Robbins & Associates, PC

When the subject of slip and fall comes up you may immediately think of personal injury lawsuits. However, when you are injured at work you should file a Workers' Compensation claim right away.

Unlike in a personal injury lawsuit, you do not have to prove fault in order to receive Workers' Compensation benefits, even in a slip and fall case. If a customer or another non-employee were to be injured in a slip and fall accident at your place of work, they would have the right to sue and would have to prove negligence on the part of your employer, the property owner, or whoever was responsible for maintaining the safety of the premises. As an employee, you can collect Workers' Compensation benefits for your injuries without having to determine who is responsible or prove that anyone was negligent.

If you have a slip and fall accident while performing your job duties somewhere other than your employer's place of business, such as while making a delivery or while travelling on business, you may be entitled to Workers’ Compensation or it may be appropriate to file a slip and fall personal injury lawsuit against the party who was responsible, such as the owner of the establishment in which your accident occurred. These types of case are more complicated. An attorney who has experience with both Workers’ Compensation and personally injury lawsuits can review the facts and determine which kind of case you should pursue.

If you work in or near Atlanta, Georgia, and have been injured in a slip and fall accident while on the job, please contact the Workers' Compensation attorneys at Robbins & Associates, P.C. We will schedule a confidential consultation, at no cost to you, to determine what type of compensation you may be entitled to.

About 5,000 pedestrians are killed in auto accidents every year, roughly 11% of auto accident fatalities. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 70,000 pedestrians were injured in auto accidents in 2007. The human body stands little chance against a moving vehicle, and survivors often sustain life-altering injuries. Hit and run victims who could have survived often die due to delayed treatment. A hit and run victim may not be found for days.

Driver Responsibility

Poor visibility and dangerous behavior on the part of pedestrians play a role in many pedestrian accidents, but drivers have a responsibility to be on the lookout for pedestrians and are often at fault due to:

• Failure to use turn signals
• Failure to observe crosswalks
• Speeding
• Intoxication
• Distractions such as cell phone use

Hit and Run
Injuries in hit and run accidents may be worse than they would have been with immediate medical attention and may even result in wrongful death. Finding drivers responsible for hit and run auto accidents requires extensive investigation, but in many cases they can be found and held responsible both criminally and in a personal injury lawsuit.

Recovering From Your Injuries
The injuries incurred in a pedestrian/vehicle accident can require extensive medical treatment and survivors may be permanently disabled. Just compensation for your injuries may be the only way that you can afford the treatment that you need. You may also be entitled to compensation for income lost during your recovery and future losses if you are not able to return to work; income that you and your family depend on to survive.

If you or someone you love has been hit by a car in the Atlanta, Georgia area, please contact the experienced auto accident attorneys at Robbins & Associates, P.C. to schedule a consultation today.

A diagnosis of cancer used to be equivalent to a death sentence. While it is still terrifying to hear, today a timely diagnosis can save your life. Many types of cancer respond well to treatment when they are caught in the early stages, but can be fatal when left untreated or if treatment is delayed. Delayed and misdiagnoses of cancer are forms of medical malpractice.

Delayed treatment that is not fatal can still mean significant damage to quality of life, involving more invasive, painful, and expensive treatments. More invasive and radical treatments can, in themselves, do significant damage to you health and shorten your life. Some types of cancer that respond well to treatment in the early stages include:

• Skin cancer
• Breast cancer
• Cervical cancer
• Prostate cancer

Failure to Respond to Symptoms and Warning Signs
When a patient is not at risk and does not show any warning signs or complain of any potential symptoms of cancer it can come as an honest shock to everyone involved if the cancer is detected in an advanced stage.

All too often, misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis of cancer is due to a doctor’s failure to properly respond to a patient’s symptoms. Various types of cancer have red flag symptoms that every doctor should respond to with standard cancer screening procedures.

There are many reasons why a doctor may fail to respond. Some doctors are rushed or distracted and not listening, others do not take their patients seriously. Sadly, there are doctors who hear and recognize the symptoms, but do not order tests because they believe they patient cannot afford the test or the treatment.

If you believe that you or a loved one has been the victim of delayed or misdiagnosis of cancer, in the Atlanta Georgia area, please contact the experienced medical malpractice lawyers at Robbins & Associates, P.C. today.

Parking lots are a common setting for slow, low-impact car accidents. Those involved often do not feel that there is any need to report the incident, and vehicular damage may be very minor or non-existent. Noticeable injuries at the time of the accident are rare. However, these low-impact crashes can cause debilitating soft tissue injuries that do not produce immediate symptoms, are difficult to diagnose, and very hard to prove in court.

If you are involved in an auto accident in a parking lot you must treat it like any other auto accident to protect your rights. This includes:

• Reporting the accident to the police and your insurance company
• Trading contact and insurance information with the other driver
• Taking down the license plate number of the other vehicle
• Getting contact information from any and all witnesses
• Talking to an auto accident attorney

Responsibility in Parking Lot Auto Accidents
Most parking lots are private property, so laws that apply on the road may not apply in your accident. This does not relieve drivers of a basic duty of care. Basic rules of the road still apply.

Car accidents in parking lots are sometimes caused by dangerous conditions that are the fault of the parking lot owner. In those cases your auto accident case may turn out to be or include a premises liability lawsuit. A premise liability lawsuit for a parking lot accident requires expert investigation to prove dangerous conditions. A history of accidents in the parking lot can strengthen your case.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a car accident in a parking lot in Atlanta, Georgia or the surrounding area, the experienced personal injury attorneys at Robbins & Associates, P.C. can help. Please contact us today to schedule a confidential consultation at no cost to you. We will examine the facts in your case and help determine what type of lawsuit you should pursue to obtain just and fair compensation for your injuries.

Yes and no. You cannot collect Workers’ Compensation and sue your employer at the same time. However, it may be appropriate to sue someone else, a third party, for your injuries while you are collecting Workers’ Compensation benefits.

Workers’ Compensation law protects both you and your employer. It protects you by requiring your employer to carry an insurance policy that provides coverage for your injuries without requiring you to sue your employer or prove fault. This means that you are much more likely to receive benefits, and much sooner. Unfortunately, it means that you will probably receive less than you would if you did win a lawsuit.

It protects your employer because it does not allow workers to sue employers if they collect Workers’ Compensation benefits. This means that your employer does not have to pay out-of-pocket for your injuries or be found negligent.

You May Still Have a Lawsuit
If your injury was caused by someone other than your employer, you may be entitled to compensation through a personal injury lawsuit. For instance, if you were injured in a work-related auto accident, you may have a case against the other driver, and have the right to pursue that case and drawn Workers’ Compensation benefits at the same time. Equipment malfunctions, a common cause of very serious on-the-job injuries, are often caused by a defective product.

If you live in Atlanta, Georgia, or the surrounding area and have been injured on the job, please contact the experienced Workers’ Compensation attorneys at Robbins & Associates, P.C. to schedule your free consultation today. We can help you obtain your Workers’ Compensation benefits and determine if you should also file a third party personal injury lawsuit to truly cover your losses.

Back injuries are a common result of auto accidents, and are not always apparent at the time of the accident. You should always seek medical attention after a car accident, even if you do not feel that you were hurt. An examination may reveal a back injury, but not all back injuries show up in standard tests. Back injuries sustained in car accidents can include broken bones, soft tissue injuries and spinal cord injury.

Types of Back Injury

Spinal cord injury is not in itself a back injury, but can be involved when there is a back injury. Back injuries that may be sustained in an auto accident include:

• Fractured or broken vertebrae
• Herniated disk
• Stretched or torn muscles and tendons
• Whiplash

People tend to think of whiplash primarily as a neck injury and sometimes including injury to the back. Whiplash also causes brain injury.

Soft Tissue Injuries
Soft tissue injuries can be painful and debilitating. They can be caused by low-impact crashes. Unfortunately, they are hard to detect and prove in court. Soft tissue injuries do not show up on X-Rays. Insurance companies still try to deny the validity of soft tissue injuries.

Living with Back Injuries
Back injuries cause chronic pain in most victims. After the initial recovery period, when pain may improve, the pain tends to get worse over the years with age. Back pain may also be intermittent, making it impossible to hold a steady job, but difficult to prove disability.

If you were involved in an auto accident in the Atlanta, Georgia area and are experiencing symptoms of back injury, please contact the experienced auto accident attorneys at Robbins & Associates, P.C. today to schedule your free confidential consultation and find out if you may be entitled to compensation.

Going under general anesthesia is what many of us fear most when anticipating surgery. That fear tends more of an emotional, non-specific fear, not particularly tied to the inherent risks involved. Countless surgeries are performed everyday using anesthesia with no problem. However, anesthesia error can make your worst fears come true.

Anesthesia administration is very delicate and complicated. It is performed by a specialist whose only job during surgery is to handle that aspect, constantly monitoring the patients and making any necessary adjustments. There are risks involved every time anesthesia is used. Anesthesia-related complications are not always the result of medical malpractice. Anesthesia errors are a form of medical malpractice.

Victims of anesthesia-related medical malpractice are usually not informed that their injury was caused by malpractice rather than an inherent risk of the procedure. Depending on the nature of the injury, you may not even be told that it was anesthesia-related at all. Anesthesia errors can have serious and even fatal consequences including:

• Brain injury
• Birth injury
• Heart attack
• Stroke
• Paralysis
• Nerve damage
• Coma
• Anesthesia awareness

Determining the cause of surgical complications, and whether medical malpractice was involved, requires complex investigation. An experienced medical malpractice attorney has the knowledge and resources to properly investigate your case. Recovery from anesthesia errors can require extensive medical treatment. In cases where recovery is not possible, expensive life-long care may be necessary. Compensation for medical malpractice may be the only way you and your family can afford life-saving medical treatment.

If you suspect that your or your loved one's poor outcome from surgery was the result of medical malpractice, please contact the Atlanta, Georgia office of Robbins & Associates, P.C. We will schedule a confidential consultation, with an experienced medical malpractice attorney, at no cost to you, so you can get the compensation that you need and deserve.

Losing a loved one for any reason is painful and often devastating to families. When medical malpractice is the cause, you also have the pain of knowing that it could have been avoided. Adding insult to injury, you may be hounded by bill collectors insisting that you shell out money you do not have to pay for the medical “care” that caused your loved one’s death.

A wrongful death lawsuit stemming from medical malpractice is not the same thing as a medical malpractice personal injury lawsuit. Regardless of the underlying cause, a wrongful death case is meant to compensate the family of the deceased for the damages they incur as a result of losing their loved one. A medical malpractice personal injury lawsuit is brought on behalf of the direct victim of the medical malpractice to compensate that person for the harm that was caused to them.

These differences do not feel very important when you are grieving for a lost family member, but they do make a difference in how your case is handled, and ultimately you will need to know and understand the differences and what they mean to you. Compensation that you may be entitled to in a wrongful death case includes the contribution that your loved one would have made if they were still alive.

The deceased need not be a breadwinner for the loss of their contribution to be equated to a financial loss in a court of law. Childcare, running the household, care, companionship, and protection are just a few examples of the non-monetary contributions that are considered to carry a monetary value.

No amount of money can replace the comfort a parent gives a child who has a bad dream in the middle of the night, the joy of coming home to a loving spouse, or the happiness and pride you experience watching your child grow and pass milestones such as graduation, marriage, and the birth of a grandchild. However, compensation for your loss can ease some of the practical burdens, such as finding competent child care when a parent has passed.

If you have lost a loved one to medical malpractice in the Atlanta Georgia area, please contact Robbins & Associates, P.C. today to schedule your free consultation with of our compassionate wrongful death attorneys.