About Victor Alexander
The law firm of Victor Alexander, Jr. P.C., has been successfully representing Georgians suffering a loss of quality of life due to an accident or injury for more than three decades. Let us help you obtain the medical and income benefits you need for your Workers’ Compensation or Personal Injury claim.
Archive for the ‘Personal Injury’ Category
Truck Accidents, Federal Regulations, and the Driver’s Logbook
Friday, March 9th, 2012
After long hours of driving on cross-country roads, anyone’s alertness drops and reaction time slows down. When this lull of the highway meets the chronic fatigue of a semi truck driver and the 80,000 pounds of a semi truck, accidents become more frequent and more often deadly.
Approximately 5000 trucks per year are involved in fatal traffic accidents in the United States. Most commercial vehicle (CMV) accidents happen in the middle of the day and are caused simply by lack of sleep.
To keep drivers rested and prevent fatigue related accidents the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has set up regulations that limit the number of hours truck drivers are allowed to drive per day and week. Rushing to their destination, or rushing home, drivers often don’t pay attention to the law and put other people’s lives, and their own, in danger.
You should be able to find out if a driver failed to obey the regulations set up by the FMCSA by looking at their logbook. This simple notebook with a grid pattern is one of the most important pieces of evidence in any CMV accident. In it, the drivers keep track of their hours, both on- and off-duty. The logbook divides the day into 15-minute segments and time is recorded visually:
Here are some key things to look for as you read the CMV driver’s logbook grid:
1. 11-hour driving limit: driver is not allowed to drive for more than 11 hours.
2. 14 hour on-duty limit: driver is not allowed to drive after being on duty for 14 hours; being on-duty includes loading and unloading cargo, fueling and inspecting the vehicle.
3. 10 hour mandatory off-duty: driver must spend 10 hours off-duty after a 11- to 14-hour on-duty period.
4. 60 hours on-duty in 1 week: driver is not allowed to drive if they have been on-duty for 60 hours in 7 consecutive days.
Until Feb 27, 2012 any time in the CMV was considered on-duty time unless the driver was in the sleeper berth. Beginning February 27, 2012, however, resting in a parked CMV or sleeping for up to 2 hours in the passenger seat is considered off-duty.
For examples of driver logbooks and for more information, visit the FMCSA website at http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/topics/hos/index.htm.
If you have been injured due to a truck driver’s negligence, or failure to obey these basic regulations, contact Victor Alexander or call 404.815.1776.
Workers Compensation Injuries from a Fall
Thursday, December 15th, 2011Idiopathic
Claimant fell as she was turning down a store aisle. She fractured her leg in the fall and subsequently filed a claim for workers’ compensation. The administrative law judge ruled that Johnson’s injury arose out of the course of employment. On appeal the Superior Court of Houston County reversed and the Court of Appeals then received the case and they reversed. Johnson v. Publix Supermarkets, 256 Ga. App. 540, 568 S.E.2d 827 (2002).
This case seems to reverse the issue of idiopathic fall and quotes many cases which state as follows: “Physical contact with some object is no necessary in order for the employee to sustain an accident within the meaning of the workers’ compensation law. See Orkin Exterminating Company v. Wright, 92 Ga. App. 224, 88 S.E.2d 205 (1955).
The Court goes on to say that the Hartford accident for the Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Cox, 61 Ga. App. 420, 6 S.E.2d 189 (1939) the Court held that to be compensable injuries do not have to arise from something peculiar to the employment.
Instead where the duties of an employee entail his presence at the place and a time, the claimant for an injury there occurring is not to be barred because it results from a risk common to all others, a concept that came to be known as a “positional risk doctrine”. While subject cases have cited Borden Foods v. Dorsey, 112 Ga. App. 838, 146 S.E.2d 532 (1965), the proposition that there must be a causal connection between the employment and the injury (such as the specific incurrence) its requirement of a “peculiar danger”, is no longer good law and was overruled by National Fire Insurance Company v. Edwards, 152 Ga. App. 566, 263 S.E.2d 455 (1979).
Slip and Fall/Rubber Mat
Plaintiff slipped and fell at a store and alleged that the store breeched a duty it owed her as an invitee when she tripped and fell on a mat. The trial court granted a summary judgment on behalf of the store. Where the Supreme Court has held 1) as a general proposition, issues of negligence, contributory negligence and lack of ordinary care for one’s own safety are not susceptible of summary adjudication but should instead be resolved by trial in the ordinary matter and 2) trial court can conclude as a matter of law that the facts do or do not show negligence on the part of the defendant or the plaintiff only where the evidence is plain, palpable and undisputable. Issues such as how closely a particular retailer should monitor its premises and approaches, what retailers should know about the property’s condition at any given time, how vigilant patrons must be for their own safety in various settings and where customers should be held responsible or not responsible for looking or not looking are all questions that, in general must be answered by juries as a matter of fact rather than by judges as a matter of law. See Robinson v. Kroger Company, 268 Ga. 735, 493 S.E.2d 403 (1997) See Also American Multi-Cinema, Inc v. Brown, 285 Ga. 442, 679 S.E.2d 25 (2009) and Mairs v. Whole Foods Market Group, Inc, 303 Ga. App. 638,694 S.E.2d 129 (2010).
In Georgia, a proprietor has a statutory duty to exercise ordinary care to keep its premises safe which, includes inspecting the premises to discover possible dangerous conditions of which the proprietor does not have actual knowledge and taking reasonable precautions to protect invitees from dangers foreseeable from the arrangement or use of the premises. The plaintiff or invitee must prove 1) that the defendant had actual or constructive knowledge of the hazard and 2) that the plaintiff lacked knowledge of the hazardous despite the exercise of ordinary care due to actions or conditions within the control of the owner/occupier.
In the case of floor mats which are subject to folding, bunching, rolling and shifting can constitute hazards for which landowners may be liable. In this case, the owner inspected the premises at 7:00 a.m. with the accident occurring at 5:00 a.m. The courts decided to leave it to a jury instead of summary judgment for adjudication because the owner may have lacked a reasonable inspection procedure. A plaintiff need not show how long a hazard was present unless the owner has first demonstrated its inspection procedures. The evidence must establish an adherence to customary inspection procedures on the day in question and not simply that such procedures exist. All of this is cited in Benefield v. Tominich, 2011 WL 982973. (CASE NO. A10A2242) (DEC’D 3/22/11).
Learn more about Slip and Fall accidents.
Failure to Timely File Forms
Monday, November 21st, 2011Failure to Timely File Forms
An employer or workers’ comp insurer’s conscious indifference to its duty to file required workers’ compensation forms constitutes willfulness warranting imposition of penalties. See Caremore, Incorporated/Wooddale Nursing Home, et al. v. Hollis, 283Ga. App. 681, 642 S.E.2d 375 (2007).
Workers Compensation Claims for Farm Laborer
Monday, November 14th, 2011In Glen Oaks Turf, Inc. v. Butler 191 Ga. App. 840, 383 S.E.2d 203 (1989), the Court of Appeals Addressed the issue of whether or not an employee was a farm laborer under the definition of the act and, as such, not entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. The Court of Appeals reversed and found that it was undisputed that the claimant was engaged only in the business of farming and therefore was a farm laborer. The Court of Appeals cited Larson’s on Workers’ Compensation, Section 53.33, Pages 9-205 (1986).
Workers Compensation Eye Injury Claims
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011A workers’ compensation claimant injured his eye which required a surgical procedure to remove a cataract and implant a permanent lens. Before the accident claimant apparently had 20/20 vision but after the implant his vision improved to 20/40 vision with a lens implant and if he wore glasses his vision was 20/20. In this case it was concluded that the claimant’s injury and total recovery should be based on 100% disability to the eye. See Dunn v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co., 81 Ga. App. 283, 58 S.E.2d 245 (1950). Georgia Casualty Insurety Co. v. Wesby, 119 Ga. App. 545, 168 S.E.2d 191 (1969). Georgia Casualty & Surety Co. v. Feller, 122 Ga. App. 457, 177 S.E.2d 487 (1970).
Even though claimant claims she sustained an eye injury when a light fixture broke, splattering glass into her face, the ophthalmologist determined that there was not any factor or injury to her eye. A Full Board and ALJ took the word of claimant that she sustained an eye injury and found a compensable accident. Applying the any evidence rule on appeal, a Court of Appeals affirmed. See Fulton DeKalb Hospital Authority v. Hadley, 174 Ga. App. 503, 330 S.E.2d 432 (1985).
Claimant sought workers’ compensation benefits for loss of use of his left eye. Court of Appeals held that claimant who had a visual acuity of 20/400 (industrially blind) without glasses following the accident was entitled to compensation benefits even though he had 20/20 vision wearing glasses following lens implant surgery. See Lee Connell Construction Co. v. Swann, 172 Ga. App. 305, 322 S.E.2d 736 (1984).
Learn more about common workers compensation eye injuries and job-related eye accidents.
NASTY DANGEROUS ROADS – WATER RUNOFF
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010The legal publication for the City of Atlanta Courts – Fulton County Daily Report has indicated that the Georgia Department of Transportation has settled two cases regarding death and injuries resulting from the same stretch of roadway in Cherokee County. Apparently the DOT resurfaced a portion of highway that’s on a hill with a curve. The roadway wore down and polished pebbles in the road tar were left. When the roadway became wet, cars would hydroplane out of control. Thus far two cases have been settled on the stretch of road which could have been repaired for around $200,000.00. In one case; the most recent one, the settlement was for $1 million to a 21‑year‑old mother who was killed on this roadway. Another incident resulted in the settlement of a case when a physician hydroplaned out of control into the path of another car injuring a pregnant woman who had premature emergency deliver resulting in disabilities to the surviving child.
There was another incident in 2007 when a 9‑year‑old child was killed when another SUV hydroplaned.
The issue of roadway and dangerous highways surfaced again in a new opinion from the Georgia Court of Appeals. In Barnard v. Turner County, Ga. App. (Case No. A10A1533) the court reversed the Superior Courts dismissal of the case on summary judgment and found that the county could be held responsible based on its ministerial duties to inspect and repair the road. This is another case of water running over the roadway causing danger to drivers. In this situation Stacy Barnard was killed in September 2006 when she was ejected from a vehicle as it hydroplaned on this dangerous stretch of highway. This was caused by the failure of the county to keep the ditches on each side of the road clear for runoff. The case was aggravated by the fact that a neighbor in the area had reported the condition of the road to a county commissioner prior to the incident. Also, a county road employee reported the problem to his boss just an hour before Ms. Barnard died.
We will keep you posted on other incidents regarding dangerous roadways. Remember to report any dangerous roadways from water exposure or others to the local officials and to the state government. Be sure to keep a record of who you reported to and when. This will put them on notice of what they need to do to keep our Georgia roads safe.
