Burdine & Brown

Can a worker fire their lawyer when the lawyer gives (what the client feels is) bad advice? Of course, they can do so. How does one recognize bad advice? Here is an example: A TV lawyer told an injured worker (we will call her Pam) the insurance company’s denial of a causal relationship between Pam’s hip and her accepted low back injury could not be overturned. Pam did not like this advice. She thought the lawyer was lazy. The insurance company offered a small settlement of h...er case and her lawyer told Pam to accept it and forget about her hip injury claim. Pam fired this lawyer and came to me for continuing representation in her job injury claim. I sent Pam to a well-qualified independent orthopedic doctor who said, after examining my client and all the evidence, that her hip problem was CLEARLY related to and caused by her original back injury. The insurance company would not back down. They would not voluntarily accept our expert witness opinion. Over the next 6 months we litigated Pam’s case. I must have spent 30 hours combined with my paralegal collecting medical exhibit records, preparing for deposition, preparing for and attending a hearing, briefing the legal case for the Judge and generally doing what a lawyer is supposed to do to win a client’s case. And we finally won. We received, on October 7, 2021, a fully favorable Award from the Judge who stated my client’s hip injury was part of her job injury and the responsibility of the insurance company to pay for all treatment necessary. Plus, we were awarded our expert orthopedic doctor as my client’s new treating doctor. Pam’s former lawyer did not want to fight for her. She recognized this. She did something about it. She fired the first lawyer. Now, as she gets her much needed medical treatment, she clearly knows the difference between a TV lawyer and a lawyer who is a fighter. I love it when a plan comes together. (The A-Team, George Peppard-1980’s TV series) See more

Yesterday I posted the number one item on my wish list of changes in the Workers’ Compensation laws that would make the system a bit fairer for the injured worker. Rest assured that the employer and the insurer’s interest would respond with a vengeance to anything that would radically favor the injured worker. We have learned that to get any leverage at all we must eat the elephant one bite at a time. Another area of concern that I would like to see changed, would be the am...ount of workers compensation benefits of pay for the injured worker. Currently, the highest benefit that a temporarily disabled worker can draw is $675 per week. That means that the injured worker would have to have an average weekly wage of $1,012. The law states that in a workers’ compensation claim the injured person would be paid 2/3 of the average weekly wage to determine the WC amount to be paid, $675 is the maximum. The compensation pay is not tied to the average weekly wage in Georgia. According to the Department of Labor that amount would be $1,149 per week. 2/3 of this amount would amount to $766. This is only fair as the worker should not lose more than 1/3 of his pay, if that much! To lose 1/3 of one’s salary is a heavy burden on top of suffering an injury. Clearly this rate should be increased to 2/3 of the states’ average weekly wage. Also, this should be an automatic change. Right now, anytime the lobbyist for the injured worker (a few of us lawyers) want to increase the comp rate, the insurance lobbyists argue that we should give up something. Giving something up just means sacrificing another of the fragile rights of the injured worker. We should not have to give anything up every time we seek a wage increase for the injured worker. This matter should be an automatic change and when the Department of Labor published an increase to the average weekly wage, then the maximum workers’ compensation weekly benefit rate should go up as well. See more

As a lawyer representing the injured worker, I see the changes that have been made to the Law and in particular in the workers’ compensation laws. The trend over the last 20 years has clearly been weighted in favor of the employer and their insurance company friends. It is no small matter that I dream about changes to the law that will help my clients and their legal claims. I have about ten of these changes that I would like to talk about in the blogs that will follows: Th...Continue reading

The increased use of opioids for pain management in America has created a national health crisis. Opioid prescription rates have quadrupled since 1999, leading to similar increases in prescription opioid deaths and heroin deaths. In response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released guidelines in March 2016 urging prescribers to reduce the use of opioids in favor of safer alternatives in the treatment of chronic pain. Physical therapy is one of the recomm...ended non-opioid alternatives. Physical therapists treat pain through movement, helping patients improve strength, flexibility, and range of motion. Physical therapists also can educate their patients about pain, which has been known to improve outcomes. Why Physical Therapy for Pain Management? Physical therapists treat pain through movement. Physical therapy side effects include improved mobility, increased independence, decreased pain, and prevention of other health problems through movement and exercise. Physical therapy is effective for numerous conditions, and the CDC cited high quality evidence supporting exercise as part of physical therapist treatment for familiar conditions like low back pain, hip and knee osteoarthritis, and fibromyalgia. -Physio Emory Rehabilitation Outpatient Center (on line article of 9/16/2021) Call Burdine & Brown if you have job injury or you are the victim of an automobile accident. 770 623 6007

I get a bit angry when I see a lawyer show 500 plus favorable reviews on Google Ads. First of all, this is virtually impossible. Secondly, I know this lawyer and he has fraudulently manipulated the Google reviews system to his advantage. Why should I expect anything different from him when he has been a manipulator of his legal cases for quite a long time? I won’t name names now, but I will certainly do so in an upcoming blog. The purpose of Google Reviews is to aid consumer...s who do not know lawyers and need legal representation. We all have come to use Google reviews to get a heads up about the product or company we are looking for by looking at the reviews. I genuinely believe that my reviews are accurate and organically obtained from my clients. Also, please look at my website at burdineandbrown.com and click on testimonials. Those faces and voices are real people who I have spent time within their legal struggles in a job injury case, an automobile accident case or in a claim for their Social Security Disability claims. I do hope Google reviews is able to bar lawyers in the future who have fake reviews. Consumers are hurt by legal frauds. Don’t be one of them! See more

El Abogado Thomas Brown tiene más de 40 años ayudando legalmente a la comunidad con casos de accidentes laborales o accidentes automovilísticos si necesitas ayuda llama al 770-623-6007 y pide hablar con Viviana.

Spreading the news-Burdine and Brown is representing injured workers in the Metro Atlanta area

Si te accidentaste en el trabajo y estas preocupado porque tu jefe no te quiere pagar los gastos medicos llama al abogado Thomas Brown al 770 623 6007 y pregunta hablar en con un representante en español.

En el Facebook Live de hoy hablaremos de que tienes que considerar antes de cerrar un contrato con un abogado. Si necesitas ayuda lega llama al abogado Thomas Brown 770-623-6007