This reported case is another example of a death that should have never happened. The admissions staff at Western Carolina University did not take the time to properly read each student’s admission form. Because they did not read the forms closely enough, a young football athlete died.

The wrongful death lawsuit filed by the young man’s family pointed a finger at the university and the coaching staff, stating that they were negligent in regards to the death of their son.

The young man was only 20 years old when he arrived at the university and played as a defensive back. He was told by the university doctor that it was ok to take part in weightlifting and conditioning drills without any limitations. One day later, the young man died during practice. Autopsy results showed he died due to acute lethal cardiac dysrhythmia with other contributing factors such as sickle cell trait and overexertion.

The lawsuit stated that his admission questionnaire relating to athletics indicated he had sickle cell trait. The student signed that form as did his mother. Thus, the university doctor and coaches knew or should have known he had sickle cell trait. Oddly, the university denied the allegations in one breath, and then in another, said the student had completed a form that listed sickle cell trait, which raises the question why they did not make themselves aware of what the disease meant to their athlete.

In this case, the student’s workout was weight lifting, 160 yards of striding two 60-yard sprints, two 70-yard sprints, two 80-yard sprints and two 90-yard sprints. He got into trouble on the last of his 90-yard sprints and subsequently collapsed and died.

When an athlete with sickle cell trait trains intensely, the red blood cells form into a shape like a sickle, which blocks the flow of blood to the muscles, causing lactic acidosis and ischemic rhabdomyolysis with hyperkalemia. The acidosis directly affects the heart by causing ventricular fibrillation, causing a heart attack. While athletes with this condition may play sports, there need to be the right kind of accommodations in place for them to deal it such as longer recovery times between repetitions, a gradually increasing drill time and oxygen on hand.

Will this family succeed in their wrongful death lawsuit? There is a good chance that they will, as the evidence shows the university: failed to make sure coaching and medical staff knew about and understood what exertional sickling was and how to work with it; failed to tell the student how to train safely; and failed to put safety measures in place, among other things.

Families that lose a family member like this should seek legal counsel in the form of an experienced Atlanta personal injury lawyer. Wrongful death lawsuits are civil cases and subject to a statute of limitations. Calling an Atlanta personal injury attorney as soon as possible will mean justice may be served promptly.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

Dermatology is not an area of medicine where there are a lot of medical malpractice lawsuits, but they do happen, and when they do, the jury awards in cases like this can be quite high. For medical professionals, including those who practice dermatology, it is vital to clearly communicate with a patient about any treatments or procedures to be undertaken to avoid a lawsuit. If a mistake is made, you need to own up to it and make it right.

While that may not stop a lawsuit being filed, it may mitigate the outcome if the plaintiff has received an apology and the doctor has attempted to make amends. In many instances, all a patient that has been harmed wants is an acknowledgment from the practitioner that they messed up. Saying they are sorry, explaining what went wrong, and attempting to clearly inform a patient goes a long way toward preventing a problem from careening out of control and landing in court with hard feelings on both sides of the courtroom.

Certainly the question of whether or not harm to a patient was caused by medical negligence is an issue and for that reason, should you feel you have a case, speak to a skilled Atlanta personal injury lawyer. Medical negligence or malpractice happens when a doctor (or other medical professional) commits an act of negligence that breaches his or her duty to a patient. Additionally, there must be a direct causal link between the mistake/breach and the harm caused and it must also cause financial harm to the victim.

While many doctors are outstanding physicians with a good track record, there are those that also have a questionable track record putting their patients at risk, injuring them or killing them as a result of a medical error. Dermatologists rarely get slapped with medical malpractice lawsuits, but that still does not lessen the standard of care.

In fact, recent statistics released by the Physician Insurers Association of America show that the practice of dermatology only had a 1 percent rating for closed malpractice claims and a 1 percent indemnity for all medical specialties in 2010. That being said, even though the lawsuit rate is lower, the settlement rate and jury awards tend to be higher. Jury awards for medical negligence in melanoma cases where dermatologists misdiagnosed or mistreated are often higher because they are more serious than other procedures they perform.

Typically, other procedures they carry out on patients are largely aesthetic, and as such, have little value in terms of malpractice claims. This is because when assessing a malpractice claim, the seriousness of the mistake is taken into account in combination with how the error affects a patient’s ability to work. If a procedure is largely cosmetic and went awry, awarding damages for lost work is sometimes difficult. This is not to say that it cannot be done, but juries do tend to view cases like this in a different light.

For those who have had a bad experience with a dermatologist, make a call to an Atlanta personal injury lawyer for advice to get various options on how to proceed if your case is solid.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

This case really points out the denigration of plaintiffs claims with the application of medical malpractice caps. What happened in this instance is that the mother of Mr. Doe filed a lawsuit stating that the nursing home where she was staying killed her by not giving her enough food and water for a period of three weeks. How horrendous is that?

In addition to this fact, the mother also suffered from dementia. Mr. Doe’s mom was 87 years old and met her death because the aides did not keep her properly hydrated. You do not need a medical license to provide a person with basic needs such as water.

When this case got to trial, the jury was rightfully horrified and handed down a $91.5 million award, which the nursing home is planning to appeal on the grounds that the amount may be subject to the state medical malpractice cap of $500,000. In other words, the jury award of $91.5 million for an egregious case of negligence, may be reduced to $500,000 in non-economic damages. Does this seem fair, given the facts of the case? Many would say no quite emphatically. It is obvious the jury thought it did not take an advanced degree to make sure someone got enough water on a daily basis either.

The man’s lawyers are aiming to keep the jury award as is by pointing out that the nurses aides at the nursing home are not considered to be health care providers as defined in the medical malpractice cap definition. Certainly this is an issue for the court to decide on, and if successful, this may open another avenue for medical malpractice cases to be treated with the respect and financial compensation that they deserve.

Medical malpractice cases are often very involved and complex, and certainly need the qualified assistance of an Atlanta personal injury lawyer. If you think you are the victim of medical malpractice, or your senior relative is a victim, get in touch with an experienced Atlanta personal injury lawyer and find out what you can do.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

It may sound incredibly simple to just state that medical malpractice lawsuits can be frivolous. This however, comes from a point of view of someone who has no idea what it involves to take a medical malpractice case to court. The enormous amount of time needed to vet a medical malpractice case, study the patient records, line up expert witnesses, and more instantly signifies that a case is not frivolous.

Medical malpractice lawyers do not waste their time on cases that are merely bad outcomes with a doctor. They do however, take cases that involve medical negligence that harmed someone permanently, and they take a case because they know it has merit, and the court needs to hear it. Lawyers are also seeking justice for the patient who ended up with a life they no longer recognize as a result of medical malpractice.

If you do not believe either side of the hot debate over tort reform, take some time to track down and read the study published by the New England Journal of Medicine a few short years ago. It has information in it that will pique your interest. In particular, it answers the question regarding how many patients bring a medical malpractice lawsuit.

The basis of the study involves five malpractice insurance companies across the U.S. and examines 1,452 different claims. The claims include medication errors, surgical errors, obstetrical mistakes and other issues such as delayed or missed diagnosis. Those are the main areas that comprise roughly 80 percent of all of the medical malpractice claims in the U.S. today.

Perhaps the most interesting fact gleaned from the statistics is that filing a claim and the subsequent litigation tends to show whether an error really did occur. In other words, it is not so much that lawyers take shaky cases to court, but that it is becoming increasingly difficult for plaintiffs and attorneys to figure out what really happened to the patient before a claim is filed. This has a down side as you can imagine, in that medicine is becoming more and more complex, thus increasing the number of chances for something to go wrong. The question then becomes how it went wrong and who caused the error.

Overall, the researchers in this study concluded that the oft-used political cry of frivolous lawsuits is exaggerated. What seems to be the real issue is that when a case did land in court and the dust settled, there was no medical error. That means the attorney took the case in good faith and was certain there was an issue to be settled. Only later when all the documentation was on the table for examination did it turn out there was no medical error, but instead a bad outcome without doctor negligence. The statistics are very clear though that the major portion of malpractice costs were spent litigating and paying for errors that did happen.

The other interesting find is that the justice system does a good job of booting out medical malpractice cases that have no merit. In other words, if the system really has a glitch in it, then the glitch is in favor of the plaintiff (arguably a good thing).

There is no question that litigating medical malpractice is expensive, but one way or the other, they bring justice where it needs to be served.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

This reported case involved the wrongful death of a man by a defective car jack. To be more precise, a scissors car jack that was woefully inadequate in holding up the weight of the car the man was working on. The jack gave way and the vehicle landed on the man’s head, crushing it instantly.

The family chose to file a wrongful death lawsuit against Ford Motor Company for making a defective jack that could not bear the weight of the vehicle. The case told a heartbreaking story of their husband and father, attempting to make repairs to the family Ford Windstar minivan. He used the scissors jack, an original piece of equipment that was made to go with the van. He was working on the right side of the van to remove the right front tire.

He was a careful guy and took the time to put chocks behind each tire, made sure the van was on a flat surface and put the jack in precisely the location indicated in the vehicle manual. The jack failed, dropping the van on his head. The lawsuit stated that Ford, the defendant, was negligent, had sold a defective product, and was accused of a manufacturing defect, design defect, marketing defect, misrepresentation and breach of implied warranty of merchantability.

The suit also contended the scissors jacks that came with the vehicles were badly constructed, far too short and were not capable of lifting the weight of the van. The lawsuit asks for damages for the deceased’s physical impairment as a result of the van dropping on his head, for the sheer agony he endured, the mental anguish he felt, the medical bills, the death expenses and funeral costs. As a family they are seeking damages for pain and suffering, loss of income, loss of consortium, mental anguish and court costs plus interest.

Will the family win this case? There is a good chance they will, given the nature of the evidence. If there is further proof that the jack sold with the van was defective, the jury will likely award the family a decent settlement. This wrongful death lawsuit will not be easy for the family, who saw what happened the day of the accident. They fought back the horror of the injuries to help their husband and dad, realizing that he was in serious trouble. Despite their hopes, he did not survive this horrific trauma. His family now needs financial compensation to be able to move forward with their lives.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

Unfortunately, there is a prevailing myth that lawyers are ambulance chasers and take frivolous cases to court to get paid big bucks. There are a number of things wrong with that thought. First, most lawyers do not chase ambulance for business. Most of them have more than they can handle at any given time. Secondly, while there may be some cases that seem questionable on first blush in terms of being successful in court, typically, a lawyer takes a case because there appears to be merit in it and/or a point of law.

As for making big bucks, that is not the case. Many lawyers get a portion of a settlement on winning for a client; a portion that goes right back into the firm to help it represent other clients who need them. Granted big cases sometimes have big wins, but it should be remembered that a big firm with a big case and a big track record for winning, will also have big office overhead.

But back to the concept that lawyers need to change how they are perceived. There may well be some truth in that observation. The law professor went on to point out that not much time is spent preventing problems in the justice system, because everyone is too busy protecting their behinds. How does that impact on lawyers? If you want the justice system to work in any given state, the money to do that has to come from the legislature. If the legislature perceives lawyers as money-grubbing talking heads out just for fame and fortune, state courts will continue to face underfunding and staggering case loads.

Justice is needed at all levels of the legal system, but as it exists right now, the middle class are slammed between a rock and a hard place when it comes to medical malpractice lawsuits. In many states, there has been med mal caps implemented that are designed to cap damages for victims of medical negligence. For those plaintiffs who are so severely injured that they need care for the rest of their lives, capping medical malpractice damages is an outrageous travesty of justice.

What is even more frightening is that there are also some states that are currently contemplating bringing in a loser pays law. Think about that for a minute. The seriously injured victim goes to court with a medical malpractice case and for some reason, the case is lost. The loser pays approach would mean the victim would pay the price, twice. Once as a victim of medical negligence and for the second time as a severely injured victim who lost a court case. And the victim gets huge sums of money from where?

What is happening here is that these kinds of restrictive laws are trying to scare victims away; victims that don’t have the ability to access money to pursue a valid claim in court. What does that say about the justice system?

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

In this case, a medical doctor was sued for wrongful death and malpractice in the death of a well-known professional golfer. The father of the deceased, on behalf of her estate, filed the complaint. After a year-long investigation into the suicide of the young woman golfer, the father indicated in his lawsuit that he felt the doctor was directly responsible for his daughter’s death because of what he did and did not do; meaning he did things he should not have done and did not do things he should have done.

Evidently, although the woman also played golf with the doctor named as defendant in the lawsuit, she was also a patient of his. He was the last person to see the woman alive, and even though he called 911, he removed all drugs from her premises and also took her suicide note. The woman had been on multiple prescription drugs, including anti-anxiety meds, pain meds, and cough and headache medications. The coroner ruled her death a suicide due to asphyxia and the overload of drugs she had in her system at the time of her death.

The doctor pled guilty to obstruction of justice for taking evidence from the scene and was sentenced to a year’s probation and 40 hours of community service. None of this would bring the young woman back, and the family, hoping that this would never happen to anyone else, chose to file a wrongful death lawsuit on the heels of the man’s criminal conviction.

Wrongful death is not usually about getting even with the person or persons involved in the death. It is usually about the family not wanting anyone else to experience what happened to their loved one. It is about closure and moving forward in the memory of the deceased. It is also about insurance money that will help the family cope financially and be able to get on with their lives. They have sustained a significant loss emotionally and psychologically with the death of their daughter. They need not also suffer a financial loss to compound their devastation.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

If you stop to think about it, one of the main things that keeps society functioning and on track is business law, especially business transactions, contracts, agreements, the building of new companies, corporations, etc. Governing all this commerce is business law; call it overseeing the world of business if you will.

Without business law in place, the world would be a much tougher place to regulate and run because there would be no contracts and no one to uphold contracts and hold people to their word. It would mean business would run without any repercussions or consequences for those who did not live up to their promises. Unfortunately, even though a lot of people would follow through on their promises, they are just as many more who would rip the system and others off. This is why you need business law.

You may know business law as commercial law. Its usual definition is that it governs business and commercial transaction and is a branch of civil law, handling issues in the public and private sectors. Under this umbrella you will find an enormous range of legal issues and lawyers that deal with things like white-collar crimes (a criminal issue, not civil) and insider trading.

On the other side of the business/commercial law fence you would have corporate contracts, hiring practices and the manufacture/sales of consumer goods, etc.  When dealing with contract law, unarguably the largest arena in business law, you would typically be writing contracts, supervising their signing, ensuring they are worded correctly and filing a lawsuit if there is a breach of the contract. Just about everything we do today involves a contract of some sort, whether it’s buying a house to renting a carpet cleaner.

When it comes to hiring, this is one of the trickier areas of law, particularly if a business has to let an employee go. In situations like this, if you do not have a carefully worded hiring/firing policy, you could be open to a lawsuit for wrongful dismissal. Even with a handbook in place, you may still have legal issues. This is why you need the advice and counsel of a skilled Atlanta business lawyer.

Then, consider the world of manufacturing. It is not just the company that makes the product that has a part in the chain of commerce; there is also the designer, the shipper and the seller. Each link in the chain has contracts with the other links in the chain, and so it goes. Although they are largely invisible, those contracts are what glues everything together; keeping industry and commerce running smoothly and accountably.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

Medical malpractice is a highly controversial subject in America. On one side of the fence there are those who feel the damages awarded in a med mal case should be capped at a certain figure. On the other side of that same fence are the proponents in justice for the victim of medical malpractice. This particular case is one of those kinds of cases where justice for the victim should be paramount, but given med mal damage award capping, the innocent child victim may not have what she needs to move forward with her life.

This case made headlines across the nation for its inconclusive financial outcome for the victim. Ultimately, the jury in the case awarded the family $19.2 million to care for their blind daughter with cerebral palsy. The now three and a half year old was born prematurely in 2007, and for some reason the hospital gave her a dose of nutrients that was 100 times what the amount should have been.

That mistake sent the baby into cardiac arrest and caused other serious side effects, including cerebral palsy and blindness. The devastated family chose to file a medical malpractice lawsuit against the hospital. Their daughter would never be the same again and will remain in a wheelchair and need diapers for the rest of her life. She will never be able to feed herself.

The hospital argued in court that the reason the baby went into convulsions was due to her being premature. The jury did not agree and awarded the family $19.2 million. However, since the family lives in a state where there are liability caps, the award may be limited to $200,000. It is a struggle to think that would be fair compensation in a case like this.

Not all states have med map caps so before you choose to file a medical malpractice lawsuit, it is a wise investment of time to consult with a skilled Atlanta personal injury lawyer. You will need to know your rights, whether or not there is a med mal cap in your state, what documents you will need to move forward and what damages you may or may not expect. Do not wait too long, as there is a statute of limitations on medical malpractice cases; another thing you need to discuss with your Atlanta personal injury lawyer.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

While you would like to believe that everyone out on the road is careful, cautious, alert and paying attention to what they are doing while driving a large and potentially deadly vehicle, that is not always the case. Consider the circumstances involved in one really bizarre case where a woman relied on her global positioning system for instructions instead of paying attention to where she was. The result was an accident that could have been avoided.

Sure, GPS systems have their place in driving, but what if the GPS system, as may be the case here, is not accurate? If you are not watching where you are going and what you are doing, you too could have an accident, and not necessarily a minor one.

You may recall the story of a woman who was walking while distracted and followed the instructions of a GPS to take a route right down the middle of a freeway to get to her destination. She was hit by a car. Walking while distracted and driving while distracted have the same potential to be deadly, the same potential to result in personal injury accidents and the same level of personal distraction that has a serious impact on others.

In the case of the driver relying on a GPS system that provided erroneous directions, the woman was on her way to her daily workout and made a left turn when she was told to by her GPS. What happened was, instead of ending up in the parking lot of the gym, she turned left into the path of another car.

The accident was bad enough that both drivers needed to be treated for injuries. She was two-tenths of a mile from where she should have been and incurred physical injuries to her body and complete embarrassment over how those injuries were inflicted.

Luckily, the GPS driver in this story was not seriously hurt, but then again, the jury may still be out on that issue, as seemingly insignificant injuries often turn out to be worse than they look. As for the whole story itself, either you believe the GPS did the deed of providing lousy instructions that caused an accident or you believe that the woman just was not paying attention and caused the accident without the help of the GPS. Should this case go to trial, the outcome may be interesting.

For accident victims who have been in a crash and sustained personal injuries as the result of someone else’s negligence, make it a point to discuss your case with an Atlanta personal injury lawyer.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

To get a better idea of what the term personal injury accident means, think car wreck. It is the best example of the personal injuries you may sustain after being hit by a negligent driver. Personal injuries may cover a multitude of things, such as whiplash, air bag injuries, broken bones, crush injuries and amputations.

Consider the case of the man who lost his leg after being hit by a passing car. The victim was pushing his SUV off to the side of the road because he ran out of gas. As he was pushing it, a 25-year old woman driving a Nissan Ultima hit him. As a result of the collision, one of the man’s legs was severed.

Thankfully, another motorist put a tourniquet on the man to stop the bleeding until EMS crews arrived. He was taken to the nearest hospital for medical assistance, as was the driver of the car that hit him. The police report did not indicate any charges had been laid, but they were calling for further investigation into the matter. There are many unanswered questions in this scenario, not the least of which is what was the female driver doing at the time of impact?

Was she paying attention to her driving? Was she speeding? Was she texting or under the influence of something? All these things need to be figured out in order for the case to move forward and for the man to be able to sue the female driver for compensation for his medical bills and his catastrophic, life-altering leg amputation.

If you have been in a similar situation and do not know who to talk to about compensation for your personal injuries, make it a point to connect with a seasoned Atlanta personal injury lawyer. These types of situations are not cases where the plaintiff can act pro se (on their own), or they run the very real risk of missing out on money they are legally entitled to as a result of their injuries. For catastrophic injuries like amputation, the awards tend to be higher.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

Not too many people have had the distinction of falling down a manhole, but is has happened and the consequences can be quite disastrous. Most manholes are covered, but in this particular case that we read about, the manhole was not covered and an 11-year-old girl fell just about 15 feet. She was trapped for 30 minutes before fire crews were able to get her out.

Once lifted to the surface, she was airlifted to a children’s hospital to check her over. She apparently did not receive any life threatening injuries and was released to recover at home. Nobody seems to know why the manhole cover was out of place, though there is speculation that a snowplow blade was the culprit. The city and the police are investigating the situation further.

While this case may sound like a fall where the young girl did not hurt herself, you have to consider that she fell 15 feet and landed on pipes and concrete. Injuries that may not be visible are a high risk in cases like this. For instance, she may have sustained spinal cord injuries that may not manifest themselves until later or she may also have cracked ribs or other bones – a fact that could go unnoticed at a hospital intently looking for more serious injuries and missing the not-so-obvious ones.

In any slip, trip and fall case, it is a good idea to discuss the case with a qualified Atlanta personal injury lawyer and find out what your rights are, what you do if the child’s injuries are worse than first thought, how to file a personal injury lawsuit and what to expect should your case go to court.

Injuries as the result of negligence (the missing manhole cover) may mean the city is liable/responsible for the child’s medical bills and other expenses relating to the accident. The first consultation with a an Atlanta personal injury lawyer is free and the advice if often priceless, when it provides you with the peace of mind that if your child’s injuries are more serious than first thought, you know what to do.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

When people get up in the morning and head off to work, they expect they will be home for supper later. In this case, the man who went to work at a sand plant construction site would never come home again. He was killed in a workplace accident.

The man was standing on a cement wall when it suddenly gave way and trapped him underneath it. He died due to compression injuries to his head and chest. Three other workers were also hurt in this accident.

Sudden deaths like this leave the family affected in deep shock and grief. They have to somehow come to grips with not only the loss of their family member, but also the loss of the income that person contributed to the home. Without that funding, the family would be financially strapped and likely unable to pay their bills.

One way of recovering compensation for a wrongful death is to file a wrongful death lawsuit with the assistance of an Atlanta personal injury lawyer. Since wrongful death lawsuits are civil suits, they are tried in a different court than criminal cases. In this case, the investigation will need to determine why the cement wall collapsed. Was it defective? Made with poor materials? Did the people who erected the wall know the cement was flawed in some way and would not hold up later? Was it mixed improperly and missing critical ingredients?

In terms of investigations, it would take some time for all the facts to be gathered and assessed. This is one of the jobs that an Atlanta personal injury lawyer does; sifts through the details of the accident to determine what happened. If there is negligence involved, this will form the foundation of a wrongful death lawsuit to recover compensation for the family.

There are a number of things involved in a settlement or award for a wrongful death: The way the deceased handled their finances while living, their income had they lived, medical and funeral expenses, pain and suffering prior to death and the pain and suffering of the family.

There are other factors involved, but they tend to vary from state to state. If you have a wrongful death case, it is best to discuss the details with an experienced Atlanta personal injury lawyer and find out what rules are applicable in Georgia wrongful death cases and what other factors may be considered in that state.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

This case was as troubling as it was upsetting for the mother and the rest of the family. The mother was at an Army hospital and in labor. The doctor delayed performing a C-section and, as the result of oxygen loss to the baby’s brain at birth, her daughter was born with cerebral palsy.

There was a midwife present at the birth who urged for a C-section, but the doctor kept insisting that the mother keep pushing. The baby started to display breathing problems shortly after birth and spent more than a month in an incubator. The mother opted to file a personal injury lawsuit but the hospital and the doctor denied they had done anything wrong when the case got to trial. The jury did not agree with the defense’s arguments and subsequently awarded the plaintiff a $6 million settlement.

Birth injuries are traumatic for the baby and the family, as they are often considered life-altering or catastrophic injuries; injuries that will forever change a person’s life. When a child is born with cerebral palsy, they will always need some kind of care for the remainder of their lives. Hence the larger damage awards handed down in case like that.

In order to file a medical malpractice lawsuit, there needs to be negligence present; the kind of negligence that another expert doctor would testify to in court as being below the standards of what other doctors would do. Not performing a C-section in a timely manner and thus putting the baby at risk for birth injuries would classify as medical negligence.

Based on medical negligence being proven, the nature and duration of the injuries tend to dictate the amount of compensation awarded by a jury. In this case, the child would need care for as long as she lived and the award reflected that reality.

If you have been in a situation like this, you need to speak to a highly trained Atlanta personal injury lawyer about your rights, what to expect at trial and what to expect in terms of compensation. These cases are not easy and take time to settle in an equitable and fair manner.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

These days, not everyone wants to get into potentially expensive litigation to settle a business disagreement. Many companies and organizations would prefer to do some thinking outside the box and try to get to the bottom of the disagreement, finding a way to deal with it first before hitting a courtroom. Alternative dispute resolution is becoming a very popular solution in today’s economy.

Depending on the environment and the people involved in the dispute in the first place, an arbitrator or mediator may do the trick. Mediators are neutral third parties whose aim is to reconcile the differences between two parties before they head to arbitration or litigation. On the other hand, arbitrators actually hear evidence and then decide the case. Their decision may be non-binding or binding, depending on what the parties to the dispute want to accomplish.

Either route taken does stand the chance, if not successful, of winding up in court. To this end, some parties like to hire a facilitator before starting anything. The reason for this is that the facilitator’s skills lie in making communications between the two groups better. Often, if the dispute is the result of a misunderstanding or miscommunication, the facilitator can get the train back on the tracks and re-establish respectful mutual communication.

For any of these processes, you will want someone who is objective and unbiased, without a hidden agenda and one that does not come to the table with statements already prepared. That’s never a good sign. The person chosen to hopefully settle the dispute also needs to have an abundance of tact, the ability to listen in neutral mode and be sensitive to the nuances of the group they are assisting. If that person also happens to be a lawyer, so much the better. Many business lawyers these days have this kind of training in addition to being a seasoned Atlanta business lawyer.

Most noncriminal disputes have a good chance at being resolved in mediation, more so if they involve leases, small business ownership issues, employment and contracts. Harassment claims are generally successfully resolved in this kind of venue as well.

Arbitration usually involves the arbitrator being judge and jury rolled into one, with the end result that they render a decision when the process is concluded. In other words, arbitration is much like going to court. Many arbitrators are lawyers, have legal experience or a legal education.

All in all, there are many alternative processes that may be used today to settle business disputes. When in doubt, speak to an Atlanta business lawyer.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

It’s pretty much a no-brainer that people should not be driving a lethal weapon while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Nevertheless, they do it anyhow. In most states, and certainly in Georgia, it is a punishable offense, with the punishment hinging on the severity of the offense and the driver’s condition when charged.

If arrested for DUI in Georgia, you will face a court hearing and depending on the nature of any injuries or damages involved, you may face a fine, a jail term or both. Your driver’s license may also be suspended and you may be ordered to attend court-appointed counseling.

While there are cases where there is no harm done to another, you might not think it is any big deal, especially if everyone is OK. Don’t even think for one minute that it is OK, because even if no one is hurt, you may still be punished based on your blood alcohol content, your condition and your behavior when arrested. For this reason, do not – and this bears repeating, do not – talk to the police when you are arrested, or even before you are arrested.

Do not get into why you were out drinking and driving, what speed you were or were not doing, how you feel or anything else. Be quiet and call an Atlanta criminal defense lawyer as soon as you can. Anything you have to say can be said to the lawyer. Anything you say that isn’t said to your lawyer has a mean way of coming back to bite you later. Remain silent until you get counsel, otherwise you could mess up your case.

Georgia has an involved process for DUI charges that mean a hearing session, appearing before a judge, a preliminary hearing, a pre-trial conference and criminal proceedings. Those criminal proceedings may mean charges of DUI felony. There is no way you can choose to represent yourself through this legal maze, which is why you will need a skilled Atlanta criminal defense lawyer.

Do not opt out of hiring legal counsel because you want to save money, because by the time you are done in the court process, without counsel, you will be paying out a large sum of money. Better you have the DUI criminal defense lawyer in your corner, who may be able to reduce charges or mitigate the whole case and get it tossed out. An experienced DUI lawyer is worth his weight in gold.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

Driving while under the influence is, unfortunately, more common that we would like it to be. For some reason, people who drink and drive think they are immortal. They also think nothing will happen to them and that it is safe to drive. It is not safe to drive and the statistics show a high number of deaths related to those who drink and drive – killing themselves and killing others.

DUI in Georgia is no picnic. Usually, the repercussions are losing your drivers certificate and driving privileges. Yes, you can certainly ask for a new one, but you will need a good DUI Atlanta criminal defense lawyer to get this done. He or she will be able to help you through the administrative driver’s license postponement process. Unfortunately, that also means you will be cited in one of two ways: with a per se violation or a less safe driver violation.

For the less safe driver violation, you are dealing with the police officer’s judgment at the time of your apprehension. In other words, there isn’t any scientific verification of the officer’s assessment that you were DUI. Their notes may show your speech was slurred, you reeked of booze, couldn’t walk a straight line, etc.

On the other hand, the per se violation is a proven fact; the fact that your blood alcohol content was over the official limit. What is the permissible limit in Georgia? In drivers over the age of 21, it’s .08 percent. Those over that limit face a variety of penalties such as 24 hours to 12 months in jail for a first offense. There may also be fines involved ranging from $600 to $1,000 and you may find yourself serving, at the very least, 40 hours of public service. There are a variety of other penalties, all of which need to be discussed with your Atlanta criminal defense lawyer in order to get the best possible outcome for your case.

Most criminal defense lawyers will tell you right upfront not to talk to the police and to say nothing until you make contact with a lawyer. The only person who needs to hear the whole story about what you were doing drinking and driving is the lawyer.

The main reason for this is that if you voluntarily start talking about why you were out drinking and what you were doing, this information will wind up in court later. If you do say things you were better off not saying, you significantly hamper your lawyer’s ability to help you mitigate the charges or get them thrown out. Also, it is best to remember that if you choose to continue to drink and drive and rack up charge after charge, the penalties get increasingly stiffer. Ultimately, you could have an ignition interlock device on every vehicle you own.

Think twice about drinking and driving in Georgia for two reasons; if you’re caught, your record will dog you for years to come and drinking and driving kills. Do you really want to become another DUI statistic?

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

Did you know that there are not that many suspected med mal cases that actually make it to court? This is largely due to the fact that many patients don’t really know exactly what goes into making a med mal case versus what general complications of a medical procedure happen to be. In other words, they don’t know what really constitutes medical malpractice and what constitutes a general and likely expected complication of a certain treatment, procedure or surgery.

Knowing what the basics of a med mal claim are before you try to file one is a good idea, largely so you don’t waste time pursuing a case that isn’t a case. The first thing you need to know is that when it comes to figuring out if there is medical malpractice afoot is whether negligence was involved in your injury. You need to be able to show that the doctors or other medical professionals in charge of your care were negligent in their duties to you and because they were, they caused you harm.

The negligence we’re talking about here may come in many forms. The most glaringly evident one would be if a surgeon left a sponge inside your body after an operation. A far more subtle one would deal with misdiagnosis of cancer. In the case of a doctor leaving something in your body, you have a fairly solid case to work with, because there is plenty of evidence that shows the instrument or object inside your body. It is evidence like this that an Atlanta personal injury lawyer would use in court while representing a medical malpractice plaintiff.

On the other hand, misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose is a different can of worms. These are difficult cases to prov because the field of medicine is fraught with all kinds of what ifs, alternatives, diseases that mimic something else and human error. For a misdiagnosis, you need precise and very clear evidence that the medical professional didn’t recognize the signs of your condition and also failed to do something about it or failed to implement the proper or right treatment/medication(s) to deal with the issue. In cases like that, you will need an expert medical witness who combs through your medical history in depth and who will testify for you in court.

One thing you need to remember is that if the jury finds that a doctor did everything they possibly could to provide the absolute best outcome for your treatment or procedure, they will often find for the defense, even if your condition is not fixed. This is why you really need to speak to a skilled and competent Atlanta personal injury lawyer about your case. If however, there is obviously gross negligence in the handling of your case, this is another story altogether.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

It’s obvious what kind of physical repercussion an attack can have on a victim, but most people have no idea how dog bite laws can affect them, too, such as the “first bite” or “one bite” rules.

Most states follow the “one bite rule,” which says that owners are not liable for a dog’s first attack provided the owner was not negligent in some manner. The rule, however, does not apply if the owner had previous knowledge that the dog was aggressive or dangerous, or had a propensity to harm people.

In Georgia, it can be difficult for dog-bite victims to prove that an owner was negligent. To do so, the incident must pass a two-part test.

“First, it must be proven that the dog had a previous tendency to bite or attack people and, second, that the owner had knowledge of such behavior,” said Robert Webb of the Atlanta-based personal injury law firm Webb & D’Orazio.

The other way to prove liability against a dog owner under the state statute is to show that the owner violated a local or county leash law when the event occurred.

Statistics show that when dogs attack, the most common victim is a child. Dog attacks cannot only bring physical scars to youngsters, but emotional ones too that lead to a fear of animals for the rest of his or her life.

“In the wake of a dog attack, it is important to understand the particular procedure that may follow, in regard to filing a dog bite lawsuit and seeking financial compensation for your injuries,” Webb said. “If you would like to discuss whether you may have grounds for a civil lawsuit against the owner of the dog that was responsible for your injuries, you should seek the advice of an experienced Atlanta personal injury attorney.”

To learn more, visit http://www.webbdorazio.com.

Each state in the United States sets its own statute of limitations, which can vary from one to six years. Here in the Peach State, the limit is two years from the date of injury. For a minor, however, the situation is different: The statute of limitations does not begin until the minor has reached 18 years of age. That means if a youngster is injured at age 14, he or she may file to recover damages up until the age of 20.

“Sometimes after an accident, it is immediately clear whether you are injured,” said Robert Webb, of the Atlanta-based personal injury law firm Webb & D’Orazio. “At other times, it is not. It is in your best interest to retain an attorney to help you settle your claim in a timely and efficient manner.”

Personal-injury accidents can be physically and emotionally damaging so it is important to find a lawyer who shows both zeal and compassion.

When considering filing a formal claim, there are several steps that one can take to help the claim process along. Many of these actions can be taken by the injured person’s attorney, too, of course. The steps include:

•Making notes of the incident. What happened? What are the injuries? What were the circumstances and conditions surrounding the incident? When did it occur?

•Keeping evidence of what caused the accident, if possible, and taking pictures to illustrate important details about the incident.

•Taking note of important witnesses who can verify what happened and help the injured person prove his or her case. Find out how an attorney can get in touch with them at a later date.

“If you or someone you know has experienced a personal injury, you should seek the advice of an experienced Atlanta personal injury attorney who can help you seek justice for your injuries,” Webb added.

To learn more, visit http://www.webbdorazio.com.

In the Atlanta area, there are many professionals available to you, to be sure. But it is important that you choose an attorney who specializes in personal injury cases and who has the compassion, zeal and experience for the job. Personal injury accidents can be emotionally and physically demanding and the last thing you need to worry about is whether your lawyer will be working hard enough to secure the damages that you are seeking.

It is necessary that you act quickly and wisely in selecting someone to represent you to help you receive compensation for your injuries, lost wages, medical expenses, property damage and pain and suffering.

There are a seemingly endless number of lawyers who can represent someone and fight in court for their rights, but as a victim you need someone who takes your case as seriously as you do.

It may also be possible to secure punitive damages. Punitive damages, also known as exemplary damages, are awarded in cases where the defendant is deemed to have acted especially egregious or has a track record of taking the types of actions that have led to your personal injury. They are typically awarded by judges and juries.

With important compensation at stake, it is necessary that you secure the right attorney. Here are some tips for finding a good personal injury attorney:

-Ask for a referral from another lawyer you trust, from a friend or from a membership organization or state bar association.

-Make sure you interview your attorney during the initial consultation. Ask about his or her experience, whether or not the case will be taken on a contingent fee basis, whether he or she will be personally working on the case, how often you will receive progress updates on your case and anything else you need to know that will make you feel more comfortable with him or her.

-Select an attorney who specializes in your type of personal injury case. The more specific experience, the better.

-Ask for a written retainer agreement.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

However, the flipside to the story is that some patients have dealt with lasting injuries brought on by negligence and malpractice from surgeons.

What is LASIK?

LASIK, which stands for Laser-Assisted in Situ Keratomileusis, is a procedure that was developed about 20 years ago to combat astigmatism, myopia and other common vision issues. The surgical procedure is relatively simple and is undertaken by cutting a flap in the corneal tissue of the eye before a laser is used to correct the visual condition.

Typically, any complications disappear within a couple of weeks of surgery. Unfortunately, this is not the case for some patients. These patients have to deal with long-term complications ranging from pain to dry eye to light sensitivity to, in some cases, blindness.

How do you know if you have legitimate malpractice suit? Many of the complications have arisen not because of a botched surgery, such as an errant cutting of the flap in the corneal tissue, but because of poor pre-surgical screening. Some patients simply should not have been allowed to receive the procedure.

For example, people with thin or cone-shaped corneas are not good candidates for LASIK surgery, yet some patients were still OK’d for LASIK.

Complications from LASIK surgery can lead to a lifetime of problems and “visual exhaustion.” Sometimes victims can have difficulty driving or working as a result. Sometimes it affects their personal and social lives, too.

If you or someone you know has experienced a serious LASIK surgery complication, you should seek the advice of an experienced Atlanta personal injury attorney who can help you seek justice for your injuries.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

Usually one of the first things that a criminal defense lawyer does when someone has been accused of committing a crime is to contact a private investigator. Ultimately, it is expected that this step will garner the accused the very best possible defense by finding additional facts and details pertaining to the case. But many defendants don’t know what the investigator does for them.

“More often than not, the private investigator digs deep to find hidden information about your case. They get a wide variety of facts from various sources, including using the computer to track files or a digital trail. These days, a necessary skill is the ability to tackle encrypted files, determine if passwords have been altered and/or if certain documents have been deleted. The 21st century has created an electronic milieu for everyone to conduct their activities. However, they leave traces of what they did and where they’ve been that may be tracked later,” said Robert Webb, of Webb & D’Orazio, personal injury lawyers practicing personal injury law, business law, and criminal defense in Atlanta Georgia.

A good detective looks at all the various angles of a case to see who else may be involved, who may be building a case against you, what they are looking for and any inconsistencies or holes the defense could utilize while in court. Public and private records are scoured from top to bottom in the search for evidence the defense may use. “And if we need a certain witness, the investigator will track that person down in order for us to build a solid criminal defense case,” Webb said.

While not all law firms use private investigators, they definitely have their use when it comes to helping a criminal defense lawyer build a good case for a person accused of a crime. Investigators work with witnesses, various types of surveillance equipment and work legally and ethically – or they could not present the evidence in court.

“If you need a tenacious criminal defense lawyer, give us a call. We’ve got your back and have ‘been there and done that’, so we know the system. Let’s talk about your case,” Webb said.

To learn more, visit http://www.webbdorazio.com.

Anyone who has ever been through some kind of medical treatment is likely aware that just one slip up, one small mistake, one misunderstanding can result in medical malpractice. Unfortunately, even though the medical profession does a fine job under difficult circumstances, bad things do happen and patients get improper treatment or the wrong treatment altogether.

The wrong treatment puts a patient’s health and welfare on the thin edge of the razor; a fine line to walk when dealing with another person’s life. The wrong treatment means the real cause of the illness is undetermined and untreated, which means the patient will get worse. The long-term consequences of this medical missed diagnosis may result in serious harm or death.

“Typically, improper treatment may happen in a variety of ways,” said Robert Webb, an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio in Georgia. “For example, the patient gets either not enough medication or too much or the individual is treated for the wrong illness/disease, because they were misdiagnosed.”

While there are other things that may happen to an unsuspecting patient, the other most common error is when a health services worker (doctor, nurse, charge nurse, etc.) makes a clerical error and a patient gets the wrong medication. “Of course, any of these scenarios may cause irreversible harm to someone or kill them and if you have been in a situation like this and lived to tell the tale, you will want to discuss your case with an Atlanta personal injury lawyer,” Webb said.

The major difficulty with not treating a disease is that it continues on its course unabated and may, over time, become untreatable. Those who have been victims of improper treatment may very well be entitled to financial compensation for their medical malpractice injuries. “If you have any questions about a situation you have been in, give me a call. I would be happy to discuss your case with you,” Webb said.

To learn more, visit http://www.webbdorazio.com.

Wrongful death is a bit of an unusual term, because there is no such thing as a death that is right. As awkward as it may seem, to understand what wrongful death is, you have to look at the bigger picture. When someone dies as the result of the negligence or inaction of another person or an entity, this is called wrongful death. It may sound simple on the surface, but it rarely is, as any Atlanta personal injury lawyer will tell you.

For those who have died at the hands of another, there may be fairly large damage awards for the deceased’s loved ones. Wrongful death has no particular niche. It strikes at anytime, anywhere and may be the result of a car accident, medical malpractice or even not maintaining property to ensure it is safe for others to visit. Another form of wrongful death may happen when a 911 call for help is not handled properly or promptly.

An improperly handled 911 call would involve the dispatcher handling the call in a negligent manner or being careless about the information he or she gathered and sent out. If someone dies as a result of those errors, the operator may be held liable for the wrongful death. One enormous oversight made by 911 dispatchers is not getting enough information from the caller.

For example, not getting the right address or all the details of the emergency situation may result in emergency responders going to the wrong location or not sending the right kind of emergency personnel to the scene. Not having a complete understanding of the severity of a situation a caller is describing may also result in an untimely and unnecessary death.

Take the case of the baby who had stopped breathing in a small town. The family called the dispatch center six times over a 15-minute period but the calls went unanswered. For some reason they were not going through to the dispatch center, either due to operator error or a technical glitch. Finally, the last call for help was answered by an operator in the next county. Unfortunately, the baby died while help was on the way. While there are several facets of this case to be delved into, the result was a wrongful death.

If you have any questions about how a wrongful death lawsuit is handled in your state, make sure you call and ask a skilled personal injury lawyer. While every state has a wrongful death statute, each state also has slightly different rules and regulations. If you live in Georgia, make that call to an Atlanta personal injury lawyer.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.

Usually when the economy takes a turn for the worse, many businesses are forced to slash prices and push advertisements and flyers that say all stock is on sale and they’re closing out. What if a business could be restructured in such a way that tough economic times don’t bother them as much, and they may even able to ride out a recession?

This doesn’t necessarily mean restructuring legally, but instead, restructuring by being innovative and going with the flow. Instead of giving in to a recession, fight back by polling employees for their ideas to keep the doors open. Being innovative means using all avenues open to you, and that includes technology, employees and finding others with lots of experience with riding out rough spots to share their hard fought wisdom with you. It may also ultimately mean restructuring the company with the help of an Atlanta business law firm, but that is a detail you can attend to later.

What kinds of ideas would you need? Ideally, you want the drive and the will to make it through the rocky spots, and that means employees with ideas and innovations that are simpler, faster, shorter and more cost effective than what you presently have. Just because a business does things one way “because they always have done it that way,” doesn’t mean that way can’t be changed and stripped down to work better.

Certainly, it’s not just ideas that will allow a business to survive a recession, it’s also expansion. While that may seem surprising and counterintuitive, think about it for a minute. Take advantage of what is currently selling and improve upon it and expand it.

For instance: let’s say you have a dog training business that does basic obedience work. It’s popular, but you need a boost. You expand your services to include grooming, homemade dog biscuits, nail clipping, ear cleaning and pet sitting. You get the idea. Add services to what people already buy – a spinoff effect, if you will – and watch the revenue come in.

Above all else, be flexible with what you offer in terms of services and products. Partner with other businesses to offer customers an even greater level of service and spread the coin around. If you structure your business so that all your eggs are not in one basket, but each portion of your overall business can stand alone on its own, you have the recipe for success during a recession. It’s certainly worth trying.

Robert Webb is an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in Atlanta personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law. Learn more at Webbdorazio.com.