your injuries if you are hit by an automobile and you are not in a crosswalk; however, a motorist still has a duty to maintain a proper lookout and see what can plainly be seen but someone exercising ordinary care. You cannot just run over pedestrians who are in the roadway if you could have and should have discovered their presence and taken evasive action. In any pedestrian case, it is crucial that a thorough investigation be done immediately to document the weather and lighting conditions existing at the time of the accident.
The Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP have over 40 years experience representing victims of automobile accidents in serious injury or wrongful death claims. If you have been injured or lost a loved one due to an automobile accident, call us to learn about your rights.

It is a sad reality that innocent citizens are oftentimes injured by their own government. City and county employees and/or state employees operate vehicles on a day-to-day basis and like other drivers sometimes are guilty of negligence which cause considerable damage to innocent third parties. Because of the expansive conduct of governmental entities in virtually every aspect of our lives, there are many other real life scenarios whereby innocent third party citizens cam be and are injured by the acts of government employees. In such circumstances, there is always an issue as to whether the injured individual has a right to sue the government for any damages inflicted because of the longstanding doctrine of Sovereign Immunity.
Setting aside for a moment whether one can sue the government successfully and overcome a defense of Sovereign Immunity, another hurdle the injured individual faces in these cases is dealing with statutory pre-suit notice requirements. These pre-suit notice requirements are often referred to as “ante-litem” notice provisions. What this means is that before a injured citizen can sue his or her government with a claim for money damages, they must give the government pre-suit notice of the claim so that the government has a sufficient opportunity to investigate the claim and determine whether the government has any liability and, if so, what damages are involved. Here in Georgia, if an injured individual has a claim against a municipality, they must provide notice to that municipality within six months of the date of the occurrence otherwise their claim is time barred. If they have a claim against a county, they must give notice within one year and the same is true for claims against state government. There are also specific methods by which these notices must be given so if the injured individual is acting without the advice of counsel, they could run afoul of the various ante-litem notice provisions. If they do, they may not be able to sue the government – even if their claim is meritorious. This is why we have referred to these ante-litem provisions in other blogs written on the subject as “Traps for the Unwary.”
If you or any member of your family are injured by a government employee, you should immediately confer with counsel so that pre-suit notice requirements can be observed and your claims not held by law to have been waived for failing to provide statutorily mandated ante-litem notices to the government entity involved.

The Georgia Court of Appeals has recently accepted an Application for Interlocutory Review of a very important victim’s rights statute in this state. Here we refer to a case in which we represent the Plaintiff involving a tolling provision for the statute of limitations for victims of crime. O.C.G.A. § 9-3-99 was enacted as part of the Crime Victims Restitution Act of 2005 and will now be interpreted by the Court of Appals after a ruling in this appeal. Its tolling provision reads as follows:
The running of the period of limitations with respect to any cause of action in tort that may be brought by the victim of an alleged crime which arises out of the facts and circumstances relating to the commission of such alleged crime committed in this state shall be tolled from the date of the alleged crime or the act giving rise to such action and tort until the prosecution of such crime or act has become final or otherwise terminated, provided that such time does not exceed six (6) years. (Emphasis Supplied.)
As is apparent from a review of the broad language employed by the Georgia Legislature, this statute is very important for victims of crime. Many victims of crime do not know that they have civil claims against third parties. If someone is raped in a motel, they may not be able to independently recover that a rapist was formerly an employee of the motel and had been negligently left with master keys to their motel rooms. A victim of an independent trucker who is driving under the influence of drugs may not know that the trucker was operating under an oral lease agreement with a third party. This might be very important if the independent trucker had no insurance and the statutory employer/lessor had good insurance. A victim of a drunk driver may not discover until after two years that the drunk was provided far too much alcohol by a bar that knew that he would be driving in violation of the Dramshop Act. In short, there are many real life scenarios where an innocent crime victim may not even initially know whether they have viable third party claim and may not be able to discover the existence of such a claim until they are able to get access to the criminal investigative file concerning their case, something that may not occur for over 2 years. Moreover, in many cases, criminal perpetrators are not even apprehended for over 2 years and even if they are apprehended in a timely manner, they may assert their Fifth Amendment privilege and therefore withhold from the victim crucial information concerning the possible involvement of third parties.
The case that is on appeal before the Georgia Legislature will decide whether the language of the statute quoted herein applies to third parties and criminals or only to criminal perpetrators solely. In the case our firm is handling, the Defendants contend that the language of the statute only tolls the statute of limitations for causes of action that victims of crime have against the criminal perpetrators only. However, the clear wording of the statute is so broad as to clearly encompass claims against third parties as well. Indeed, it appears that the Georgia Legislature recognizes that victims many times are not only traumatized physically and emotionally and thereby delayed in bringing civil actions because of such trauma, but also are usually unable to access and/or discover important evidence and information in their cases, particularly with regards to the possible involvement of third party actors.

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The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that about 24,000 Amby Baby Motion Beds – hammocklike beds have been recalled. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission the side-to-side shifting or tilting of the hammock can cause an infant to roll and become trapped or wedged against the hammock’s fabric or mattress pad, posing a suffocation risk.. The CPSC has instructed customers to stop using the products immediately.
The beds, made by Amby Baby USA of Minneapolis, Minnesota, were sold online through Ambybaby.com and other retailers begging in 2003. Fortunately, according to the CPSC there was only one model of the bed sold. To date there have been two known infant deaths – a 4-month old in Georgia and a five-month old in Oregon.
The Atlanta, Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie LLP bring years of experience and success to clients who have been injured or lost loved ones due to defective and dangerous products. Our attorneys have the specialized knowledge required to successfully bring these claims and aggressively pursue each case until conclusion. If you or a loved one has been injured by a dangerous or defective product please contact us for a free consultation.