Law Offices of William C. Head

Litigation has always been my focus. While most attorneys are seeking to enter a guilty plea to criminal charges, I have been seeking trials. Similarly, the overwhelming majority of civil litigation attorneys have never gone to trial for their clients, but that is the only forum where fair value can be obtained for many clients.

PERSONAL INJURY - TRAUMATIC BRAIN DAMAGE - Client was a self-employed bulldozer operator who only had a first grade education. He was 63 years old at the time of the collision, and made his living running heavy earth-moving equipment. While in his pick-up truck returning from a service station with a full 55 gallon drum of diesel fuel for his bulldozer, an oncoming tractor-trailer driver was speeding along Highway 72 in Elbert County, GA. The vehicle ahead of the tractor-trailer slowed to be able to turn left. The driver of the speeding tractor-trailer saw that he did not have time to stop before striking the rear of the small vehicle, and had to make a split-second decision to either go off the highway to the right side of the small car (where a slope led to a small water runoff drainage area), or attempt to veer left (across the lane where Client was traveling) to a flat surface that would likely not cause his rig to overturn. He chose to go in the direction that would not flip his tractor-trailer rig, and Client's pick-up was not able to avoid the collision with the set of rear tires of the tractor-trailer rig. Client was knocked unconscious by the impact, and suffered a bad scrape and bruising of his upper forehead and scalp. He was awakened by other motorists shortly after the crash, but was dazed. He was soaked in diesel fuel, which had slammed into the cab of the pickup truck and erupted. He feared being burned alive, since the doors would not open on the pickup, due to compaction of the front end of the truck. A precautionary hospital visit to a local hospital resulted in his release four hours later. The total medical costs were less than $500, and the medical tests revealed no permanent damage. The problem with the case was that every time Client got back on his earth-moving equipment, he became nauseous. The problem persisted, even after two more neurologists declared him to be fine. Because Client had never missed work before due to any health issues, and (prior to this visit) had never been in a hospital, the correlation to this collision was obvious. Finally, an Emory specialist in complex head trauma cases found the problem: his skull was cracked longitudinally, running from the center of his nose area straight back across the top of his skull. This crack was not detected on the routine scans that were done, but was picked up by special equipment at Emory University Medical School.

At the eve of litigation in Fulton County State Court, the case settled in 1988 for $500,000, despite the relatively low earnings of Client, his first grade education level and his age of 63 years at the time of the incident. The amount he received, combined with social security, allowed him to retire in fairly good financial shape, if the money was conserved.

MEDICAL MALPRACTICE: I have handled litigation of all types in my 34 years of practice. This appeal from a quarter century ago was handled for a friend's daughter who had obviously received very poor medical care from a doctor near the middle school where she taught in Elbert County, Georgia. The complete unwillingness of the Elbert County doctor (who is apparently no longer in practice) to admit any responsibility for harming Ms. Killingsworth through medical negligence led to the filing of a civil suit for malpractice by me (attempting to inject a muscle pull in her shoulder blade area of her back, and (instead) puncturing her lung. The case is reported at Killingsworth v. Poon, 167 Ga.App. 653, 655, 307 S.E.2d 123 (1983). The holding of the case was that some OBVIOUS acts of medical malpractice do not require the inclusion of an opinion of expert medical testimony that defendant-doctor failed to exercise requisite degree of care and skill. Dr. Norman Johnson issued an opinion letter saying that it appeared that Dr. Poon had punctured her lung based on the immediate pain, loss of breath and collapsed lung that followed his treatment of this young, healthy physical education teacher. Following our appellate victory, Ms. Killingsworth recovered an appropriate civil settlement. This case helped frame this aspect of medical malpractice law.

CHILD CUSTODY: I represented the mother of two young boys on a child custody change petition. The mother had lost custody based on not taking her medication for diabetes, and had now changed her life, remarried and was seeking to retake custody. The case was heard by Superior Court Judge James Barrow of Clarke County. The hearing went on for days at the trial level until she was ultimately awarded custody. The attorney for father appealed all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court, but the award to the mother was sustained. Reported appeal at 178 Ga.App. 847, 344 S.E.2d 767 (1986).

APPELLATE VICTORY: I conducted a bench trial of a DUI arrest that had a 0.199 breath test result. The trial judge ignored the applicable law, and I sought appellate review at the Georgia Court of Appeals. I was able to reverse this client's DUI conviction. 258 Ga.App. 411, 574 S.E.2d 451 (2002).

BLOOD TEST OF 0.266 AND DRIVING CAR THROUGH HOME - ACQUITTAL - Client drove home with his wife after having dinner and alcoholic beverages to drink. As he entered his driveway, the car (a 1995 BMW 325 4-door) suddenly lurched forward and crashed through the garage door at high speed, proceeded at full throttle through the back wall of the home and onto a wooden deck, through the wooden railing and sailed off the deck into the back yard where the car launched itself a distance of over 27 feet and dropped 12 feet before landing on the ground and then striking a tree, where the vehicle stopped. Both the wife and Client were injured, but Client was more seriously injured (broken back). Neither one was still in the vehicle when the police and EMTs arrived. The wife had managed to get into a lawn chair at the front of the house, and the driver (Client) was outside the wrecked vehicle on the ground, lying on his back. Police reported "an overpowering odor of alcohol" as they came into the back yard area. Client asked the arresting officer to help him stand up, and extended a hand for him to assist him to his feet. The police officer declined to allow him to get one his feet (due to his likely injuries from such a disastrous crash) and waited on EMT personnel to move him. The officer questioned him.

The arresting officer, at trial, admitted that upon seeing the auto damage and where the car ended up in the backyard, that he called for ambulance BEFORE ever even locating my Client. Client admitted to the arresting officer that he had two glasses of wine, but officer never established a timetable of WHEN the alcohol was consumed. Client told officer "the accelerator stuck" multiple times, but otherwise was disoriented and talking about fear of coyotes and skunks that may attack him. The officer testified that he came to the conclusion that Client was drunk but NOT seriously injured before he read the implied consent advisements to him, but wanted him checked out for possible head and neck trauma due to the circumstances of the crash.

The officer READ the "implied consent" to my prone client in the ambulance but never said "I am arresting you for DUI" nor stated in any way that he would be charged with DUI. Implied consent was read again at the hospital, but still NO ARREST. Later, officer "drops off" a copy of the DUI ticket to Client's wife, who was also at hospital being treated, and says he started to explain the charge to Client who told him he was familiar with the warning.

Then, I had to get around the hurdle of our "serious injury" exception (see Hough), and got the officer to admit that he did not assess it that way. The judge slowly and reluctantly agreed to eliminate the blood test results of 0.266 grams percent based on appellate case law in Georgia. See Hough v. State, 620 S.E.2d 380 (Ga. Supreme Ct. 2005). Once the Prosecutor "rested" its case with no blood test in evidence and no field evaluations in evidence, we put two witnesses on the stand. Our two witnesses, Dr. Joe Citron, MD (for purposes of explaining the manifestations of head trauma mimicking DUI, plus citing a well-known scientific article by Burns, Moscowitz and Ferguson that studied the ability of experienced police officers to accurately predict high blood alcohol levels from smelling the "strong odor" of alcohol on a person's breath. The study concluded that officers were not able to reliably correlate strong odors with high BAC levels. Next, an experienced accident reconstruction expert Robert (Bob) Awtrey of www.southeasternsafetyassociates.com (who covered the sudden acceleration issues with this model of BMW [all 418,000 sold in the United States had a defective throttle control sleeve], as well as explaining the LIKELIHOOD that the vehicle defect launched the vehicle through the house and out into the yard.) Judge Randolph Rich, hearing the case without a jury, was compelled to find Client "not guilty" of all charges.

GEORGIA SUPREME COURT VICTORY: My client's criminal conviction was overturned by the Georgia Supreme Court, based on my trial objection that the judge had overruled. This case helped establish limits on prosecutorial "vouching" for witnesses. 272 Ga. 1, 525 S.E.2d 690 (2001).

MOTION FOR DISCHARGE & ACQUITTAL SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED: A prosecutor's attempt to add new charges after the jury had been empanelled led to an erroneous ruling by the trial judge. I sought to block the attempt at a new trial, getting the lower court's ruling against my client overturned. Case totally dismissed. 224 Ga.App. 8, 479 S.E.2d 406 (1996).

IMPLIED CONSET LAW CHANGED BY CASE: My handling of a pre-trial motion led to the Prosecutor seeking to overturn the trial judge's favorable ruling. I won the appeal and the underage driver's DUI case. 213 Ga.App. 99, 443 S.E.2d 688 (1994)

FELONY VEHICULAR HOMICIDE CASE TOTALLY DISMISSED: Mr. S came to me in January of 2004 for representation after he was accused of DUI, hit and run, and FELONY vehicular homicide of a pedestrian. Mr. S also had a prior DUI conviction that had occurred within the last five years. The accident occurred during a fierce rain storm, in mid-block of a Buckhead (a well-known bar area in North Atlanta area) street at about 1 a.m. Blood had been drawn and the results from the blood test were 0.14%.

The case was initially filed in the former City Court of Atlanta (abolished by the City of Atlanta at the end of December, 2004). That Court previously had jury trial jurisdiction over traffic misdemeanor charges, and each of Mr. S's original charges were misdemeanor-level traffic tickets, until the pedestrian died the next day from the injuries he received when struck by Mr. S's vehicle. Mr. S hired me immediately and the next morning, a statutory speedy trial demand was filed by me on behalf of Mr. S.

At the Superior Court of Fulton County, I asserted a "Motion for Discharge and Acquittal" based on that Prosecutor's failure to accommodate a statutory speedy trial demand. The judge who heard the motion, William Ison (Senior Judge, hearing the case by assignment) denied the motion. I sought an immediate, direct appeal, which is permitted pre-trial because a reversal of the trial judge's decision would eliminate the entire case based on "former jeopardy."

After the Georgia Court of Appeals eliminated all but one charge against my client were totally eliminated for lack of a speedy trial. {Case is reported at 245 Ga.App. 750, 538 S.E.2d 847 (2005)} After the appeal was handed down, I filed a new motion at the trial court level (based on collateral estoppel) for the one remaining felony charge. This was filed with the newly-appointed Fulton County Superior Court Judge, Tom Campbell. I pointed out that the underpinnings of the dual serious driving offenses supporting the one open charge (DUI and hit & run) had been eliminated by a discharge and acquittal order, thereby stopping further prosecution. Judge Campbell agreed, and the State did not seek further appeal of his ruling. Therefore, Mr. S walked away from this serious felony case (maximum punishment of 15 years in state prison) without ever going to trial, and never going to jail, except for 8 hours after his DUI arrest (until he could bail out).

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