Last year, GRSMB recently attained judgment in favor of a client and insurance company, in the amount of all litigation fees and expenses paid by the insurance company in the defense of their insured. The Georgia Court of Appeals now has affirmed that decision in favor of our client and their insurance company. GRSMB lawyers Matthew G. Moffett and Wayne S. Melnick represented a private learning institution and after filing the answer made a Rule 68 offer of settlement to the Plaintiff who then rejected the offer. After we prevailed for the client on summary judgment, we filed a motion… Read More.

Plaintiffs claim 69-year-old woman was killed from overpowered airbag; car maker says Sportage was safe Written by Katheryn Hayes Tucker of The Daily Report. A potentially big payout and broad-reaching liability exposure for an automaker are at stake in a trial that began in Cobb County State Court this week to determine who is responsible for a death caused by a car’s air bag. Evelyn La Fleur first appeared to have minor injuries from a low-speed crash, then died soon after from a lacerated aorta where the air bag of her 1999 Kia Sportage hit her chest, according to court… Read More.

Verdicts & Settlements Written and published by the Daily Report. A Fulton County jury declined to assign liability to a woman who struck and killed a Georgia Tech researcher when he skated in front of her car at an intersection near Alpharetta’s Big Creek Greenway Park, handing down a defense verdict after a little more than hour of deliberation, said the defendant’s lawyer. Ilia R. Vassiliev, a russian-born research assistant in the field of photo- synthesis, was 46 and “by all accounts a genius,” said defense attorney Matthew G. Moffett of Gray, Rust, St. Amand, Moffett & Brieske. The scientist… Read More.

Manual for plaintiffs’ lawyers teaches to focus on jurors’ survival instincts; Keenan says strategy didn’t apply to case Written by Andy Peters of the Daily Report. For $95, plaintiffs’ lawyers can buy a book that teaches them how to appeal to jurors’ basic survival instincts, those that emanate from humans’ “Reptilian” brains. “When the Reptile sees a survival danger, she protects her genes by impelling the juror to protect himself and the community,” write co-authors Don C. Keenan, an Atlanta plaintiffs’ lawyer, and David Ball, a North Carolina jury consultant. But in a DeKalb County wrongful death trial last month,… Read More.

Case turns on whether school board’s policy on goggles applied to plastic bottle rocket experiment Written by Alyson M. Palmer of the Daily Report. Continuing their struggle with how much protection school employees should have from lawsuits, justices of the Supreme Court of Georgia on Monday engaged in a lively debate over the meaning of the term “explosive.” In June, the justices split 6-1 in favor of a mother who sued a school secretary who had let the plaintiff’s daughter leave school with her father, who didn’t have custody and wasn’t supposed to pick up the child. On Monday, the… Read More.

In a quick deliberation, Clayton jurors find movie theater chain not liable for woman tripping over fallen ‘wet floor’ sign Written by Alyson M. Palmer of the Daily Report. A movie theater chain that lost a trip-and-fall case before a unanimous state Supreme court earlier this year has been redeemed by a Clayton County jury. The jury decided this month that AMC is not liable to a woman who claimed she was injured after tripping on a “wet floor” sign at the company’s theater. According to winning lawyer Christopher M. Ziegler of Atlanta’s Gray, Rust, St. Amand, Moffett & Brieske,… Read More.

Verdicts and Settlements Written and Publish by The Daily Report. Defense attorneys who beat back a suit seeking the $2.7 million it cost to rebuild a Gainesville ice factory that burned in 2007 say that, in addition to compelling expert testimony, jurors also may have been swayed by the factory owner’s decision to hire the electrical contractor blamed for the fire to rewire the new plant. “From our standpoint, it was all about how the fire started,” said Michael J. rust of Gray, rust, st. amand, Moffett & Brieske, one member of the legal team representing rogers electric services Corp.,… Read More.

Rule complicates the decision for the jury and helps the defendant, lawyers contend Written by Katheryn Hayes Tucker from the Daily Report. Lawyers on both sides of a recent trial about a car wreck in which multiple parties could have been held responsible said the case showed the practical effects of Georgia’s apportionment of fault rule. Their conclusion: the apportionment rule, which in an unrelated case is being challenged in the Court of Appeals of Georgia, complicates the decision for the jury and helps the defendant. That assessment alone may not be surprising, given that the rule was adopted by… Read More.

On March 30, 2011, a divided Georgia Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to a playground equipment design company in a suit filed on behalf of a 9-year-old boy who sustained serious injuries when he fell off the “Infant Maze” in a Gwinnett County park. The majority of the court believed that the young man, Steven Kane, “appreciated the obvious risk of falling that is associated with climbing to high places and voluntarily assumed that risk as he admitted he knew the dangers associated with climbing things, he did not think his mother would have… Read More.

On March 17, 2011, the Georgia Court of Appeals in Kelly v. Hedwin Co.¸ affirmed the principle that a manufacturer has no duty to warn of a product-connected danger which is obvious and generally known. The Court upheld the granting of summary judgment to Hedwin Corporation (“Hedwin”) in this products liability lawsuit. Plaintiff Ernie Kelly, a hospital employee, cleaned up formaldehyde spilled by a nurse from a five-gallon plastic storage container originally manufactured by Hedwin. Mr. Kelly, a clinical engineer at the hospital, was at home one evening when he received an emergency call from hospital staff informing him that… Read More.