Most people who open this book did not choose to be here. Something happened on I-95, on I-16, on Abercorn Street or DeRenne Avenue, or in a Savannah operating room. Now there's a claim number, an adjuster's voicemail, and a stack of paper that arrived faster than anyone was ready for.
I wrote this book because the gap between what a Georgia victim of negligence needs to know and what they know in the first week is large, and the insurer on the other side of the claim isn't the one who is going to close it. It comes from Savannah Car & Truck Accident Law, the podcast I record in Savannah, Georgia, where I walk through the questions my own clients ask me most. What to do at the scene. What a police report can and can't prove. Why a truck case isn't a bigger car case. What a Georgia jury is allowed to award when there's no cap, and how a medical mistake becomes a provable claim instead of a bad outcome nobody can explain.
None of the law in these pages is generic. Georgia is a modified comparative fault state, which changes what happens the moment a driver is found even partly at fault. Georgia is one of a small number of states with no statutory ceiling on non-economic damages in a personal injury or wrongful death case. Georgia requires a signed expert affidavit before a medical malpractice case can even be filed, not after. Chatham County sits on I-95 and I-16 next to one of the busiest ports on the East Coast. That means more commercial trucks on the road, and a faster-moving investigation window than an ordinary car wreck.
The chapters ahead answer the questions I hear from Georgia families, in the order they come up: the scene, the police report, the insurer, the deadline, the value of the claim, and what happens when the person who hurt you was supposed to be helping you. While I hope you will read the whole thing, this book is intended chapter by chapter to help you in the specific situation you find yourself in right now.