Jackson forced marched his men over 40 miles in two days, and they arrived in the vicinity of Kernstown on March 23, 1862.  The federal commander on the battlefield, Brig. General James Shields, sustained a broken arm in a cavalry engagement with Confederate cavalry the day before.  Confederate scouts in the area informed General Jackson that Shields had withdrawn most his men out of town, and had moved most of his command to Harpers Ferry.  The scouts reported the number of federal troops in Kernstown to be no higher than 3,000 men.

Jackson marched 3,000 of his men north in an effort to immediately attack the federal troops, not knowing that he was in fact engaging three times the number of troops in his command.  The attack commended on Sunday, March 23, 1862, at 11:00 a.m.    Jackson deployed two brigades under the command of Brig. General Richard B. Garnett and Col. Samuel Fulkerson in line, with Garnett’s brigade occupying the right of the battlefield.

Fulkerson’s men occupied a stone wall in a clearing, which provided them with a defensive position of strength against the Union attacks. Union Colonel Erastus Tyler attacked them with his brigade in close column of divisions, which essentially was an attack in a column formation, as opposed to a traditional attack of two lines along a broad front of battle.  Because the federal troops came in piecemeal instead of one powerful line of battle, Fulkerson’s men could sit behind the stone wall and defend their position as the attackers charged in.

General Garnett’s Stonewall Brigade began to run out of ammunition, and Garnett began to pull his men back, leaving the right flank of Fulkerson’s line exposed to enemy fire.  The inexperienced soldiers began to panic, and the retreat turned into a rout against the heavier numbers of federal troops attacking on their front.

Stonewall Jackson had yet to become a battlefield legend in the war, and there was always a gap between Thomas Jackson the legend and Thomas Jackson the man.  Jackson had a tendency to treat subordinate officers unfairly, and to treat the men under his command harshly.  He had attacked a superior federal force without ascertaining the size of the federal army in front of him.  If Colonel Erastus Tyler had deployed his federal troops properly at the front, Jackson’s entire force could have been wiped out.

Garnett’s timely retreat actually ended up saving Jackson’s force.  Stonewall Jackson blamed Brigadier General Richard Garnett for retreating without permission, and placed him under arrest, and relieved him from command of the Stonewall Brigade, because of his retreat at Kernstown.  This humiliation of Garnett left a stain on his soul that lingered on until the Battle of Gettysburg.

Confederate casualties in the battle were 718, with 80 killed, 375 wounded, and 263 captured or missing.  Federal Casualties totaled 590, with 118 killed, 450 wounded, and 22 captured or missing.  Jackson’s only defeat in the war would be avenged when he later launched his famed Valley Campaign.

General Lew Wallace (later the author of Ben Hur) arrived via the Snake Creek bridge with an entire division that had been lost the entire first day of the battle.  Troops from General Don Carlos Buel’s Army of the Ohio began to ferry across the river from Savannah via the gunboats.  By dawn of the second day, 20,000 men of Buel’s army had ferried across the river, and were put in position to attack the Confederate lines.

At dawn on April 7th, Grant had around 45,000 effective troops, compared to around 28,000 men for General Beauregard.  Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest took it upon himself to scout the Union lines near the bluffs close to the Tennessee River.  All evening long, he saw General Buel’s men ferrying over to the south side of the river.  He spread the word through the Confederate camps that they would be attacked the following morning.  Not one Confederate officer listened to him that night.

General Prentiss, captured when he surrendered at the Hornet’s Nest, occupied a tent of one of Beauregard’s staff officers.  He told his captors that the Confederates had their way during the day, but that the tables would be turned on them in the morning once Buel’s troops arrived on the field.  At dawn, Grant’s men attacked along a three mile front.  The peach orchard was recaptured, and Grant’s men pressed hard toward Shiloh Church.

General Beauregard’s Army of Mississippi was steadily forced back south in the general direction of the Corinth Road.  Beauregard realized his army was outnumbered, and he ordered a withdrawal of the entire army south along the muddy Corinth Road.  The Union troops had claimed the field following the Battle of Shiloh.

The reports of the casualties from the two day battle of Shiloh shocked commanders and civilians on both sides.  General Grant lost 13,047 men, and General Beauregard lost 10,699 Confederate casualties.   There were calls for General Grant’s removal from command.  When these reports got to President Lincoln, he stated: “I can’t spare this man; he fights.”  Grant was temporarily demoted, and command of the Army of the Tennessee was handed to Major General Henry Halleck.  General Beauregard also eventually lost command of the Army of Mississippi to General Braxton Bragg.

The officers of both armies were schooled and instructed in the tactics of Napoleon in the handling of their troops.  The tactics of the men involved the presentation of massed ranks to the enemy, with no concern for concealment from enemy fire.  The technology of the day had superseded the technology of weapons from the time of Napoleon.  Rifled percussion muskets were simply more accurate at greater distances than smoothbore weapons, and the casualty count of Shiloh would resemble the casualty count of other large battles through the war until 1865.  Up to that time, though, Shiloh was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.  The bloodier battles of the Seven Days, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Stone’s River and Gettysburg were yet to come.

The opposing Union forces were encamped near Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River, just across the river from Savannah, Tennessee.  Major General U.S. Grant had around 49,000 men in the Army of the Tennessee, which consisted of six divisions.  Two divisions were commanded by Major Generals John McClernand and Lew Wallace, and four divisions were commanded by Brigadier Generals Stephen Hurlbut, William T. Sherman, Benjamin Prentiss, and W.H.L. Wallace.

Grant’s men were scattered in camps from Owl Creek to the Savannah River Road.  There were no cavalry patrols set out to screen the infantry, or to give warning of any Confederate attack.  Grant’s infantrymen had not posted strong pickets, and they had not entrenched their positions, even though the entire army was exposed to Confederate attack.

Peach and pear trees were in full bloom on April 6, 1862, when the Confederate attack commenced on the Union lines.  Hardee and Polk hit Sherman and McClernand hard on the left, while Bragg and Breckenridge smashed Hurlbut and Prentiss on the Union right.    The Confederate attack was supposed to have been made in an effort to prevent Grant from retreating back to Pittsburg Landing.  The actual attack was made in a disorganized way, on a front around three miles wide.

The Confederate troops attacked in a heavily wooded area almost in a constant long line, without any depth needed to exploit breakthroughs in the Union lines.  The assault was tremendous, and many Union troops were driven back to the area of Pittsburg Landing.  Sherman’s troops and McClernand’s troops slowly retreated back to an area around Shiloh Church.  Confederate forces there proceeded to roll up Union units one by one, and began to push Union forces back toward Pittsburg Landing.

As negligent as General Sherman had been before the battle, he was invaluable during the battle.  He was everywhere on the battlefield, encouraging his troops to stand and fight.  He had three horses shot out from under him that day.  Sherman’s men gave ground stubbornly.  Confederate troops on the advance threw down their antiquated weapons, and picked up Springfield rifles dropped by retreating Union soldiers.

Heavy fighting occurred around an area on a sunken road known as the “Hornet’s Nest,” where Benjamin Prentiss and W.H.L. Wallace and their Union divisions were surrounded on three sides by Confederate troops.  Confederate troops brought up 50 artillery pieces, and blasted the Union troops in the “Hornet’s Nest” with close range artillery fire.  General Wallace fell, mortally wounded.  The Hornet’s Nest finally fell after seven hours of hard fighting, and Benjamin Prentiss and around 2400 surviving Union troops were captured there.  Their sacrifice, though, allowed Grant the time he needed to establish a second line of defense near Pittsburgh Landing.  The War Department had previously ordered General Don Carlos Buell and his Army of the Ohio to join Grant’s forces at Pittsburg Landing.  These men began to cross over from Savannah on steamboats that afternoon, and Union reinforcements continued to ferry over throughout the night.

On this bloody first day of the Battle of Shiloh, Grant had lost at least 7,000 men, and Confederate casualties totaled over 10,000 men in the attack.  The most critical loss of all for the Confederacy was General Albert Sidney Johnston, who fell with a mortal wound in his left popliteal artery in an attack at the Peach Orchard.  This put General Beauregard in command, and he would have to deal with a reinforced General Grant the following morning.  Grant had been reinforced, and he ordered his troops to attack the Confederates the following day.

Union scout Wild Bill Hickok soon rode into Curtis’ camp, and brought news that a Confederate army was marching toward them in strength.  Although Earl Van Dorn’s army  outnumbered his Union opponent’s forces, he decided not to concentrate his army in planning his attack.  Instead, Van Dorn divided his forces into three divisions.  The division of Sterling Price was ordered to march around Pea Ridge, and to attack the federal forces in the rear.

The two divisions of Ben McCulloch and Albert Pike were ordered to attack the federal positions to the left of Elkhorn Tavern.  Pike commanded a brigade of volunteer troops from the Indian Territories.  McCulloch commanded Texans, Arkansans, and troops from Louisiana.  Price’s men hailed from Missouri.  Price’s men, along with General Van Dorn, began a long march around Pea Ridge.

General Curtis made his headquarters off the Wire Road south of Elkhorn Tavern.  His men had gotten a good night’s rest, and had cooked and eaten their rations that morning.    Opposing the advance of McCulloch and Pike were four divisions of federal infantry.  One division was commanded by an Indiana born colonel by the name of Jefferson Davis.  The other division was commanded by Peter Osterhaus, a German.  Eugene Carr, a federal regular soldier, commanded a division stationed near Elkhorn Tavern, and Alexander Asboth commanded the reserve division of federal troops.

McCulloch and Pike attacked the federal positions head on.  The Confederate troops suffered from cannon fire making the initial charge, but they eventually captured many federal guns.  McCulloch and his second in command, General James McIntosh were killed leading these attacks, and McCulloch’s troops became disorganized after their lead officers were killed.

As McCulloch’s attack petered out, Van Dorn’s attack around Pea Ridge gained steam.  Desperate fighting by Carr’s men around Elkhorn Tavern prevented Price’s Confederate troops from breaking through.  On March 8, 1862, all four divisions of the federal army deployed into one continuous line of battle.  Union General Franz Sigel situated his artillery on a hill that allowed an effective fire against Van Dorn’s Confederate troops.

Artillery fire inflicted heavy casualties on the Confederate troops, and Curtis then ordered his men to attack.  Van Dorn realized that his divided army had no chance of success, and he ordered his Confederate troops to retreat south from Pea Ridge.  Curtis’ Union forces had won the battle of Pea Ridge, at a cost of 1,384 casualties.  Van Dorn’s army lost around 2,000 men.  Curtis had defeated Van Dorn with an outnumbered army, and an intended Confederate invasion of Missouri had been effectively turned away.

This shot struck the Minnesota, who answered the shot with a broadside of her own.  The Virginia did not carry any armor piercing shells.  The heavy Dahlgren guns of the Monitor were not charged with as heavy a powder charge as they could have carried, either.

The Virginia attempted on several occasions to ram the Monitor, but the Union ship was more nimble, and faster than her larger opponent.  The Monitor had at least five inches of armor, and in many places more than nine inches of armor, so she was more heavily protected than the Virginia.  The Monitor drew less water than the Virginia, who needed at least 24 feet of draft to make way.  The Monitor could move off into the shallow water of Hampton Roads when her 66 man crew needed a breather in the battle.

After two hours of hard firing, the crews of the aft guns of the Virginia were bleeding out their noses and ears from the percussion of the hits from the federal ship.  The Monitor hauled off into the shallow water to draw up shot and powder into her turret about two hours into the battle.  The Virginia, noticing that the Minnesota was unprotected, began to approach her.  The Minnesota then fired a broadside into the Virginia that would have blown any wooden ship out of the water, but the rounds bounced off the sides of the Confederate ironclad ship.

The crew of the Virginia attempted to get her close to the Monitor so that she could be boarded, but the Monitor nimbly escaped each attempt of the Virginia to close with her.  The Monitor blasted the Virginia time and time again with her heavy guns, cracking armor plate, but failing to penetrate the Virginia‘s oak and pine decking.  A shot from the Virginia did explode near the pilot house of the Monitor, which temporarily blinded Lieutenant Worden.   The Virginia‘s smoke stack was hit so many times, that her boilers drew little heat and pressure, and her speed was reduced by half.

The fight ended in a draw after four hours of battle.  The Virginia drew off across to the Elizabeth River, and the Monitor had saved the Minnesota from the same fate as her sister ship, the USS Congress.  From that day on, the wooden navies of the world were now obsolete, and ironclad ships would be built for use in future wars.  The little ironclad invention of John Ericsson had prevented the Virginia from breaking the federal blockade of Hampton Roads, and a naval stalemate resulted from what could have been an outright Confederate victory.   The federal blockade on Virginia would continue, and the U.S. Navy was now free to transport troops for the invasion of Virginia.

Union soldiers at Fort Monroe across the bay saw the Virginia coming at them, and described the ironclad as “a house submerged to the eaves, borne onward by a flood.”  The USS Congress and the USS Cumberland cleared for action, and when the Virginia came into range, the Congress fired a broadside at her.  Any normal wooden ship would have been blown out of the water, but the iron shot bounced off the sloping sides of the Virginia like tennis balls.

Coastal batteries from Fortress Monroe opened fire on the Virginia, and the shot bounced off her sides harmlessly into the bay.   The Virginia raised her iron gun ports, and fired a starboard broadside into the Congress.  She then poured on steam, and rammed the Cumberland with her iron ram, punching a horse cart sized hole under the forerigging of the Cumberland.  The Virginia broke off the beak of her iron ram into the Cumberlandin  the process of sinking her.  The Cumberland continued firing at the Virginia until she sank, with Old Glory still flying at the mainmast.

The Congress slipped her cable and tried to get away from the ram of the Virginia, but she soon ran aground in shallow water.  The Virginia, because of her weight, drew a full 22 feet of water, and could not pursue the Congress more closely.  She ran out her guns from 200 yards away, and opened fire, deliberately raking the Congress  from stem to stern.  The scuppers of the Congress soon ran red with blood, and the captain of the ship was killed.  A lieutenant aboard the Congress struck her colors, and Buchanan had the Virginia stand by to take prisoners.

Union army officers were not familiar with the customs of the naval service, and they began firing their coastal batteries at the Virginia even after the Congress had surrendered.  Two Confederate officers were killed by the fire, and Buchanan was wounded in the leg.    The Virginia then steamed back, and began firing hot shot into the Congress.  The Congress caught fire and blew up, killing  many of her crew, including a lieutenant on board who was Franklin Buchanan’s brother.

Other Union ships slipped their cables and attempted to fight the ironclad, but soon ran aground in the shallow waters. The USS St. Lawrence, the USS Roanoke, and the USS Minnesota all ran aground, and appeared to be likely victims for the Confederate ironclad.   However, the Virginia was ponderously slow on account of her weak engines, and she drew 22 feet of water.  She could not get into effective range to engage the other Union ships.  Buchanan was content to go back up the Elizabeth River, and to survey his damage, and return the next morning to finish off the three Union warships.

The Confederates had lost 21 men killed and wounded.  The Virginia  was shot over 100 times by enemy fire, but the ship had no damage inside her iron shell.  All of her boat davits and railings were shot away, and her smokestack was holed several times.  She had lost her iron beak when she rammed the Cumberland, and two gun muzzles had been shot away.

The Union had lost the Cumberland and the Congress, and as the Congress burned, its fire lit the entire bay.  Confederates across the bay in Norfolk were cheering that a way had been found to lift the blockade of Hampton Roads.  The Virginia would do that by sinking every wooden vessel in range of her guns.

President Lincoln received the news from Fortress Monroe via telegram, and he met with his cabinet at 6:00 a.m. the following morning.  A panic had spread in Washington City that the Virginia would destroy every Union warship in Chesapeake Bay.  Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wells reminded the president that he had sent his own new ironclad down to Hampton Roads two days before.   The cabinet adjourned to go to church that Sunday morning and to pray for a miracle.  That same morning, the USS Monitor took her station near the Minnesota, and waited for a fateful battle with the ironclad CSS Virginia.

In February of 1862, Grant brought two divisions of Federal troops downriver on four ironclad gunboats, and on three transports.   The transport vessels needed two trips to transport the 14,000 troops in the operation against Fort Henry.  In command of Fort Henry was Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman with 3400 Confederate troops.  Most of his men were armed with shotguns and old fashioned flintlock rifles left over from the War of 1812.  Recent flooding on the Tennessee River submerged all but nine of his fifteen cannon that faced the Tennessee River.  The entire powder magazine of the fort was under water as well.

As the attack commenced, the ironclad gunboats took Fort Henry under fire.  Fort Henry’s guns responded, pounding the U.S. gunboat Essex some 30 times, and putting her out of action with a short through her boiler.

Other gunboats closed the range and took the guns in Fort Henry under fire.  One six inch rifle burst, and a giant Columbiad was soon spiked by a broken priming wire.  Other guns were destroyed by gunboat fire, until only four serviceable guns were left.

Tilghman ordered his infantry in the fort to march out toward Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River.  After the infantry marched out, Tilghman struck his colors.  By three o’clock p.m., General Grant’s troops arrived to take possession of the fort.

With Fort Henry in Union hands, a water highway deep into Alabama had been opened.  Union troops now had the means to be transported into territory as far south as northeastern Alabama.  General Grant wired General Henry Halleck in St. Louis: “Fort Henry is ours.”  Another Confederate fort around fourteen miles east on the Cumberland River, Fort Donelson, became General Grant’s next target for federal attack.

Confederate Navy Lt. John M. Brooke went to Richmond, and persuaded Secretary of the Navy Mallory to raise the Merrimack, and to convert her into a sea going ironclad ship.  The Merrimackwas the only large ship with her engines intact located in the area of Hampton Roads, so Secretary Mallory was eager to have the vessel raised and rebuilt. Mallory gave his approval, and the Merrimack was raised, pumped out and plugged, and the silt was scrubbed out of her engines.

The Merrimack was originally built at the Boston Navy Yard in 1854.  The ship went into service originally in 1855, and sailed around Cape Horn and back in the 1850’s.  The original steam frigate relied on sail power and steam power for propulsion, but the converted ironclad would only rely on her steam engines for propulsion after she was raised and rebuilt.  The reason that the Merrimack was at the Gosport Yard in April of 1861 was for a steam engine overhaul, and that would be significant after the ship was rebuilt.

Lt. John Brooke moved the ship to the graving dock at the Gosport Yard, where the ship’s burned structures were removed.  After the ship was cut down, a casement was built of 24 inches of oak and wood lumber in several layers.  Two inches of iron plate were laid over the wooden casement, making the new ship the world’s first ironclad warship.  The armor plates were angled at 36 degrees to deflect enemy shells.

The new ship was rechristened the C.S.S. Virginia.  She was rebuilt with an iron ram on her prow, a large twin blade screw propeller, a new fantail, and a V-shaped cutwater on her bow.  The Virginia had a forward and aft main deck that was designed to be submerged, and these structures were covered with four inches of iron plate.

The casemate gun deck contained 14 gun ports, with four gun ports on each broadside.  The battery consisted of four muzzle loading Brooke rifles and six smoothbore 9 inch Dahlgren guns salvaged from the sunken Merrimack.  The two Dahlgrens located nearest the boiler were designed to fire heated shot at wooden naval vessels.

As an ironclad ship, the mission of the C.S.S. Virginia was to break the Union naval blockade in the Hampton Roads area.  The one Achilles heel of the Virginia was her engines.  The reason the Merrimack was at the Gosport Yard in April of 1861 was for an overhaul of her weak steam engines.  The overhaul was not completed before the ship was scuttled.  Exposure to the salt water of the Elizabeth River degraded the old steam engines further.  The added weight of the ironclad construction and the forward iron ram put greater stress on the old Merrimacksteam engines. This would become a critical factor the following spring, when the Virginia sailed out into Hampton Roads to take on the Union fleet.

Fast forward to the year 2004.  The war in Iraq has been going on for over a year, and Saxby Chambliss is taking one of several trips over to Iraq.  On his way out there and back from Iraq, he is constantly uttering the infamous words “stay the course,” and “we can’t cut and run.”  All during the war, billions and billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars were being pumped out into Iraq, Afghanistan, and Qatar, never to return again.  Huge airbases were built in Iraq and Qatar with billions in U.S. taxpayer funds.  Huge budget deficits were created as a result of all of our adventures in the Middle East.  These budget deficits have come home to roost, and Congress must cut the budget in future years to deal with the problems created by our overspending in the Middle East.

Fast forward again to the year 2010.  Congressman Jim Marshall was swept out of office by the Tea Party vote, and Austin Scott took his seat in the Congress.  The Department of Defense, knowing that the defense budget would have to be cut, looked at the direction of Austin Scott’s 8^th Congressional District, and a plan was put into action.  Jim Marshall carried a lot of clout on Capitol Hill when it came to military affairs.  The people of this area voted him out of office, and voted in a Tea Party guy instead.  That gave the Department of the Air Force the green light to put together a downsizing plan that will affect Robins AFB.

Last week, The Air Force announced a major reorganization in the Air Force Material Command.  Tinker AFB in Oklahoma will get redesigned as the Air Force Sustainment Center.  600 jobs will leave Robins AFB, and will be absorbed by Tinker AFB.  Tinker AFB will have as its commander a three star general.  The Robins Air Logistics Center will be downgraded to the Robins Air Logistics Complex, and Robins will be commanded by a one star general.  At least 516 jobs are to be cut from Robins as soon as possible.  Some jobs will be cut via early retirement offers, which will include a $25,000.00 buyout per employee.  Other jobs will be eliminated via transfer to Tinker AFB in Oklahoma.  This plan appears to pave the way for even greater job cuts at Robins AFB in the future, particularly on account of the reorganization in the command structure.

If the budget has to be cut further, this reorganization will make it easier for more job cuts to happen.  If a budget cutting deal cannot be worked in the Congress, these job cuts will be followed by the elimination of other jobs here locally.

The reorganization will be completed by October 1, 2012. Where is Saxby Chambliss while these job cuts are affecting a base in his home state?  Why is he not voicing his objections to this plan?  A U.S. Senator is supposed to have a lot of clout in Washington D.C.  He can threaten the Administration with a filibuster on each and every measure it wants passed in the Congress.  He can hold up Administration appointments to the bench and to executive office positions if he chooses to do so.  In this situation, as in 2000, Saxby has once again rolled over and played dead, while jobs got moved out of his state and into another, once again.

There are those that vote to reelect Saxby Chambliss again and again, and continue to do so on the grounds that he has a lot of clout in Washington, D.C.  Maybe after this latest job cutting episode by the Air Force, those voters will figure out that his influence on Capital Hill has either waned, or he just does not care about job losses at a military base in his home state.

Houston State Court  2000-$90,000

Client was staying in a Perry hotel, when he slipped and fell across the bathtub and the toilet tank in the hotel room after slipping in the hotel room bathtub on Defendant’s slippery and invisible cleaning fluid.  Client’s injuries required a double fusion surgery for his lower back.  This case settled at mediation.

Bleckley Superior Court  2007-$125,000

Client was duck hunting with a friend when they were separated in a swamp.  Ducks flew up between them, and the friend opened fire in client’s direction.  Steel shot pellets became embedded in client’s eye.  Client required three different eye surgeries, and lost vision as a result.  This case settled at mediation after we showed client’s actual loss of vision with visual field tests that were done before and after the shooting.

Peach Superior Court  2010-$16,000.00

Client was a front seat passenger in a pickup truck being  driven by her husband.  Just as the vehicle was turning left  from  the I-75 off ramp onto Sam Nunn Boulevard in Perry, the truck was t-boned by a Ford F350 truck that had run a red light at the same intersection.  This case settled after written discovery was completed.  Client sustained a whiplash injury in this collision.

Bleckley Superior Court  2010-$52,500.00

Client was seated in the front passenger seat of a pickup truck that was parked on a Cochran street.  A delivery truck of the Defendant, which was a tractor-trailer truck, turned the corner, and the right rear wheel of the trailer lifted the back of the pickup truck.  The pickup was lifted up and slammed down violently.  Client required a cervical fusion surgery after the collision.  This case settled at mediation after suit was filed.

Peach Superior Court  2006-$50,000

Plaintiff was a youth that was a rear seat passenger in an automobile.  An affray occurred at a residence in Crawford County.  As client was leaving the residence of a youth there with his friends, the father of one of the youths fired a handgun in the direction of their automobile.  A .38 caliber bullet entered the vehicle and struck client in the head, causing him serious and severe injuries.  This case settled after suit was filed against the shooter and his homeowner’s carrier was served with the lawsuit.  The carrier paid their policy limits to settle the case.

Houston State Court  2011-$25,000

Client was a patron in Defendant’s restaurant when she went to the restroom.  In the restroom, she slipped and fell on Defendant’s floor after Defendant’s employee mopped the floor with a greasy mop from the kitchen.  No signs were posted in the restroom that would have warned others of a wet or slippery floor.  Client sustained a whiplash injury from her fall.  This case settled after written discovery was completed.

Washington Superior Court  2006-$72,500

Clients were lawfully driving down U.S. Highway 80 to Dublin, when their pickup truck was struck from behind by a Ford F-350 fueling vehicle owned by Defendant logging company.  The F-350 truck was being driven by an employee of the logging company in the course of his employment.  The impact of the collision knocked the clients’ vehicle on its side.  Client husband received cuts, bruises, and a whiplash injury in the collision.  Client wife broke a vertebrae in her lower spine in this collision.  The driver of the fueling truck was under the influence of alcohol, and his blood alcohol level was over .18 grams percent at the time of the collision.  This case settled after suit was filed against the defendant logging company.

Bibb Superior Court  2010-$60,000

Client had a medical device inserted into his back to control his lower back pain.  Client met the representative of the medical device company in his doctor’s office for the purpose of activating the anti-pain device in his lower back.  Another rep had already preset the device when client was in the recovery room after it was implanted.  When the second rep powered up the device, it turned on at full power, throwing client into excruciating pain for over 15 minutes.  Client sustained a mild heart attack during this period.  This case settled after depositions were taken.

Bibb Superior Court  2010-$105,000

Client was a U.S. Postal employee delivering mail on the side of a roadway in Bibb County.  Defendant was operating his father’s sport car in excess of the posted speed limit.  Defendant ran his vehicle into the rear of another vehicle, which then rear ended Plaintiff’s postal truck.  Client received a low back injury which required a spinal fusion surgery.  This case settled at mediation after completion of discovery.  Eyewitness testimony was especially useful in helping us to establish the speed of the defendant’s vehicle at the time of impact.