Steven Leibel, P.C.

TRIAL ATTORNEYS & COUNSELORS AT LAW

706-867-7575//404-892-0700

 

Steven Leibel P.C.
Trial Attorneys & Counselors at Law
P.O. Box 1868
Dahlonega, GA 30533
United States
ph: 706-867-7575
fax: 706-867-0186
alt: 404-892-0700

Press Clippings

 

 Georgia Supreme Court News                                                         

 

 

By Dan Pool
 The Georgia Supreme Court announced last week they will hear an appeal filed by the Blue Rodeo seeking to overturn a 30-day suspension and 12-month probationary period of their liquor license imposed by the City of Jasper.
 In a July 12 document, a clerk from Georgia’s highest court wrote that the court would hear the case of Blue Rodeo owner Scarlett Folsom versus the City of Jasper on grounds of determining whether the city’s ban on alcohol advertising violates Constitutional free speech provisions.
 If the city’s alcohol advertising ban is upheld, the court will also look at “whether even under the less than strict standard that generally applies in commercial speech cases, the [City] has failed to establish a ‘reasonable fit’ between its abridgment of speech and its temperance goal,” Clerk Jeanette Eidson wrote.
 The court will also hear arguments on whether the city’s statute to suspend a liquor/beer serving license “based upon a licensee’s or employee’s violation of Federal or State law” is so vague as to be unconstitutional.
 A press release from the Blue Rodeo Cafe’s attorneys Casey, Gilson, Leibel in Atlanta, stated the ordinance concerning the violation of state and federal law is so overly broad that it isn’t clear what conduct it prohibits.
 The bar/restaurant in question is located on Highway 53 East and is now called Club 53. The owners, however, still operate under a company known as the Blue Rodeo.
 “The ordinance gives the City of Jasper the discretion to revoke an alcohol permit for ‘any violation’ of federal or state law. Thus, the City can revoke the cafe’s alcohol permit if its owners get a speeding ticket, throw litter on a state highway or commit other violations that are unrelated to the cafe’s business,” a  document filed by attorneys Steven K. Leibel and Guy Weiss stated.
 The case against the Blue Rodeo was previously
 
heard in both an administrative hearing before the Jasper City Council and the Pickens County Superior Court.
 In both venues, the City’s statutes were upheld and the Blue Rodeo’s alcohol serving permit was suspended for  30 days, originally to begin July 1,  and the club had to serve a one year probation period in regard to its liquor license.
 This latest appeal allows the restaurant  to continue serving until the Georgia Supreme Court makes a decision.
 The press release said that the city had singled out the Highway 53 establishment.
 “It is a shame that the City of Jasper has chosen to single out the Blue Rodeo and insist on violating its right to free speech,” attorney Weiss said.
 Mayor John Weaver said he respected the club owners’ right to due process and their appeal, but is confident the city’s ordinances would be upheld.
 He said the ordinances here are drawn from ordinances in use around the state and supplied by state and municipal organizations.
 “These type of ordinances are in place all over the state,” he said. “The city of Jasper, as an entity, didn’t sit down and write them.”
 Weaver said if any technicality is found with them, the city would redraft the ordinances to insure the same objectives are still accomplished.
 “I feel confident that the city of Jasper’s ordinances will prevail,” he said. “The city’s goal is to maintain an environment that the citizens of Jasper have come to expect.”
the only campaign which filed the party’s donation as an individual contribution.
 Also, Osborne noted he is not the treasurer as the disclosure stated, but he is the chairman of the local Republican Party.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
 
Verdicts & Settlements- Fulton County Daily Report By Greg Land, Staff Reporter

A Dawson County jury ruled that the Georgia Department of Transportation negligently allowed a 10-foot-tall bush to block the sightline along a roadway, and awarded $1,183,000 to the survivors of a woman who died of injuries sustained when she drove into an intersection and was struck by an oncoming car.
Shirley Sosebee was 67 years old when she approached the intersection of Perimeter Road and State Route 9 North in Dawsonville on Aug. 14, 2003, according to a complaint filed in Dawson County Superior Court. She halted at a “stop bar” and, unable to see up the road because of a looming shrub bordering the grounds of a Catholic church, proceeded across the highway and was struck by a teen driver, Joshua D. Silvers, who was at the wheel of his father’s car.
According to the suit, Sosebee suffered severe head injuries “which left her incommunicative.” She was hospitalized and died four months later.
“Initially, we didn’t know whose bush it was,” said Steven K. Leibel who, with associate Bonnie L. Jones, represented Sosebee’s adult children, Jane Bailey and Frank Sosebee.
“We got into it with everybody,” said Leibel. “We served the state, we served the Catholic church; then we found out that the church had also complained about the bush, so we dismissed them.”
Silvers and his father, Darren Foster, settled out of court, said Leibel, and Leibel pursued the DOT.
In an unusual turn, the attorney was forced to refile his case early this year when, he said, he was stricken with laryngitis during opening arguments at Dawson County’s old courthouse more than a year ago.
“In the old courthouse, there’s no acoustics, no mics, and you have to argue over the sound of all the trucks going by, and I just lost my voice after about three hours,” he said. The judge allowed the case to be refiled and argued in the county’s new courthouse in a three-and-a-half-day trial before Barrow County Senior Judge T. Penn McWhorter, after which a jury took three hours to award his clients $528,548 and their mother’s estate $654,439.
Even the state’s expert witness, Leibel said, conceded that the bush obstructed the view of the roadway.
“The jury did find there was some contributory negligence on the part of Mrs. Sosebee,” said Leibel. Even so, he noted, “I think what swayed them was the total lack of accountability of the part of the DOT. They kept no records of complaints at all … they wrote them down of scraps of paper, sticky notes, and never followed up at all.”
The case was defended by Assistant Attorney General Robert C. Edwards. An effort to get a comment from the office of Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker was unsuccessful.
The case is Bailey v. Georgia Department of Transportation, No. 2007-

 

TOP TEN JURY VERDICTS OF 2004

 

 

Murdered Sheriff's Family

Wins $776 Million

#3
Brown v. Dorsey (Nov. 18, 2004)

© 2004, Lawyers Weekly By Correy E. Stephenson

Verdict: $776 million $450,000,000 in punitives

State: Georgia

Type of Case: Wrongful death.

Trial on damages: 1 week

Deliberations: 4 hours >Status: Plaintiffs appealing summary judgment for defendant DeKalb County.

Case Name: Brown v. Dorsey

Date of Verdict: Nov. 18, 2004

Plaintiff’s attorneys: Steven K. Leibel, George Shingler and Guy Weiss of Casey, Gilson & Leibel in Atlanta.

It was a crime out of another century: A sheriff-elect gunned down outside his home by henchmen hired by the corrupt sheriff he was about to replace.

But this wasn't Tombstone, Ariz., in the 1890s. It was DeKalb County, Georgia, in the year 2000. So instead of a lynching, jurors ordered three defendants - the sheriff and two co-conspirators - to pay the family of Derwin Brown $776 million.

The Nov. 18 verdict was the largest in Georgia history, and according to the plaintiffs' lawyer, Steven Leibel, the astronomical sum was intended to "send a message to all that this type of conduct will not be tolerated in a free society."

Leibel said he understands that some people might find the size of the verdict "outrageous," but contends that "a jury legitimately has a right to express its outrage," and that "the only way a jury can express its outrage is through money."

He said that, in his opinion, the cold-blooded nature of this political assassination justifies the size of the award, noting that it was "the most egregious political assassination ever in the state of Georgia."

 

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Copyright  Steven Leibel, P.C. 2007.

Steven Leibel P.C.
Trial Attorneys & Counselors at Law
P.O. Box 1868
Dahlonega, GA 30533
United States
ph: 706-867-7575
fax: 706-867-0186
alt: 404-892-0700