The Stoddard Firm Blog

Lawyer for Car Accidents Caused by Instacart Drivers

You’ve been in a serious car accident. You’re alive, and the at-fault driver hasn’t disappeared on you. You know that those are two big strokes of luck compared with what could have happened, what does happen to multiple people every day in Georgia. Even so, the situation you’re facing is far from easy. You’re still trying to figure out what the long-term effects for your body are going to be, and how much time and money it will take to get you to the fullest possible recovery. You’re prob...

Lawyer for Accidents Caused by Avis Rent-A-Car Drivers

When you’re facing the aftermath of a serious car accident, every detail can feel like an insurmountable complication. Your injuries might require more attention than you initially expected, and the task of repairing or replacing your vehicle might involve dozens of little decisions and risk-assessments. In the meantime, your career and family obligations might be stacking up or slipping through the cracks. If you’ve discovered that the driver who caused your accident was using a rental ca...

Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport Can Be Hazardous for Workers as Well as Guests

As this blog has noted many a time before, the most dangerous part of flying in and out of Atlanta is what happens on the ground. Simply walking through Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is far more likely to result in serious injury than the flight itself. From escalator accidents and shuttle bus crashes, to Plane Train brake issues, questionable COVID procedures, and children falling down luggage chutes, we’ve covered plenty of the hazards that travelers face in the largest airpor...

Landlords Must Do More to Protect Tenants from Violence on Mayson Turner Road

The amount of security a landlord must provide depends on the likelihood of violence on or around the property. If violent crime is unheard of in a certain area, landlords don’t need to protect against it. When violent crime is a known threat, on the other hand, landlords are legally obligated to provide tenants with appropriate protection. Unfortunately, landlords often refuse to accept this as part of the cost of doing business, until they’re forced to pay for crime-related damages in co...

Poorly Regulated Transportation Companies Place Travelers at Risk of Serious Harm

When you’re traveling without a personal car, road safety probably isn’t high on your list of concerns. Cities like Atlanta, with a high volume of tourism and business travelers, have services available to get you where you’re going, especially to and from hubs like Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Other than figuring out budgeting and scheduling, most visitors don’t think twice about making use of hotel shuttles and similar services. After all, these are established companies, th...

Accident Survivors Can Still Sue When the At-Fault Driver Is Deceased

After a serious traffic accident, a survivor usually asks themselves several questions in quick succession. Am I going to be okay? Will everyone else be okay? Was it my fault? What am I going to miss out on? How will I pay for medical care and other expenses? When the answer to the first two questions is “yes,” survivors can jump right into figuring out responsibility and how to move forward. But what about when this isn’t the case? A fatality can make the next few questions more...

Landlords Are Responsible for Preventing Fire Deaths, Even in Case of Arson

There’s a popular myth that landlords are never legally responsible for any damage caused by arson. Even people who have never heard this myth repeated will often assume that, if an individual criminal can be blamed for the fire, then the property owner can’t be. This is not true. The reason is fairly simple: landlords have a duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent people from being harmed by fire on their properties, and preventing fires from starting is only part of that task. ...

Atlanta’s Sex Trafficking Problem Continues to Traumatize Youth

It’s no revelation that Atlanta has a serious problem with sex trafficking. In 2014, Urban Institute published a study examining sex trafficking in eight of the U.S’s most notorious cities. Based on their findings, Atlanta’s sex trafficking industry had expanded significantly in the previous decade, surpassing even Miami’s. Ever since these numbers came to light, Atlanta has been trying to shed its “Sex Trafficking Capital” reputation, with new anti-trafficking programs and stronger anti-t...

Violent Crime Thrives on Landlord Apathy

Criminal violence is a massively complex issue with many interconnected factors. The behavior of landlords may not be the sole root of the problem, but it does play a much bigger part than many people realize. Once it becomes common knowledge that violence often happens on a particular property, and the perpetrators get away with it, other potential perpetrators become emboldened to hurt people on that property. In fact, that’s often how crime hotspots form — one or two businesses prove th...

Forklift Safety Is Still a Serious Issue for Big Box Stores

Jobs that involve using forklifts, or even being near them, carry abnormally high risks of death and catastrophic injury. This isn’t news. It’s been understood for decades. Yet very little progress has been made toward better protecting forklift operators and their coworkers. In the year 2020, there were 78 fatal forklift accidents and 7,290 nonfatal forklift injuries in the U.S. Those numbers are quite average, dating back to at least 2011. The changes that swept many industries in 2020, ...