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The Stoddard Firm Blog

The Fatal Shooting of a Doraville Teen Might Have Been Preventable

On the afternoon of July 19th, in one of the recreational common areas of Foxwood Apartments in Doraville, 17-year-old Gerardo Cabrera-Perez was shot multiple times in the head, abdomen, and leg. He was then taken to a local hospital, where he died of his injuries. A 19-year-old suspect, Carlos Bernal, is now charged with his murder. As usual, in the midst of the grief over Cabrera-Perez’s loss, and the confusion over Bernal’s motives, few people are talking about what Foxwood Apartments c...

Lake Lanier Probably Isn’t Haunted, But It’s Definitely Unsafe

Over the course of each year, more than 7.5 million people turn out to swim, boat, picnic, and otherwise enjoy Georgia’s beautiful Lake Lanier. Unfortunately, not all of them will make it home alive. Stories of drownings, other accidents, and mysterious disappearances on and around the lake have become so commonplace that many now believe it to be haunted or cursed. Of course, tellers of ghost stories tend not to be the most reliable historians or devotees of the scientific method. In f...

Hotels Must Do a Better Job Protecting Their Guests from Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

In a fresh, tragic reminder of the deadly power of carbon monoxide, two Best Western guests lost their lives this summer while visiting Asheville, NC for a rugby tournament. While police note that conclusive toxicology information may not be available for up to eight months, an initial investigation of the property points to improperly vented air and water heaters as a possible culprit. The Stoddard Firm has seen all too many cases of company owners failing to maintain safe premises for th...

The Fatal Crash of a Van Carrying Adults with Special Needs Is Under Investigation

Two people were killed and seven more injured when an InCommunity van crashed into a tractor-trailer that was stopped in a left turn lane on July 15th, 2019. InCommunity is an organization that supports adults with special needs, and the van was taking program participants with intellectual and physical disabilities home at the end of the day. The two fatalities included the driver of the van and one passenger. Six more passengers and the driver of the tractor-trailer were treated for inju...

What are Examples of Negligent Security?

When you go out to enjoy yourself in a public place like a park, club, or movie theater, you have the right to expect the owner to keep the area safe. This falls under an area of the law called premises liability: property owners can be held liable for damages done on their property, if it can be shown that the owner’s failure to provide a reasonable degree of security contributed to the harm. This post will give you a few examples of negligent security, but bear in mind that these are only a...

The State of Georgia Has Failed to Protect Its Residents from Armed Abusers

In theory, domestic abusers have been forbidden from owning firearms under federal law since 1996. Properly enforced, this simple safety measure has the potential to save thousands of innocent lives, without so much as inconveniencing those gun owners who have a history of basic human decency and level-headedness. Unfortunately, more than 20 years after its passage, the law remains fraught with loopholes and only haphazardly applied. The restriction does not cover stalkers or abusive partn...

Gun-Related Deaths Are out of Control in Metro Atlanta’s Apartment Buildings

For the nearly 6 million people who live in the Atlanta metropolitan area, gun violence is a terrifying and tragic reality of everyday life. It has been for far too long, and is now more than ever. In 2017, 1,623 Georgia residents died by shooting. That number has been steadily climbing at a rate of 77 more deaths each year since record keeping began in 2014, and the problem is even more concentrated in and around Atlanta. In 2016, Atlanta was ranked the #18 “Murder Capitol” of the U.S, an...

Gwinnett County’s Rejection of MARTA May Be about More than Partisan Politics

The voters of Gwinnett County have recently rejected a proposal for a local MARTA expansion. This isn’t the first time — voters turned down similar proposals in both 1971 and 1990 — but greater population diversity and worsening traffic congestion had led many transit advocates to believe this might be MARTA’s year in Gwinnett. There were no doubt many factors contributing to the proposal’s defeat, some of them underhanded. The issue was left off the November ballot and relegated to a spec...

Fisher-Price Finally Recalls a Product That’s Been Tied to 32 Infant Deaths

Becoming a parent is a nerve-wracking journey. Mothers- and fathers-to-be often spend months researching everything that could possibly go wrong, and how to avoid it. The volume of conflicting information can be overwhelming, and sometimes the only way to manage the stress is to unplug and trust that everything will probably be okay. There are few things more frustrating and terrifying than finding out that your fears for your child are justified, especially when the dangers come in the fo...

The Safety Hazards of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport’s “Plane Train”

The people-mover known as the “Plane Train,” which shuttles passengers around the busiest airport in the world, is so ridiculously unsafe that it’s become a running joke, yet nothing is being done to improve safety. The interior of each Plane Train car is empty, except for 10 vertical bars to be shared among 50 riders at a time. Before each start and stop, an automated voice advises travelers to “please hold on” — and it’s not kidding. The train then lurches in and out of its 24-35 mph operat...