Michigan lawyer

  Will Pennsylvania get a new - albeit somewhat half-hearted - False Claims Act? Two legislators are urging the State to adopt a   Pennsylvania False Claims Act   that would at least allow the state to recover for health care fraud against the state. As a whistleblower lawyer who handles False Claims Act suits, I would like to congratulate the bill's sponsors for taking a step that just plain makes sense. First, putting a stop to fraud is an obvious no-brainer. Bill sponsor State Rep. Brandon Neuman pointed out that the bill "would deter fraud and punish wrongdoers, and "raise significant revenues through recovered losses and other damages." Why would Pennsylvania -- or any other state -- not want to do that? Rep. Neuman also noted that if the state passed the statute, it would allow the state to get a 10% increase in the amount of money they receive for Medicaid recoveries. Representative Neuman was talking about 42 U.S.C. § 1396h. Under that Statute, a st...

  Most people might be embarrassed to admit that they have been repeatedly accused of cheating the American taxpayers. Defense contracting giant KBR, however, tried to use the fact to its advantage. It argued that a court should dismiss a whistleblower's lawsuit because other, prior lawsuits also had alleged that KBR violated the False Claims Act by defrauding the U.S. military. In   U.S. ex rel. Carter v. Halliburton Co. , et al  (3/18/13), the Fourth Circuit rejected KBR's argument, ruling that two prior fraud lawsuits could not prevent the whistleblower from pursuing his FCA suit, because the two prior lawsuits had been dismissed voluntarily and were no longer pending. Under the False Claims Act, only the first relator to file a complaint can bring a whistleblower lawsuit. The FCA provides that: "When a person brings an action under this subsection, no person other than the Government may intervene or bring a related action based on the facts underlying the pending act...

  Georgia drivers need to be particularly careful to avoid car accidents as we come up on this Memorial Day weekend. We tend to think of New Year's Eve as being particularly dangerous for drivers, and it is. But a lesser-known fact is that people are killed in car crashes in Georgia on all of the holiday weekends, including Memorial Day. I am a Georgia lawyer who handles wrongful death car accident lawsuit cases, so I see too many terribly sad situations where people are seriously injured or die in a holiday crash I am urging all of my readers not to make the mistake of thinking that Memorial Day driving is somehow safer than other holiday weekends! The fact is that in 2009, 17 people died on Georgia roads over the course of the Memorial Day weekend.  You need to be very cautious when you drive this Memorial Day weekend. I searched the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database to learn more about what happened in those 2009 Memorial Day weekend car crashes. ...

  Six people were killed in separate Atlanta car accidents in September and October 2008. I have been writing in my   car accident lawyer   blog about the crashes that have occurred in and around Atlanta. With this entry, I am going to talk about when and where fatal accidents occurred in Atlanta in September and October 2008. (At this time, the database I am using does not have data past 2009. For information about the 2009 car accidents, please see my 2009 fatal crashes entries, which began on January 21 of this year). The Atlanta police did not cite drunken driving as a cause of any of the six deadly accidents that occurred in September and October 2008, and none of the accidents were reported as involving DUI drinking and driving. However, four of the six car accidents -- an unusually high percentage -- involved pedestrians. Over the course of the entire year, 21 of the 54 car accidents in Atlanta involved pedestrians (which itself was an unusually high percentage.) O...

  I guess nobody much cared about the food that night. According to a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a former manager at pharmaceutical manufacturer Cephalon, at a 2008 sales launch meeting the company passed out cash - literally. The suit, which is filed under the False Claims Act ("FCA"), says that the meeting was designed to encourage employees to sell two drugs - Treanda and Fentora. To make the point that selling prescription drug Treanda would be very profitable for the sales reps, the company hired waiters to pass trays of $50 bills during dinner. A Cephalon VP told the sales representatives to grab handfuls of the bills as the waiters passed by, explaining that they could earn huge bonuses by selling Treanda - which would be just like "taking free money." According to a pharmalot article, How to Motivate Off-Label Promotion? Give Reps Trays of $50 Bills, the FCA lawsuit claims that Cephalon projected $500 million in sales for Treanda in the next year -- a fi...

  I handle deer wreck lawsuits in Georgia, and I have been blogging about the fact that deer-related crashes are increasing here in Georgia - although the rate of deer-caused crashes is decreasing because we simultaneously are experiencing an increase in the number of vehicles on our roads. I have been referring to three reports published by the Georgia Department of Transportation, also known as the GA DOT or the Georgia DOT: "Deer Related Crashes" "Deer Related Crash Injuries" and "Deer Related Crash Fatalities." Sex crimes lawyer . These reports compile data from car accidents that occurred in Georgia between the years 2000 and 2006. It will not surprise anyone to hear that these reports show that deer cause more crashes in rural areas than they do in the Atlanta metro area, the Augusta metro area, the Columbus metro area, or the Savannah metro area. Frankly, the real surprise is that deer do cause a surprisingly large number of wrecks in those more h...

  Deer may look soft and friendly. After all, the phrase "doe-eyed" refers to people who have large, soft eyes, like deer do. But when a deer gets on the roadway, the result is neither soft nor friendly. Every year hundreds of people are seriously injured when deer cause wrecks here in Georgia, and several of those people actually die as a result of the injuries from car crashes caused by deer. Global tax fraud lawyer . As a deer accident lawyer, I help the injured people, or the family members of the people who were killed, present their claims to the insurance companies involved. When a deer comes into the roadway, a car may swerve suddenly to avoid hitting the deer. The car may run off the road and either flip or collide with something beside the road. If the car hits a second vehicle, then the insurance company of the first car may be required to pay for the damages, injuries, medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering, of the people in the second car. If the firs...

  As I wrote in my last blog entry, no one will be surprised to learn that deer cause more crashes in rural Georgia than in the state's metro areas. I am a lawyer handling cases of deer causing car accidents, and so in my blog I have been reviewing statistics on car accidents caused by deer in Georgia. While a surprising number of car accidents are caused by deer in the ten most populous counties in Georgia (which are Henry County, Fulton County, Gwinnett County, Cherokee County, Chatham County, Clayton County, Cobb County, DeKalb County, Muscogee County and Richmond County), in general the rate of car accidents caused by deer is far higher in rural counties, given that they have fewer drivers and that fewer miles are driven in those counties. However, according to data tables published by the Georgia Department of Transportation, more commonly known as the Georgia DOT, more car crashes are caused by deer in Henry County than in any other county in the state: 3525 in the seven-ye...

  It may not surprise you to learn that more Atlanta pedestrians are killed after dark than during the daylight hours. In my Atlanta pedestrian lawyer blog, I have been looking at the statistics about the car wrecks we have around our city. Recently I have been looking at the facts about pedestrians who are run over by cars. Criminal deportation . Today I am going to discuss data from the National Highway and Traffic Administration's FARS (Fatality Analysis Reporting System) database, and focus on the time of day of the accidents that killed Atlanta pedestrians in 2009. Pedestrians Killed in Daylight Four Atlanta pedestrians were killed during daylight hours. The first pedestrian killed in the early afternoon at 1:38 p.m. at the intersection SR-237 and Lenox Rd. The accident took place on January 30, 2009. The next afternoon accident happened at 5:41 p.m. on April 24, 2009, when a pedestrian was killed in a car accident at Metropolitan Pkwy. and Cleveland Ave. While 6:33 p.m. ...

  In 2009, thirteen pedestrians were killed on Atlanta's streets. Four of those thirteen car wrecks happened on just two of Atlanta streets: Boulevard and Cleveland Ave. As a pedestrian accident lawyer, I have been looking at how we can use the data about fatal pedestrian crashes to pinpoint particularly dangerous areas in Atlanta for pedestrians. I represent the families of Atlanta pedestrians who have been killed in these wrecks, and the pain for these families is immense. Could we make Atlanta safer for pedestrians? When I searched the FARS (Fatality Analysis Reporting System_ data published by the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), I was struck by the fact that two roads took a very dominant position in the statistics. Lawyer firm in Michigan . Of the 13 pedestrians who were hit and killed by cars in 2009, two were killed on Boulevard and two on Cleveland Ave. When you think about it, the chances that two streets would stand out like that are very, v...

 In 2009, thirteen pedestrians were killed by cars here in Atlanta. Astonishingly, 30% -- four - of those pedestrians were killed on just two streets: Boulevard and Cleveland Ave. In 2009, two pedestrians were killed on each of those two streets. I am a lawyer who represents family members of people killed in Atlanta in pedestrian accidents, and in a recent post I talked about Boulevard. Today I want to talk about the other most dangerous street for pedestrians in 2009: Cleveland Avenue. The two deadly pedestrian accidents happened within a mile of one another on Cleveland Avenue. Cleveland runs east to west. Lawyer firm in Michigan . On the western side, the street is first called Cleveland Avenue at the point where it intersects with Harris St. To the west of Harris St., the road is called Irene Kidd Parkway. On its eastern side, the road terminates at the Fulton County Board of Education building. Cleveland Ave. is approximately three miles long. The first deadly pedestrian-c...

 I handle Atlanta car wreck lawsuits, and I have been blogging about the statistics on car wrecks here in our city. I am using data from the FARS ("Fatality Analysis Reporting System") system, as reported on City-Data.com, to see whether we can identify some trends and weaknesses in the road system here in Atlanta. From the 2009 data, we can see that some roads were particularly dangerous for Atlanta drivers. Some of the findings were pretty obvious. You would expect a number of deadly crashes on the heavily-traveled, multi-lane highways around Atlanta, and the data confirms the problem. Deadly car crashes occurred on all of the major highways around Atlanta. Business torts lawyer in LA . Two people died on the multi-lane road SR-400. Two more were killed along I-285 / SR-407, which runs around the city. I-75, another enormous, multi-lane road that crosses the city from southeast to northwest, saw five car wrecks that caused deaths. Four more deaths from car accidents occur...

  I've written in some of my earlier blog posts that my oldest child will be a teen driver within the next year or two. The idea terrifies me! So although I write this blog as an auto accident lawyer, I have a special and very personal reason to research the rules and regulations that apply to teen drivers here in Georgia. Speaking as a parent, I am happy to report that Georgia has a special rule about texting and cell phone use for teenage drivers. Cybercrime lawyer in Michigan . Under a law that took effect on July 1, 2010, drivers under the age of 18 are not allowed to "[e]ngage in a wireless communication." O.C.G.A. § 40-6-241.1. The law does have several exceptions, mostly for emergency situations. What are Georgia's teenage drivers not allowed to do? For those teenagers who are future lawyers and think maybe they have some room to negotiate about what exactly "engage in" means, or just what counts as "a wireless communication," the statute...

  This past Wednesday, May 1, 2013, a grand jury indicted Michael Owen Snider, a Stone Mountain man who caused 15 different hit-and-run accidents back on January 23, 2012. Snider's son has made some strong accusations about the Stone Mountain bar where Snider was drinking right before the disastrous series of wrecks also should be following the case. Lawyer firm in Michigan . I am a car accident lawyer who handles cases in which DUI drivers cause injuries to other drivers and passengers, and today I am going to talk about the George law on liability of bars that serve too much alcohol. The Gwinnett Daily Post is reporting that Snider's son told police that his father had been returning home from a bar in DeKalb County. According to the son, the bar had sold too much alcohol to his dad on numerous occasions. The son had complained, but the bar had ignored the son's attempts to get the bar to stop over-serving his father. The situation brings up an important question under ...

 If you have been following my blog, you know that I am a lawyer who represents people injured in car wrecks, and I like to keep up with the information about the crashes that occur in and around Georgia. I recently read an interesting GDOT study that looked at the incidents and car accidents along I-85 in DeKalb and Gwinnett Counties. Lawyer firm in Michigan . This study was especially important because it looked at some exits where traffic and auto accidents have been so bad that the Georgia Department of Transportation ("GDOT") has installed HOV lanes. The study was done because GDOT converted a stretch of HOV lane into a pay lane, or "HOT" lane, in October 2011. (HOT stands for "High Occupancy Toll.") GDOT hired Jacobs Engineering Group to determine how GDOT could go about studying the effect that the conversion was having on congestion, auto wrecks and other incidents. On February 26, 2012, Jacobs Engineering reported back to GDOT about how a compar...

  Budget cuts are making healthcare whistleblowers more important than ever. According to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, thanks to cuts in the HHS budget, Medicare and Medicaid are about to have even fewer resources to fight fraud and abuse. The Center for Public Integrity obtained internal documents from HHS-OIG that discuss the effects budget cuts are about to have on Medicare's ability to defend itself against fraud in the medical field -- and the outlook is grim. In all, OIG is losing 400 employees - a full 20% of its staff - as a result of the cuts. Now that is a short-sighted plan. I don't know whether Congress or HHS is deciding where to place the cuts, but it is a huge mistake to cut funding from the branch of the agency devoted to getting money back in to Medicare and Medicaid coffers. Lawyer firm in Michigan . As a whistleblower attorney, I can attest that there are brave men and women willing to risk their jobs to try to st...

  In a recent study done for the Georgia Department of Transportation, which looked at incidents that occurred at 13 different exits along I-85, Jimmy Carter Boulevard had - by far -- the largest number of incidents. As a car accident attorney, I have seen that a large number of car wrecks occur at that exit. Still, I was surprised at the extent to which the intersection has become a problem. The study looked at car accidents, stalled cars, and other traffic-snarling events. A whopping 21% of the incidents occurred at that one intersection. Lawyer firm in Michigan . Clearly the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) needs to take a look at the Jimmy Carter intersection and see whether improvements can be made to make the intersection safer and less congested for drivers. The Study In 2011, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) converted a 16-mile stretch of HOV (high-occupancy vehicle) lane along I-85 into a HOT (high-occupancy toll) lane. The stretch of roadway ru...