Tennessee Injury Lawyer Blog

Under the Tennessee Governmental Tort Liability Act (TGTLA), governmental entities are potentially liable for certain types of negligent acts committed by municipal employees. Under the Tennessee Code, a “governmental entity” is basically any political subdivision of the state of Tennessee. Thus, cities, counties, local school districts, public building authorities, volunteer fire departments, commissions, and the like are potentially liable for Tennessee personal injury claims.

While the Claims Commission Act removes immunity for certain acts committed by Tennessee state employees, the TGTLA grants immunity for certain forms of municipal action that results in personal injury. Municipalities typically will claim TGTLA immunity when an injury results from the exercise and discharge of official governmental functions, such as when an officer decides to engage in a high-speed police chase in which innocent bystanders are injured as a result of pursuit. The purpose behind the immunity defense is to prevent municipal officers from acting too carefully for fear of being sued.

As you might imagine, there are exceptions to TGTLA immunity. As the Tennessee Legislature has recognized, sometimes it simply isn’t fair to deny compensation for victims of negligent governmental action.

Typically, governmental immunity is removed under these conditions:
• Negligent operation by any employee of a motor vehicle or other equipment leading to motor vehicle accidents in Tennessee.
• Injuries caused by a defective, unsafe, or dangerous condition of any street, alley, sidewalk or highway, owned and controlled by a governmental entity.
• Injuries caused by the dangerous or defective condition of any public building, structure, dam, reservoir or other public improvement owned and controlled by a governmental entity.

While many assume commissioners, fireman, school officials, utility workers and the like are immune from suit, the fact is they are not. The Legislature has carved out very important exceptions that allow Tennessee citizens to be compensated for personal injuries that result from Tennessee governmental negligence. If you have been so injured, call the skilled Tennessee personal injury attorneys at Baker Associates today for a free consultation.

This weekly blog entry provides current information on food product recalls and warnings regarding these defective products in Tennessee and throughout the nation.

The expanded recall of peanut products potentially contaminated with Salmonella now includes the following products:
• Mama Mellace’s Nut Hut Sweet & Salty Peanuts, Steakhouse Peanuts, Savory Medley, and Cinnamon Peanuts. These products are manufactured by Mellace Family Brands.
• Westco Fruit and Nuts’ peanuts and peanut-derived products.
• Amy's Decadent Chocolates’ peanut brittle, caramel apples with peanuts, and caramel apples covered with peanuts.

The FDA is also advising retailers and food service operators not to offer for sale oysters harvested between February 24 and March 17, 2009, from Mississippi Area 2C, located in the Mississippi Sound portion of the Gulf of Mexico near Pass Christian, Mississippi. The oysters are suspected to be contaminated with Norovirus, which causes severe gastroenteritis. The FDA advises that if consumers are uncertain about the origin of oysters, they should contact the place of purchase to determine if the oysters are from the affected area.

The FDA has also found the Listeria virus in Neco Foods’ Atlantis Brand smoked fish dip and has issued a recall. A person with Listeriosis has fever, muscle aches, and sometimes gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea or diarrhea. If infection spreads to the nervous system, symptoms such as headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance, or convulsions can occur. Infected pregnant women may experience only a mild, flu-like illness; however, infections during pregnancy can lead to miscarriage or stillbirth, premature delivery, or infection of the newborn.

If you or a loved one has ingested any one of the products listed above and fallen ill, first see a medical doctor and then call 866-853-2888 for a free consultation with the experienced Knoxville personal injury attorneys at Baker Associates.

As citizens of the state of Tennessee, we expect state officials to drive safely, to construct and maintain safe streets, and to remove dangerous conditions. To enforce these expectations (or duties), the Tennessee State Legislature created the Claims Commission in 1984 to allow members of the public to sue the State for damages caused by the negligence of its employees.

A person can bring a negligence claim before the Claims Commission only if the injury was caused by the negligent acts of a state employee (or agency). A state employee means any person who is a state official or any person who is employed in the service of the state.

Under the Claims Commission Act, the state of Tennessee is liable in the same way as a private person or business. Specifically, the State is liable for the following negligent acts:

• Tennessee car accidents involving the negligence of an operator of a state vehicle;
• Nuisances created or maintained by the state. In the law, a nuisance is the use of property that interferes with the legal rights of others by causing damage, annoyance, or inconvenience.
• Negligent creation or maintenance of dangerous conditions.
• Legal or Tennessee medical malpractice by a state employee.
• Negligent care, custody and control of persons, personal property, or animals.
• Negligent construction of state sidewalks and buildings.
• Negligent construction, inspection, and maintenance of public roads and highway designated by TDOT as being on the state system of highways.

If you have been injured because of the negligent driving of a state official, negligent road design, or other dangerous condition created by a state employee or agency, help keep Tennessee safe by learning more about your rights. The top Tennessee personal injury attorneys at Baker Associates can help. Call today for a free consultation.

If the recent outbreak of Salmonella in Tennessee caused by ingestion of contaminated peanut butter didn’t alarm you, the sheer numbers of people who suffer from food-borne illnesses each year just might. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), 76 million people suffer a preventable food-borne illness each year that results in diarrhea, abdominal pain, and nausea; this includes many residents who suffer personal injury in Tennessee.

Tragically, the CDC reports across-the-board failure to prevent food-borne pathogens. In Tennessee alone, in 2006, there were 446 cases of Campylobacter, 16 cases of Listeria, 853 cases of Salmonella, and 363 cases of Shigella. And these are just the reported cases!

What causes this failure to prevent food-borne illnesses? One likely possibility is that negligent food manufacturers and food servers (e.g., restaurants and caterers) have operated too long without accountability to consumers. Negligent food manufacturers in Tennessee and servers are liable in tort for damages caused by tainted food. Damages include medical expenses, time-off from work, and loss of enjoyment of life. If negligent food manufacturers and food servers were made more accountable for these damages, then they would have a greater incentive to prevent further food contamination.

Continue reading " Tennessee Food-borne Illnesses and Liability Issues " »

For the State of Tennessee, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) reported that there were 3,914 accidents involving commercial trucks, which resulted in serious bodily injury or death to people in passenger vehicles. Drivers are well-advised to exercise caution when in the vicinity of commercial trucks to help prevent accidents that cause personal injury in Tennessee.

Reasons for exercising extra caution around tractor-trailers and semi-trucks are as follows:

• Truckers Have Large Blind spots. Truckers have gaping blind spots around the front, back, and sides of the truck. When cars are in these blind spots, the trucker can’t see them.
• Truckers Make Wide turns. Truckers often have to swing wide to the left to make a right turn. If a car attempts to go between the truck and the curb, the driver may get squeezed by the tractor-trailer.
• Truckers Require Longer Stopping Distances. If there is a sudden stop on the highway, tractor-trailers may not have enough stopping distance to prevent a rear-end collision due to their heavier weight.

In addition to the physical/mechanical limitations that lead to truck accidents in Tennessee, there are also a number of major operational causes that include:

• Driver fatigue, long hours and unrealistic schedules. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) blames driver fatigue as a probable factor in 20 to 40% of truck crashes.
• Intoxicated driving. The NTSB recently reported that one or more drugs was detected in 67% of fatally injured truck drivers.
• Driver error. When operators fail to adhere to speed limits set for trucks, the likelihood of a jackknife or rollover significantly increases.
• Substandard inspection. According to the FMCSA, there were over 2 million roadside inspection violations last year alone.

If you have been injured or a family member has been killed as a result of a collision with a tractor-trailer, don’t hesitate to contact the top Tennessee wrongful death attorneys at Baker Associates for a free consultation.

Did you know that Tennessee has set up a fund that actually encourages employers to hire persons who have permanent disabilities? If you were hired with a permanent disability and have subsequently become permanently and totally disabled as a result of a work related injury, you may have a claim against Tennessee’s Second Injury Fund for lost wages and healthcare expenses, both past and future.

Enacted into law in 1945, T.C.A. § 50-6-208 provides assurance to employers that they will only be liable for the contribution of the worker’s second injury to the employee’s permanent and total disability. The Second Injury Fund pays for the rest.

To qualify for Second Injury Fund compensation, you must meet all of the following requirements:

• You must have sustained a permanent physical disability prior to becoming employed at your current job. The prior injury does not have to be work-related.


• The employer must know about the permanent and preexisting disability prior to the occurrence of the second injury.


• The combined effect of the preexisting injury and the second work-related injury must render you permanently and totally disabled. You are permanently and totally disabled if the subsequent injury prevents you from working at an occupation that would provide you an income.


• You must have sustained some percentage of the permanent and total disability from the second injury.

Remember, an injury arising out of and in the course of your employment is potentially compensable under Tennessee’s Workers' Compensation laws. If you feel that you have been permanently and totally disabled as a result of a second injury, the skilled and knowledgeable attorneys at Baker Associates can help. Know your rights under the Law, call today.

Prior to 1992, if a jury in a civil action found the plaintiff to have contributed in any way to his or her accidental personal injuries, the he or she would be denied recovery under the doctrine of contributory negligence. This rigid all-or-nothing rule was replaced in 1992 when the Tennessee Supreme Court ordered a new trial in the case McIntyre v. Balentine.

Characteristic of several tragic auto accidents in Tennessee involving drinking and driving, the defendant in McIntyre was driving a tractor-trailer south on Highway 69 while intoxicated. The plaintiff had just entered the highway from a truck stop when all of a sudden the defendant crashed his truck into the rear of plaintiff’s vehicle. The evidence indicated that defendant Balentine was speeding. The problem with the plaintiff’s case, however, was that he too had been drinking. Because of this fact, the jury found plaintiff partially at fault and denied recovery on the basis of contributory negligence.

On appeal, the Tennessee Supreme Court found the contributory negligence rule “outmoded and unjust” and adopted the comparative fault system in use today. Essentially, in a negligence action, the defendant may allege that plaintiff’ negligence, in whole or in part, caused the injury; therefore, damages should be adjusted according to the plaintiff’s percentage of fault. Thus, under the facts of McIntyre, the jury would be asked to reduce the plaintiff’s damages by that amount attributable to his drinking and driving.

Continue reading " Tennessee Comparative Fault " »

Following arthroscopic shoulder surgery, patients typically require a regime of medication to manage their pain. Oral medications like codeine, morphine, and ibuprofen often prove insufficient for this purpose. Consequently, physicians have turned to disposable pain pumps to better manage pain after surgery. These pain pumps are inserted directly into the shoulder by way of a catheter, which delivers small doses of bupivacaine and epinephrine. No one ever thought this would lead to serious personal injury.

Unfortunately, these pain pumps have been shown to cause a painful and debilitating condition that involves the loss of cartilage in the shoulder after surgery. This condition is called Postarthroscopic Glenohumeral Chondrolysis (PAGCL). As recent as 2008, the authors of a study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine concluded that epinephrine is chondrotoxic (toxic to cartilage) and “cannot be advocated for pain pump use.”

Further, in a 2008 article published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, the researchers found a strong link between prolonged exposure to bupivacaine and cartilage death. Similar studies have reached the same conclusions.

Continue reading " Product Liability of Shoulder Pain Pump " »

Have you ever wondered why all 18-wheelers tend to look the same? A federal law, 49 CFR § 393, is the answer to that question. Titled “Parts and accessories necessary for safe operation,” it is an expansive federal regulatory scheme aimed at creating standard requirements for large over-the-road vehicles. Administered by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, its ultimate goal is to provide uniform production standards to manufacturers so that they may create what the government considers to be safe trucks.

This law covers almost everything imaginable regarding trucks, beginning with lighting systems and ending with steering wheel systems. In between is a vast array of federal rules regulating things like fuel systems, windshield wipers, horns, and tires. Many of the rules are quite specific, such as the rules requiring exact spacing of lights on trucks and trailers. Other rules, such as those requiring that no bolts be missing from any parts of the vehicle, are much more common sense. There are even federal regulations regarding the size of the sleeping berths in the cabs of trucks.

49 CFR § 393 was passed in response to the large number of Tennessee truck accidents and fatalities that were occurring as a result of insufficient safety features on tractor-trailer trucks. Congress, recognizing the high number of truck crashes in Tennessee, and across the nation, involving 18-wheelers in proportion to their prevalence on the road, enacted this scheme in an effort to promote highway safety. The result of the scheme is a highly regulated standard that seeks to ensure that trucks that are produced and operated are being done so in the safest manner possible. Another likely result, however, is that noncompliance with a prescribed standard could create a prima facie case of negligence on the part of owners, operators, and manufacturers.

Amusement park injuries and deaths have become much less frequent over the years. This is mainly attributable to increased safety standards promulgated in response to litigation. However, lax regulation and negligence on the part of operators remains the cause of many amusement park accidents every year. Here are a few examples of accidents that have occurred in Tennessee:

• In June 1980, 21 people were injured at a water park in Memphis when the waterslide they were on collapsed, causing them to fall 40 feet to the ground. Fault was placed on the slide operators who failed to adequately monitor the number of patrons using the slide.
• In March 2004, a 51-year-old woman was killed after falling 60 feet from a swinging gondola ride, known as The Hawk, at the Rockin’ Raceway in Pigeon Forge. Her death was caused by the failure of her safety restraint, the result of negligence on the part of the ride’s manager, who was later convicted of reckless homicide.
• In June 2007, 44 riders were stranded on the “Timber Tower” ride at Dollywood after it malfunctioned and the safety system engaged. Passengers were stuck at the top of the ride for hours, having to be rescued by the Sevierville Fire Department.

On January 1, 2009, Tennessee began a mandatory inspection program for amusement park rides. Prior to this, inspections were left to individual operators. This created a lack of incentives for the operators, who were often weary of the expense of regular inspections

State inspections have become necessary to ensure that ride operators are meeting guidelines. Without proper supervision, errors in ride administration are often not discovered until it is too late. This leads to accidents, Tennessee Personal Injury cases, and deaths that could have been avoided had appropriate steps been taken before the accident. In response to the amusement park industry’s inability to self-regulate, government inspection has become necessary to ensure the safety and well-being of riders.

One very important, yet often overlooked aspect of automobile insurance protection is uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. In the event that you or your passengers are injured in a Tennessee auto accident, having this coverage can determine whether or not you are compensated for your injuries.

Uninsured motorist coverage protects a driver in the event that the other party to an accident has no insurance. It can also protect a driver in the event that the other party’s insurance company denies their claim. In this case, the victim’s insurance company would provide compensation for their injuries, up to the limits of the policy. In most cases, this protection is afforded for injuries such as bodily injury, lost wages, and pain-and-suffering. If you are injured in an accident and the other driver is uninsured, it may be impossible to recover any compensation for your injuries. This is where a sound uninsured motorist policy will help.

Underinsured motorist coverage protects a driver in the event that they are in an accident and the other party’s insurance policy is insufficient to cover all expenses. In this case, the victim’s insurance company would supplement the payments by the other party’s insurance company, up to the victim’s policy limit. For example, if you are injured in an accident and incur $250,000 in injuries, but the other party’s insurance policy only provides $100,000 in compensation, your insurance company will provide the remaining $150,000, assuming that you have at least $250,000 in coverage.

Most states’ mandatory insurance policies do not provide for uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. Additionally, the minimum coverage requirements of most states do not require drivers to hold more than $25,000-$50,000 in liability coverage. Many times, this is grossly insufficient to cover the damages in an accident. Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage can provide the protection needed to avoid having to pay for injuries out of pocket.

Don’t rely on the insurance companies to tell you about all of the recovery options available to you. Contact one of our personal injury lawyers in Knoxville today for a free consultation if you have a question about a potential insurance claim or a Tennessee auto accident.

Tennessee auto accident litigation is about two things: assigning fault and recovering damages. Without assigning fault, damages cannot be recovered. The difficulty in assigning fault is that there are often a myriad of factors involved in an accident. In complicated accidents, the most minute of details can be paramount to the correct placement of fault. With the assistance of a skilled accident reconstructionist, the two goals of accident litigation can be successfully met.

In most auto accidents in Tennessee that do not result in a fatality, police investigation is often minimal. The minute details that are so important to the determination of fault are often never documented, leaving the testimony of the parties as the only basis upon which fault can be allocated. For obvious reasons, this often leads to inaccurate and inconsistent testimony. A skilled accident reconstructionist can make all the difference in accident litigation. Accident reconstructionists are trained to pick up on details that are often missed in police investigations. They are trained to analyze the scene of the accident, and their interpretation of the factors involved in the crash can usually lead to near certainty as to its cause. This takes great weight off of the reliance on inaccurate eyewitness testimony, and places that weight in the hands of a reliable expert. Once the cause of the accident has been determined, the process of correctly apportioning damages can begin.

As an expert, the testimony of an accident reconstructionist is given great weight in the court. Additionally, conclusive evidence on the part of an accident reconstructionist can often lead to a successful pretrial settlement of claims, saving valuable time and money in the litigation process. Moreover, in cases in which both parties may be partially at fault, the accident reconstructionist can give a good estimation as to the comparative fault of the parties. A good estimation of comparative fault is essential to the fair distribution of damages, and the protection of parties who may have been disadvantaged by the lack of investigation on the part of the police.

If you or someone you know has been injured in a traffic accident in the state of Tennessee, we urge you to contact our Knoxville personal injury attorneys today for a free consultation of your case. Our auto accident lawyers have extensive experience protecting the rights of those seriously injured due to the fault of others.

Tennessee wrongful death attorneys know that sudden death affects many people each year. The tragic loss of a loved one leaves surviving family members to deal with the emotional pain and suffering. The wrongful death lawyers at Baker Associates understand the support you and your family needs.

Wrongful death is a claim against a person, company or entity that can be liable for killing another. Since the deceased person cannot bring the suit into court, the claim can be brought by the surviving relatives. Although a person can be criminally prosecuted for misconduct, the suit can also be brought as a tort, or a civil wrong. In a criminal case, the standard of proof a prosecutor must show to get a conviction against the defendant is beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the standard of proof in a Tennessee wrongful death suit is preponderance of the evidence, which means more likely than not.

In a wrongful death suit, it must be shown that the death of a human being must have been caused first, by the defendant’s misconduct, even if there was no intention to kill the victim. Second, the defendant’s conduct must have been the result of negligence. Third, the defendant must have dependent parties, such as spouse, children or other dependents, who have fourth, suffered emotional and monetary damages as a result of the death.

A wrongful death claim can arise from the following situations: medical malpractice, an automobile accident, occupational exposure, or criminal activity. If you have questions about a wrongful death suit, contact the attorneys at Baker Associates in East Tennessee, today for your legal consultation.