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This gruesome case demonstrates what a family goes through when they file a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of a deceased family member.

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.

If the car in this case had not been traveling so close to the cyclist, the man would not have suffered traumatic brain injury.

“The cyclist in this reported case was severely injured by a car turning into a school driveway. The driver did not look where he was going, and as a result of this accident, the cyclist was deemed incompetent to provide instructions to his legal counsel, and did not have the capacity to understand any of the court proceedings. He sustained severe trauma to his head,” said Robert Webb, an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law.

The man on the bicycle was hit so hard he was tossed up over the car’s windshield, landing on the pavement of the driver’s side of the car. The impact was so severe that he sustained not only a life-altering debilitating brain injury, but multiple facial fractures. The driver of the car claims he was not negligent, but that the cyclist was, and that if the man did suffer any injuries, they were caused by his own negligence.

“The cyclist was a chartered accountant and senior partner at a local firm in the city where he lived with his wife, and was wearing a safety helmet at the time of the accident. A Grand Am heading east drove right in front of the man, causing the car’s right front fender to hit the bike. The impact threw the cyclist into the car and propelled him over the car,” Webb said.

The police report of this accident indicated that the roads were clear and dry, that it was sunny out and the collision happened at the white line marking on the shoulder of the road. The subsequent lawsuit stated the driver of the car was not driving with due care and attention, failed to yield the right-of-way to the bike before making a sharp left hand turn, failed to try and avoid contact with the bicycle and was not paying attention to what he was doing or where he was going.

“At trial, the wife will seek damages that will include compensation for medical expenses for the rest of the man’s life, lost income, loss of consortium and companionship, therapy, pain and suffering, scarring and other expenses related to the accident,” Webb said.

Cases like this are usually dramatic, in the sense that the defense will try and diminish the seriousness of the accident and shift blame to the plaintiff. For instance, the defense counsel in this case stated the man was not wearing adequate head protection, that his ability to ride a bike was impaired and that there was poor visibility.

“Obviously, the police report and weather conditions on that day will play a large part in determining this case, as will the debate over what constitutes adequate head protection. The impairment issue will also likely be discussed at some length, and the defense will try to indicate the man’s mental problems were pre-existing,” Webb said.

Given the fact that the cyclist was deemed to be fit and healthy prior to the accident and then spent three months in a rehab center before being placed into a home for the brain injured, the defense is going to be hard pressed to prove their case. “Will the plaintiff win this case? Likely. The jury will have plenty of evidence to suggest the man was normal prior to this accident and as a result of this collision, his whole life was turned upside down and he will require care for the rest of his life,” Webb said.

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

This wrongful death lawsuit had its origins in medical malpractice. Many wrongful death lawsuits are often associated with med mal.

“This case had a bit of an unusual twist. While it is not out of the ordinary to run into different circumstances when dealing with cases like this, this reported court opinion was slightly unusual, as it partially granted the defendant’s objections to the plaintiff’s medical expert’s report,” said Robert Webb, an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law.

In some states, the law mandates that plaintiffs must submit a medical expert report within 30 days of filing a med mal lawsuit. In this instance, the defendant argued the plaintiff’s report did not identify any substantial negligence committed by the hospital’s surgical nurses. On the other hand, there was still a question about the floor nurses who cared for the deceased while she was in hospital.

The facts of the case were stated as the plaintiff, a 79-year-old woman, was undergoing surgery for an elective inguinal hernia repair, and that the surgeon nicked the woman’s colon. The woman returned to the ER a few days after surgery with a fever. She was booked for a laparotomy, where the doctors discovered a nicked colon. The woman died nine months after her laparotomy. The lawsuit further alleges the nurses caused the deceased unnecessary pain, negligently failed to provide her with proper care and treatment, and caused her death.

“There are a couple of issues here, one involving granting the partial denial of the plaintiff’s expert medical witnesses report and who was at fault for the care the deceased received. The partial denial may mean that only some of the defendants will be held responsible for the care and death of the deceased, and that the surgeon will also be held negligent for nicking the woman’s colon – an action that ultimately led to her deadly infection and death,” Webb said.

The main thing to take note of is that wrongful death cases are moving targets, in that the unexpected may happen, as it did in this case, and the plaintiff’s counsel needs to be prepared for just about any contingency. The medical malpractice lawyer’s job is to prove negligence was the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s death and, but for the medical mistake the doctor and/or nurses made, the patient may still be alive.

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

Anoxic brain injury caused a man’s death after what should have been routine knee surgery.

“In this reported case, the man went to an outpatient surgical center in Marietta, Ga. for what should have been routine knee surgery. It turned out to have been anything but routine. On his way home from the outpatient surgery, he suffered cardio-respiratory arrest, dying two days later, as the result of anoxia,” said Robert Webb, an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law.

There is much more to this story than meets the eye. At the time of the surgery, the attending anesthesiologist knew the man suffered from obstructive sleep apnea, making him a very high risk patient for post-operative breathing problems, such as depressed respiration. “The surgery went brilliantly, and the man was admitted to the post anesthesia recovery unit. Oddly though, when he was admitted, the doctor wrote up a pre-authorized patient release,” Webb said.

Although the man had no pain when he went into the clinic, the nurse in the recovery unit gave him 1 mg. of Dilaudid IV. Less than an hour later, he got another 1 mg IV and handed him two tablets of Percocet. There was no written record of how much or what, if any, narcotics were to be given the man and none of his vital signs were charted after surgery was completed.

The man’s wife arrived to pick him up and they left the clinic before the full effect of the narcotics kicked in. Prior to leaving, neither the doctor, nor the nurse, assessed his condition. He went into cardio-respiratory arrest on the way home and died two days later.

“Percocet and Dilaudid are heavy duty opioid painkillers, for moderate to severe pain, and are noted to cause or exacerbate respiratory depression, particularly in those with obstructive sleep apnea. Patients with apnea need to be continuously monitored for a minimum of three hours, and should be kept until they are not a risk for post operative respiratory depression,” Webb said.

Not surprisingly, the defendants are denying liability in the death of the man. Will this case be successful? “Likely. The jury may well view the patient being given that much medication in about 30 minutes, when he had sleep apnea, as negligent. Additionally, there were no doctor’s orders and no vital signs charted while he was in recovery,” added Webb, the Atlanta personal injury lawyer.

Not all bad medical outcomes are classified as medical malpractice, and this is why it is important to take a suspected case of medical malpractice to a competent Atlanta personal injury lawyer. Speaking to a lawyer will give the potential plaintiff an idea of what to expect, should their case go forward to court.

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

A little girl developed cerebral palsy as a direct result of negligence on the part of the doctor delivering her. The jury found for the plaintiff in the case.

“This is a disturbing case in which the clear signs and symptoms of a baby being in distress were not acted on promptly, with devastating results,” said Robert Webb, an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law.

This story began when the expectant mother-to-be went for one of her regular checkups. The results of her non-stress test showed her baby had a low heart rate, at which point the doctor suggested labor be induced. On the doctor’s advice, the parents agreed to go ahead with an emergency C-section. “The problems began after the doctor induced labor. He decided to not do the C-section. This is the point where the baby’s life changed forever, because she was not getting the oxygen she needed to her brain, which caused cerebral palsy,” Webb said.

At trial, an expert witness for the parents pointed out that the baby also suffered additional injuries, compounded by the fact that labor had been induced, and then a vacuum applied for extraction. Of interest was the fact that the doctor who performed the delivery said she did not consider doing a C-section, because she saw no signs that there was anything wrong with the baby. The personal injury lawsuit filed suggested that had a C-section been performed as originally planned, she would not have been born with cerebral palsy.

“Cases like these are difficult and exceedingly complex, largely because of the medical issues involved, and the type of testimony required to persuade a jury. Most medical malpractice cases need expert witnesses to testify that what a doctor did was not up to the accepted standards of the profession. Getting a case like this to court takes a long time to mount a solid case, and needs experienced counsel at the helm to present the evidence,” Webb said.

For families that feel they have been the victim of medical malpractice, make the first call for advice to a competent and experienced Atlanta personal injury lawyer. The first consultation is free and may cover what a medical malpractice case involves, how one is put together, what to expect in court and what to expect in terms of a possible jury award.

“If you think you have been the victim of medical malpractice, feel free to give my office a call. That’s my job, to answer your questions and help you understand what you may be facing, should you have a case,” Webb said.

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

In an interesting turn of events, a Harvard law professor suggests it’s about time lawyers did something about how they are perceived. Too much time is spent protecting jurisdictions instead of solving problems.

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.

You do not realize how important business law is until you have a contract dispute. Business is the backbone of America.

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.

Offline paper contracts are based on established case law. Unfortunately, the Internet has changed things drastically when it comes to online contracts.

“There is a whole history of established precedent for contract law; the kind of law based on a written contract, when both parties signed it and agreed to what was in the four corners of the document. They is also such a thing as verbal contracts, but they’re harder to prove if one of the parties denies the existence of a verbal contract,” said Robert Webb, an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law.

There are four things needed to form a legally binding contract: the consideration involved; the intention to create a legal relationship; an offer and an acceptance. The consideration means that that parties will each benefit in some manner.

“The intention to create a contract is generally fairly clear in most cases, largely because the two individuals are negotiating something. What’s tricky is figuring out if the contract is legally binding and has an offer and acceptance part,” Webb said. Put another way, people cannot accept an invitation to treat and an invitation is distinctly different from a contract.

With the usual kind of a written on paper contract in the offline world, the two people involved sign it and agree to all the terms etc. Some of the issues covered would include the time the contract was entered, the specific terms and the jurisdiction the contract is relevant too. In the online world this is slightly different and negotiations are done via the web and emails and other e-methods.

Emails mimic paper correspondence sent my regular mail and, generally speaking, once someone offers something via email and accepts via email, the deed should be done. However, the difficult part about online offers and acceptances is that often, there are questions about the validity of the acceptance. Precisely, what online is the equivalent to snail mailing a letter? There is no clear definition of that – yet.

“If you thought business dealings offline had their touch and go moments, dealing with online offers and when an acceptance has been tendered is even trickier. Generally speaking, that would ultimately depend on each case or situation that arose. If you find yourself in a sticky situation involving an online contract, give us a call and we can discuss the situation with you,” Webb said.

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

Often, death due to medical malpractice results in a wrongful death lawsuit.

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.

In some places in the country, doctors may not be sued for making mistakes. Lately, medical malpractice cases have taken on a different twist.

“At one time, in certain states, if a doctor saw a patient in the ER complaining of chest pains, he or she would take a history and do some basic tests. If the tests showed no indication of a heart problem, the person would be sent home. That would be viewed as practicing good medicine and the doctor could not be sued if the patient died later of a heart attack,” said Robert Webb, an Atlanta personal injury lawyer with Webb & D’Orazio, a law firm specializing in personal injury, malpractice, criminal defense, and business law.

These days, things are changing in some states, enough so that doctors feel they need to practice defensive medicine to prevent being sued. The same patient from the first example going to the ER in another state would be admitted and run through an endless battery of tests, ostensibly to avoid a lawsuit.

“But really, does it avoid a medical malpractice lawsuit? The answer is, ‘No, it does not,’ and that is largely because no matter how many tests are run, if the person interpreting them makes a mistake or misreads them, there may still be a medical malpractice case filed due to a bad medical outcome,” Webb said.

The dilemma today is that many doctors feel they are boxed into a corner when it comes to diagnosing issues and are bordering on the paranoid about ensuring they do all they can in their power to get things right and help a patient. However, legally speaking, the frantic due diligence that may be performed by doctors not wanting to be sued for med mal is a waste of time, money and resources. The fact is that sometimes bad medical outcomes happen, no matter what a doctor does. This is what makes med mal cases as tricky as they are.

“Typically, malpractice is and should be, about deviating from an approved medical standard. Meaning, if a doctor doesn’t live up to the set standards of their specialty and doesn’t have an explanation as to why they did deviate from the accepted norm and something awful happens, they need to face the consequences,” Webb said.

On the other side of the fence, and this is where the great debate gets going, if a doctor does everything right and something bad happens, they feel they deserve to be protected. Life is life and sometimes bad things happen, despite good medical care. Therein lies the dilemma; one that has no right or wrong answer, but does result in troubling lawsuits.

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