Atlanta Personal Injury Lawyers: Protecting Atlanta’s People
Are you a personal injury victim, or have you or a loved one suffered a personal injury due to another person’s mistake, malice, or negligence? You need the help of an Atlanta personal injury lawyer to get justice and compensation for unemployment, high medical treatment costs, and property damage.
Getting legal representation as soon as possible is important. In the state of Georgia, statutes of limitations apply to all personal injury cases. This term refers to the time you have to submit your case. In most cases, you’ll have only two years. That may sound like a lot of time, but when you are recuperating from injuries or trying to stay employed despite new limitations, it can pass very quickly.
If you do not submit a personal injury lawsuit against the responsible party in time, you will be responsible for all the medical bills, lost income, and other costs you’ll face due to your injuries. These costs can completely upend your plans for your life. Don’t let this happen. Contact our Atlanta personal injury attorneys to get started with a free consultation.
Would you like to know more about personal injury cases while waiting to hear back from our law office? While the information below is not legal advice, it should help you understand what to expect when pursuing a personal injury claim.
How We Can Help With Your Personal Injury Case
Our experienced personal injury attorneys can support you throughout every stage of your personal injury case, whether you are facing down an insurance company, an irresponsible manufacturer, or a negligent person.
Contact Our Team of Personal Injury Attorneys
We strive to be Atlanta’s personal injury law firm, giving every injured person respect and confidentiality. We want to hear about the serious injuries that you’ve experienced and help you start on the path to a fair settlement from the negligent party. We can work on a contingency fee basis until you win your case.
Schedule a free consultation now to meet with one of our accident lawyers and find out how we can help. We’ll discuss the at-fault party and the potential for fair compensation. We can answer any questions you have about Georgia law and how the legal process works for personal injury claims. Get started with our personal injury case contact form.
Types of Personal Injury Cases We Support
Personal injury is one of the core practice areas of our law firm. Our legal team can help you with the following types of cases and more.
Practices
Personal Injury FAQs
We’ve all heard the saying “don’t make a federal case out of it.” That’s because, in order to file a civil case in federal court, there needs to be a federal question involved (like a civil rights claim, or federal civil racketeering, etc.) or the case must involve citizens of different states with damages in excess of $75,000. It is the burden of the plaintiff (the person filing the action) to prove this statutory minimum.
Other cases are filed in the state court system. The state court system is divided into state and superior courts, which have overlapping, although not identical, jurisdiction. Most claims for bodily injury can be brought in either state or superior court and should be filed in the county where at least one defendant resides.
The statute of limitations is the time within which a lawsuit must be filed. In Georgia, the statute of limitations for bodily injury cases is two years. After the case is filed, it must be served promptly on the defendants you are suing. But it is never a good idea to wait until the last minute to start exploring your claim.
For instance, in some circumstances, like when there is a governmental entity involved, there are anti-litem (before litigation) notices that are due within six months or 12 months of the injury, depending on the entity, and your claim may be barred even if you file within the two-year statute of limitations.
Also, in the case of medical malpractice actions in Georgia, the case must be filed with an affidavit of an expert knowledgeable in the same field of medicine as the subject of the case. Without that affidavit, the complaint will be considered insufficient under Georgia law and will be dismissed.
Other examples of statutes of limitations are: there is a one-year statute of limitations for defamation cases (libel and slander); there is a four-year statute of limitations for injuries to personalty, and there are several different statutes of limitations pertaining to actions for breach of contract the shortest being a four-year statute of limitations for breach of an oral contract, and then increasing if the contract is in writing (6 years) or is under seal (20 years). (Different statutes apply to actions for the breach of contract for the sale of goods and to negotiable instruments.)
But there are some notable exceptions to the rule. The statute of limitations can be “tolled” in certain circumstances. For instance, the statute of limitations is tolled in malpractice actions when a defendant intentionally conceals an act of professional negligence from a plaintiff, causing the plaintiff to be deterred from bringing a claim. It can also be tolled in the event of mental incompetence if the one claiming the disability suffered from such unsoundness of mind as to be incapable of managing the ordinary affairs of life.
Also, importantly, the statute of limitations in a birth injury case is two years for the parents’ claim for the injury to the child during his or her minority, but the child has until age 7 to have the claim brought in his or her own behalf.
There are many examples of exceptions to the statute of limitations; however, it is imperative to get a legal opinion about the statute of limitations as soon as possible in any case you plan to bring, since missing that deadline can be fatal to the case.
Cerebral palsy is an often misunderstood term. It applies to a number of different conditions caused by a number of different medical situations, but all of which cause motor deficits due to an interruption in the connection between the brain and the nervous system and musculature of the body. Birth injury is one of those causes. Birth injury occurs when the fetus suffers a lack of sufficient oxygenated blood or blood flow to brain tissue during labor and delivery. Warning signs of impending injury are apparent on the fetal heart rate tracing. Health care providers who heed the warning signs can prevent injury by changing the plan of care to ensure timely delivery, while those who ignore the signs will allow the problem to progress to a point of no return. Birth injury can lead to cerebral palsy, but the injury may be restricted to cognitive impairment that does not include the motor deficits of what we think of as cerebral palsy. Newborn depression, low APGARS, intensive care, and brain radiology studies are the kind of complications often, but not always, associated with a birth injury.
