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Category: Premises Liability

OSHA Introduces New Guidelines to Protect Construction Workers from COVID-19

Since the onset of the pandemic, construction workers have had to face even more dangerous workplaces than usual. The standard problems of falls and equipment accidents haven’t gone away, only been compounded by the contagion risk that now permeates all non-remote forms of work. As usual, however, employers have a moral obligation to make workplaces as safe as they can reasonably be, no matter what the potential hazards are. In a gentle reminder of this principle, the Occupational Safety a...

Atlanta’s Construction Industry Is Bustling in Spite of the Pandemic

Back in March, when the danger and magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic first came to light in the U.S, the immediate fate of Atlanta’s construction industry came down to the placement of a single comma. In Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ initial stay at home order, the concept of “essential” work was defined as including “public works construction, airport operations, utility, water, sewer, gas, electrical…” and a multitude of other services. The specificity of “public works construction” se...

MARTA Employees Don’t Feel Safe From Violence At Work

Several MARTA bus drivers reported to Atlanta’s Channel 2 Action News last September that they have been feeling unsafe at work, following repeated assaults from passengers. Upon investigation, Channel 2 was able to identify upwards of 20 such violent or threatening altercations over the previous three months, although drivers believe even that figure to be unrealistically low. Incidents ranged from punching and shoving, to spitting (in times of high contagion risk), to sexual exhibitionis...

The St. Regis Resort Could Be Liable for Injuries Caused by Its Collapsing Tent

A January wedding at Buckhead’s St. Regis Resort was interrupted when a tent collapsed under heavy winds, sending three guests to the hospital and causing superficial injuries to at least five more. The tent was being used to shelter the patio where the ceremony was taking place. Right after the bride walked down the aisle, the tent gave out under a gust of wind she said felt like a small tornado lifting it off the ground. A tent blowing over might sound like a minor accident, but the s...

Apartment Complexes in Georgia Need to Improve Fire Safety

It’s been a rough winter for fire safety in Georgia, full of injuries and loss. Spring is almost here, but that will come as little comfort to the many residents who’ve already been affected by fires in their apartment complexes over the past few months. Two days after Christmas in Smyrna, nine people lost their homes to an apartment complex blaze. One of the survivors escaped with burns, and another was injured while jumping from her balcony. Three days later in Duluth, a fire engulfed th...

A Worker at Hartsfield-Jackson Has Been Killed in a Loading Ramp Accident

Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport has long had a tenuous relationship with safety, seeming to prefer putting its money and energy into remaining the busiest airport in the world. On September 25th, 2019, one employee lost his life amid the bustle of this air traffic hub. The worker, an employee of the luggage transport company G2 Secure Staff, was helping to guide a luggage vehicle toward the loading ramp of a United Airlines jet, when he was crushed between the vehicle and the ramp...

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...

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...

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...

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...