Jeremy Hayes, Attorney at Law

09/10/2021

Here's another example of why it's a good idea to hire a personal injury attorney as soon as possible after you are injured in a car wreck that is not your fault. We recently started working for a client who was injured after their car was struck and forced off the road by a vehicle merging into their lane. Although it seemed clear that the other driver should be found at fault, the police report surprisingly said fault could not be determined due to conflicting stories and no witnesses. Relying on that report, the other driver's insurance company denied our liability claim. Our client insisted that the wreck did not happen the way the other driver had described it to the police and told us that she had spoken to at least one witness who stopped to check on her but who was not listed in the police report.

So we went to work to try to find this witness and additional evidence to prove that the other driver's story was wrong and that, despite what the police officer had written in the report, fault could be determined. Over a period of several weeks we located and interviewed the eyewitness our client spoke to at the scene and confirmed his story matched our client's. We also determined from investigating the scene that a nearby convenience store's surveillance cameras may have captured the wreck. We contacted the manager there to try to obtain the footage. They confirmed that their cameras likely had captured the wreck but refused to release the video to anyone other than law enforcement. We also obtained body cam footage from the investigating officer that provided some additional helpful evidence that was not in the report.

Armed with this additional information, we tried to contact the police officer who investigated the wreck to ask them to look into it further but were told they no longer worked for the department. Typically, routine car wrecks are investigated by the responding officer alone, and they are the only ones who can amend their report. Undeterred, we went up the chain to a sergeant in the Traffic Enforcement section and explained the situation. Fortunately, the sergeant agreed to look into it. We continued to follow up, and this week the sergeant informed us that law enforcement had interviewed the witness we had found, reviewed the convenience store surveillance we had told them about, and had confirmed that the wreck happened exactly as our client had said all along. The police report has now been updated to reflect the correct facts, and the other driver has been issued a traffic citation.

For our client, this means that the insurance company that had previously denied our claim will now have to pay for all of our client's medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering plus pay for the client's vehicle. Not every car wreck case is straightforward and easy, and this is a good example of the kind of difference hiring an injury attorney up front can make. We don't just take the easy cases! Had our client waited to hire us, odds are the video surveillance would have been lost, the witness may have been impossible to locate, and law enforcement would not have been able to change the initial non-fault determination.

And to give credit where it is due, we were able to accomplish this result for our client without having to file an immediate lawsuit because of the dedication of this sergeant who agreed to go above and beyond to make sure justice was done in this case. Car wrecks that do not involve fatalities or other serious crimes are not often re-investigated, especially by a supervisor who had no involvement in the original investigation. But this sergeant looked at our evidence, saw the original investigation was incomplete, and stepped in to make sure it was done correctly. That's a dedicated public servant, and perhaps when the case is over I can give them more of the public credit they deserve.

04/26/2021

What happens if you are injured and file a personal injury lawsuit and the person who injured you dies before the lawsuit is resolved? Unfortunately, in recent years I have had quite a few cases where either the plaintiff or the defendant in the lawsuit passed away before the case resolved. The death of a party to a personal injury lawsuit does not usually end the lawsuit. Georgia law says that in most cases the lawsuit can continue as long as the deceased person's estate takes over as the "defendant" (person being sued) in the case.

When a person dies, their debts, liabilities, and assets usually become the property of their estate in Georgia. A person who dies with a will can specify in the will how they want their property distributed and who they want to be in charge of distributing it. That person is called an executor. If a person dies without a will, the Probate Court can appoint someone to be in charge of handling the estate's property and debts. That person is called an administrator.

When a person is liable for injuring someone else before death, that liability belongs to their estate after their death, and the executor or administrator of their estate can be substituted into the lawsuit as the new defendant when the actual defendant dies before the lawsuit ends. The process of setting up an estate and substituting the executor or administrator of the estate into the case can be a tedious one that can delay the lawsuit. But once it is completed, the lawsuit can continue, and the original defendant's insurance company will still pay for a settlement with the estate or a judgment against the estate the same way they would have if the defendant had not died since they insured the original defendant at the time they were still alive and caused the injury.

And in case you were wondering, the same procedure would allow an injured person who dies (unrelated to their injuries so we're not talking about a wrongful death lawsuit, which is different altogether) before a lawsuit ends to still pursue their injury claim and obtain compensation for their medical bills, etc. through their estate.

04/09/2021

Just resolved a case for a client who was facing 4 charges for a violent altercation they were involved in. To complicate matters for their defense, the client had admitted to the police officers on video exactly what they had done. The client faced up to 4 years in jail for what they had admitted to doing, but they had never been in any trouble with the law before.

Despite the fact that the client had admitted to initiating the violent altercation which led to them being charged as they were, there were still a lot of facts that explained and mitigated the client's conduct. I dug in and investigated those and was ultimately able to explain to the prosecutor that the violent encounter was actually the result of the client intervening to protect their teenage child from being further exposed to dangerous illegal drugs that the other person involved in the altercation had been helping the child get high on. In the heat of the moment, an innocent bystander's property was damaged, but ultimately the client was successful in saving their child, getting them into rehab, and preventing them from going down the road to addiction at such a young age.

Once the prosecutor had the full context of the story, they agreed to drop 3 of the 4 charges. The client received only probation with limited conditions including repaying the innocent party for their damaged property. And when that is done, the client will walk away without a criminal conviction on their record.

In the criminal defense world, getting acquittals and dismissals are not the only "wins." Far more often, the win is investigating all of the relevant facts and law for the client, telling their story and finding evidence to show who they really are (because we're often not the people our worst moments might make us appear to be), making sure they fully understand what they're facing and potential defenses and outcomes, and working to minimize the damage of the charges they face so that the client can choose the best of the potentially available outcomes for their situation. When you have a reasonable prosecutor to work with as I was fortunate to have in this case, it makes it easier to achieve a just and fair outcome.

03/19/2021

Before the pandemic, an 8:30 AM court calendar in DeKalb County for me meant waking up extra early to be on the road no later than 6:00 AM for a court appearance that may last less than 15 minutes. Almost all Georgia courts start their morning session at 9:00 AM so the rare 8:30 AM calendars usually draw groans from the lawyers (who tend to be creatures of habit) anyway but are especially disfavored by the non-local lawyers who have to drive through the worst of morning rush hour to arrive on time for the half-hour earlier start. I much prefer waking up at normal time and logging on to Zoom court at 8:20 AM as I did this week with none of the stress of sitting in traffic. This is a positive development that saves clients money and saves lawyers a lot of time that I hope judges keep offering after the pandemic is over.

Not every court appearance can be conducted effectively remotely. But the ones that must be in person tend to be the longer, higher stakes hearings where the drive time does not greatly exceed the value of the court appearance to the client like it can for the 15 minute or less calendars seeking only status updates on cases.

11/02/2020

Hurricane Zeta brought high winds to Georgia last week and took down a lot of trees. One of the questions I am frequently asked when a tree falls and causes damage is who is responsible for paying for the damage. In Georgia, damage caused by falling trees is usually the responsibility of the person at fault for causing or allowing the tree to fall. You may be wondering how you can sue a storm. Obviously you can't, but that is the very reason there is a concept in law and insurance called an "Act of God" when personal injury or property damage is caused by something outside the control of any human.

Sometimes there is no person responsible for causing a tree to fall. Powerful storms with wind, rain, and lightning can knock down even healthy trees with no way of knowing in advance that the tree was likely to fall. In those instances, the law considers it an "Act of God" for which no person is going to be responsible if the tree injures you or damages your property. Just because the tree was rooted on someone's property before it fell, that property owner is not automatically responsible for damage caused if it falls. If the tree was or at least appeared to be healthy and fell due to a lightning strike or a combination of wind and rain from an Act of God like a storm, there is usually no person at fault for causing the tree to fall, and you will likely have to go through your own insurance to find coverage to help you pay for the damage the fallen tree caused.

But sometimes even if a tree fell in a storm, there is a person who contributed to causing the tree to fall. If the property owner knew or should have known that the tree was unhealthy and therefore posed a high risk of falling during a storm then they can be at fault when the tree eventually does come down during a storm. You do not have to be an expert arborist to know that trees that begin to lose a substantial number of leaves during the warm season or begin to show signs of rot are dying or diseased. If a visibly dead, dying, or diseased tree later falls and causes damage to someone else's property then the owner of the property where the tree was rooted can be held legally responsible for paying for the damage the tree caused. The law justifies this because the tree owner in that scenario had both the opportunity and the legal duty to take action and have the tree cut down before it fell, and they can be considered negligent for failing to do so.

So, if you are the victim of injury or damage from a falling tree, to determine whose responsibility it is to pay for your damage you have to ask whose fault it was that the tree fell. If a healthy tree fell because of an Act of God that nobody could have reasonably prevented then you are going to be on your own to pay for the damage. But if a visibly unhealthy or dead tree fell because the property owner failed to have it cut down before the storm knocked it down, then you could have a claim against the property owner's insurance for the injury or damage caused by the fallen tree.

11/02/2020

Thank you to all who voted! Results will be announced in January.

They are entered in the Best of Forsyth and would appreciate your vote! Click this link to vote one time per day during the month of October!

10/23/2020

Just a reminder, there is only one week left to vote for Spaulding Injury Law as the best personal injury law firm in Forsyth County! You can vote once per day at the link below. We appreciate your continued support!

They are entered in the Best of Forsyth and would appreciate your vote! Click this link to vote one time per day during the month of October!

10/05/2020

My firm, Spaulding Injury Law, is honored to have once again been nominated by the readers of the Forsyth County News for the category of Best Personal Injury Attorney in the 2021 Best of Forsyth Awards. These annual awards honor the best businesses in Forsyth County. Voting for the award runs through the month of October, and you can vote one time per email address each day at the link below. We won this award in 2019 and would love to take home the trophy again in 2021! Please share this with anyone you know and vote for us daily through October 31st to help us reclaim the title of Best Personal Injury Attorneys in Forsyth County!

Check it out now!

09/11/2020

This morning we pause to remember the thousands of lives lost on September 11, 2001 and the thousands more whose lives continue to be affected by the horrific events of that day. 🇺🇸

09/03/2020

Insurance companies and their lobbyists love to throw around the term "frivolous lawsuits," and they always blame injured plaintiffs and their lawyers for those "frivolous lawsuits." It's inaccurate because what insurance companies are really complaining about are not the lawsuits themselves but the jury verdicts that cost them considerable sums of money because the insurance company failed to settle the case for a much lower amount when they had the opportunity to do so.

You see, what is really frivolous about the personal injury business is the way insurance companies force legitimately injured people with reasonable settlement demands to file a lawsuit or take their lawsuit to trial because the insurance company refuses to pay a reasonable settlement offer. There is not a single huge jury verdict you have ever seen in the news that the insurance company involved could not have avoided by accepting a reasonable settlement offer before trial. But instead of paying settlements, many insurance companies pay analysts and software companies large sums of money to develop algorithms and computer programs to tell them exactly what they should pay in a given case. Then the insurance company prohibits their claims adjusters from deviating from the computer's number. Of course, the number the computer is spitting out is only as good as the data programmed into the computer, which the insurance company or their programmer can manipulate to force the computer to spit out lower settlement values.

Insurance companies now are also spending countless resources scrutinizing an injured person's medical bills and deducting charges that their computer deems unreasonable. So even though your doctor may have billed you $10,000 for a procedure that you have to pay out of pocket, the insurance company may review it and say they're only willing to pay $6,000 of it. Then they may offer you $2,000 for pain and suffering for a total settlement offer of $8,000 while you're sitting there scratching your head trying to figure out how you can pay a $10,000 medical bill with $8,000. Is that reasonable?

This is happening more and more frequently with the largest car insurance companies (yes, the same ones who just a few months ago had so much extra cash they started giving some back to customers), and it is leaving injured people who just want to get their bills paid and pocket something reasonable for the hassle of being injured unexpectedly with no choice but to file a lawsuit to force the insurance company to pay them enough to do just that. In my view, that is frivolous litigation. It is unnecessary and avoidable if both sides act reasonably. But when the insurance company tells someone with a $10,000 bill that they're not paying them more than $8,000, take it or leave it, what choice do they have? So the next time you hear a big insurance company complaining about frivolous lawsuits, remember that most of the time they create the very lawsuits they are complaining about by refusing to make reasonable settlement offers on legitimate claims. Ok, this concludes my rant for now...

08/12/2020

For those with business in the Georgia justice system, the pandemic has caused a fifth 30-day extension of the Judicial Emergency that Chief Justice Harold Melton first declared in March. Filing deadlines were reinstated effective July 14th so the biggest impact of the ongoing Judicial Emergency declaration is the continuing prohibition of jury trials and grand jury proceedings. No Georgia court is allowed to summon jurors for jury duty for at least another 30 days, which realistically means that no jury trials can be conducted at least until October at the earliest. By then we will have gone almost seven months without a jury trial in this state, which is a huge problem particularly for the criminal justice system.

Acknowledging just how urgent the need is to find a way for at least the criminal court system to safely resume jury proceedings, Chief Justice Melton in his most recent order extending the Judicial Emergency yesterday wrote, "This broad prohibition cannot last too much longer, even if the pandemic continues, because the judicial system, and the criminal justice system in particular, must have some capacity to resolve cases by indictment and trial."

The Chief Justice is correct. Our justice system is built on the foundation of the right to a trial by a jury of your peers. Particularly for those sitting in jail or otherwise facing serious criminal charges, (who still have a constitutional right to a speedy trial) justice delayed is justice denied. Nobody disputes that this pandemic has presented our judicial system with unique challenges and that public health and safety must be a top priority for a court system that has the unique ability to compel private citizens to come to court involuntarily to serve as jurors. But I do not envy the state's Judicial COVID-19 Task Force which must find a way to both resume at least some criminal jury proceedings ASAP while doing so in a way that both protects the health and safety of jurors and the critical constitutional rights of the accused.

I think the most likely solution is to try to find a way to conduct jury selection remotely because it is jury selection that presents the biggest challenge for courts to summon at least 100 jurors to court and find a way to promote social distancing for a crowd that large. If jury selection can be conducted without jurors having to come to court, the jury of 6 or 12 members selected to hear the case will be much easier to accommodate in the courthouse in compliance with public health guidance. It also will not surprise me if courts move jury trials to alternate locations in larger buildings or even outdoors to better protect the health of all involved. Some Georgia courts have already done that for regular, non-jury proceedings.

Some of you may be wondering why courts don't just allow jurors with health concerns to opt out of jury duty and empanel a jury of those who are willing to attend. The problem with that is that the constitution requires a panel of prospective jurors to be chosen at random from qualified citizens in the community with the goal of creating a representative cross section of the community to ensure a fair trial. So limiting the jury pool to only volunteers without health concerns would present constitutional problems and deprive a defendant of their right to a fair trial. Even conducting jury selection remotely will present constitutional challenges because it could arguably limit the jury pool to jurors with access to technology that will allow them to participate in remote jury selection. So the Task Force will have to find a way to provide prospective jurors access to technology to participate in the remote jury selection process if they do not already have it while simultaneously protecting the health of those prospective jurors to whom they are providing access to this technology. And they must do that at a time when government budgets have been tightened by the decline in tax revenue due to the pandemic's impact on the economy. Like I said, I do not envy them. But they are a large group of creative, intelligent, and experienced legal professionals, and I am sure they will find a way to make it work as soon as possible. Stay tuned because later this year you could find yourself being summoned to attend a remote jury selection. In the meantime, Georgia lawyers like me continue to work as hard as we can to keep the wheels of justice turning for our clients and minimize the pandemic's impact on their cases. If I can ever help you or if you have legal questions, do not hesitate to reach out.

Georgia’s state of judicial emergency will again be extended, although the shutdown of jury trials and grand jury proceedings cannot last much longer, Chief Justice Harold Melton said Tuesday.This marks the fifth time the emergency has been necessary since mid-March because of the coronavirus pand...

08/06/2020

Another Zoom court appearance in the books today. Saved a client's driver's license, got a DUI and a host of other improper charges dropped, and kept the one remaining charge off the client's permanent record.