Angela Cirina Kopet and Graham Thompson obtained a dismissal for their client.  Plaintiff filed suit claiming injuries in a car accident and requested damages in excess of $350,000.  The Plaintiff non-suited their case before trial.  When it was re-filed a year later, it was longer than the time frame permitted under the Tennessee Rules.  Graham Thompson was able to successfully argue before the Circuit Court that the Plaintiff missed the deadline for re-filing the lawsuit.  The Circuit Court agreed and the case was dismissed with prejudice and costs were awarded to our client.

For informational purposes only. Past success does not indicate the likelihood of success in future cases.

Copeland, Stair, Kingma & Lovell's Annual Insurance Coverage and Bad Faith Seminar was held on Thursday September 12, 2019.  Located at the beautiful Atlanta Botanical Gardens, this two-track format addressed the emerging issues that keep you up at night.  Some session topics included: the rise in tort litigation, putting together the pieces of the wrongful death case, effective use of recorded statements and the material misrepresentation defense, liability exposure in the age of active shooters and the impact bias has on case evaluation and jury deliberations. For more information on this seminar, please contact Michelle Mattox.

Carlock, Copeland & Stair hosted their annual Insurance Coverage & Bad Faith Seminar on August 24 at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Presentations and Presenters: Have Traditional Rules Gone Up in Smoke?  Impact of Growing Legalization of Medical Marijuana - Dave Root and Abby Grozine. Best Practices for Maintaining Your Claims File - Ryan Wilhelm, Jennifer Guerra, and Claire Sumner. Defending the Institutional Bad Faith Claim - Charlie McDaniel and Kathy Carlsten. New Technology, Old Policies:  Are Aging Policies Equipped to Handle the Consumer Technology Boom? - Fred Valz and Melissa Bailey. Apportionment:  Has It Gotten Insurers Where They Want To Go?  - Charlie McDaniel, Graham Thompson, and Kristen Thompson. Additional Insured Jeopardy - Alex Davis, Laura Paton, Sarah Wetmore, Sally Bright and Nick Stewart. Why the Involvement of a Tractor Trailer Escalates a Case - Gary Lovell. Risk-Averse Insurers and the New Juror:  Exploring Possible Links Between Fewer Trials, Millennial Jurors, and Seemingly Bigger Verdicts - Doug Smith and Lee Weatherly. Please contact Michelle Mattox at mmattox@cskl.law if you would like our attorneys to present in-house lunch & learn sessions or webinars.  

Carlock, Copeland & Stair, LLP recently added new attorneys to the Atlanta, Georgia, Charleston, South Carolina and Chattanooga, Tennessee offices.

To read the complete Press Release, please click here.

August 23, 2018 several Carlock Copeland attorneys presented Who Wants to be a Coverage Millionaire? at our Annual Insurance Coverage and Bad Faith Seminar in Atlanta, Georgia. This fun and audience-interactive program explored constantly evolving coverage issues and allegations of bad faith. The program was designed to offer insight and guidance on effectively identifying and using coverage defenses, as well as providing tools and techniques to resolve potential bad faith claims. Presenters/Co-Authors: Clinton Magill, Alex Davis, Charles McDaniel, Jr., Sarah Wetmore, Abby Grozine, Brian Spitler and Graham Thompson. For more information on this presentation, please contact Michelle Mattox at mmattox@cskl.law.

Insurance Coverage Corner Blog post by G. Graham Thompson. The Tennessee Supreme Court has issued its long-awaited decision in the Dedmon v. Steelman case. This case has direct and significant consequences to personal injury litigation in Tennessee. In short, defendants may not argue that the amount actually received by a medical provider is the reasonable amount of a plaintiff’s medical bills.  Plaintiffs may submit undiscounted medical bills in full as proof of reasonable expenses. The Tennessee Supreme Court granted an appeal in Dedmon to address whether its ruling in West v. Shelby County Healthcare Corp., 459 S.W.3d 33 (Tenn. 2014) applies in personal injury cases. In West, the court held that a hospital’s reasonable charges under Tennessee’s hospital lien statute are the amount the hospital accepts from the patient’s private insurer, not the full amount of the medical bills sent to the patient. The Supreme Court released its decision on November 17, 2017.  The court held that the collateral source rule applies to personal injury claims in which the collateral benefit at issue is private insurance. Consequently, plaintiffs may submit evidence of the injured party’s full, undiscounted medical bills as proof of reasonable expenses. Furthermore, defendants are precluded from submitting evidence of discounted rates accepted by medical providers from an insurer in order to rebut the plaintiff’s proof that the full, undiscounted charges are reasonable. The court reasoned that to allow defendants to submit discounted rates would conflict with the collateral source rule. However, defendants remain free to submit any other competent evidence to rebut a plaintiff’s proof on the reasonableness of medical expenses, so long as that evidence does not conflict with the collateral source rule. Please click here for more information on our Insurance Coverage Corner Blog.