Georgia Trial Advocate : Georgia Wrongful Death Lawyer & Attorney : Jarome Gautreaux Law Firm : Medical Malpractice, Catastrophic Personal Injury : Macon, Warner Robins, Atlanta

A tractor trailer driver failed to stop at a red light and struck a school bus carrying children from Wesleyan College in Macon yesterday.  Amy Leigh Womack reports on this wreck in her Macon Telegraph article.  Thankfully, the injuries do not appear to be life-threatening.  

Tractor Trailer wrecks account for a large number of serious injuries and deaths on the roadways. It is a matter of physics:  a truck weighing 80,000 pounds travelling at highway speeds that impacts a vehicle with a family inside will very likely do terrible injury to that family.  But it is also more than just physics;  it is also a matter of driver error in many cases.  This Injury Board article states that in more than 80% of tractor trailer collisions with non-commercial vehicles, the non-commercial drivers (that's you and me and all non-professional drivers) is not at fault.  

As lawyers who represent families and individuals in cases involving trucking collisions, we too often hear terribly sad stories of people hurt or killed in truck wrecks because truck drivers are fatigued or not paying attention or are in a rush because their company puts profits ahead of safety. We want to do all we can to prevent needless injuries or deaths from truck wrecks. Please take a moment to review these tips for travelling safely on the roadway around tractor trailers.  

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One of the major hurdles we face in litigation is making sure that all relevant evidence is uncovered, analyzed and preserved.  For example, after a tractor trailer wreck, the trucking company may send its representatives to the scene to analyze the wreck and take photographs and measurements.  But sometimes a company or person may fail to preserve evidence, such as videotapes that get "lost" or important documents that somehow fall into a shredder rather than the file where they belong.   

What is spoliation?   Under Georgia law, the failure to preserve evidence can result in something called "spoliation" of evidence.  Spoliation is the destruction of evidence or the failure to preserve evidence that is necessary to contemplated or pending litigation.  If a person or entity commits spoliation, the jury can be informed that they may believe that the evidence that was destroyed or not preserved was harmful to that person or entity.  This can be very important in trials, since most parties don't like the idea of a judge telling a jury that it may believe that party destroyed evidence. 

Contemplated Litigation vs. Contemplated Liability:  In a recent case, Watts & Colwell v. Martin (Ga. App., Nov. 29, 2011), the Court of Appeals drew a clear distinction between pending liability and pending litigation, and noted that it is only notice of pending or contemplated litigation that is relevant to spoliation.  So a company preparing an incident report after an injury, by itself, does not constitute spoliation.  In the Watts case, a door hinge that a property manager had taken possession of was lost and the Court of Appeals said that this also did not constitute spoliation. 

What To Do?  It seems more important than ever to make sure that "spoliation letters" be sent to defendants in many cases where spoliation may become an issue, and that those letters make it clear that litigation is contemplated, rather than just saying that liability is possible or contemplated. Of equal importance is the need and the duty to preserve all evidence so the jury can have all the information needed to make its decisions.    

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     It seems like every year we hear depressing stories about adults or children (or pets) suffering a personal injury or death due to fires started by use of space heaters in homes.  The National Fire Protection Association reports that from 2005 to 2009, 79% of home heating fire deaths and 69% of injuries from home heating fires were caused by use of stationary or portable space heaters.    

     So, what can we do to protect our families from the dangers of space heaters?  Space heaters need plenty of room around them, so we should all keep adequate space around space heaters.  Also, space heaters should not be left on while you are sleeping.  A great list of tips for use of space heaters can be found at the Home Safety Council Website.  

     A list of recently recalled space heaters can be found on this page at the CPSC website as well. Please take a moment to review it to see if you might have a space heater that has been recalled.  

     On another note, readers of this blog will notice that I've been very late in getting it updated.  I've been absorbed in starting a new law firm and have not been posting nearly enough recently.  One of my New Year's resolutions is to blog more frequently, so look for more posts on a more regular basis to the blog, and I welcome all ideas for new topics readers would like to see addressed.  

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