Among some of the most tragic cases we handle at Beasley Allen are premises liability cases, especially those involving injury or death from a structure fire.
Another Horrific Fire
Recently, a client retained our firm in another horrific trailer fire case that occurred in Athens, Georgia. The blaze broke out in the middle of the night on January 27, 2021, in a trailer at the Hallmark Mobile Home Park. The flames devoured the structure within minutes, killing three precious and upstanding members of the Athens community: a grandmother, a mother of two, and an 11-year-old girl.
Beasley Allen principal Parker Miller, an attorney in our Atlanta office, has taken the lead in investigating the case for our clients. Mr. Miller is a nationally recognized lawyer with a wealth of experience representing clients in premises liability cases, including cases in which the property owner/s failed to ensure their property is reasonably safe. All too often such negligence or oversight results in a range of catastrophic injury and death cases.
According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), more than 150,000 people have died from home fires in the U.S. since 1980. More than four times as many have suffered debilitating burn injuries, smoke inhalation, and other painful fire-related injuries.
There are between 300,000 and 400,000 U.S. home fires every year, resulting in about 7 billion in annual property damages. Tragically, an average of nearly 3,000 people die every year in fires that break out in residences.
At Beasley Allen, we often witness firsthand the catastrophic aftermath of a fire in a property that is not properly maintained or is in poor working order. In addition to the Athens, Georgia case that we are currently litigating, we are representing several other families in premises liability lawsuits involving structure fires, including many in the Mobile, Alabama area. Beasley Allen lawyer Evan Allen, who works in our Mobile office is working on these cases.
Trailer Fires – A Special Concern
Trailer fire cases are a special concern, and they comprise many of the structure fire cases that we handle. These fires burn intensely hot and can quickly engulf a trailer. Several safety issues cause trailer home fires. Some of the most common causes are:
- Defective, broken, or improperly maintained smoke detectors.
- Faulty electrical circuits or exposed wiring
- Short-circuited or defective outlets
- Natural gas leaks
In many cases, our premises liability lawyers have found that the smoke detectors are nonfunctional, insufficiently placed, or unreliable because of age or poor maintenance. Properly functioning smoke detectors placed in every room of the trailer should give residents plenty of time to get escape before fire consumes the structure.
When the owner of a trailer rents the property to others, the law often requires that owner to provide functioning smoke detectors. Failure to adequately protect trailer occupants with smoke alarms can create a major premises liability for the trailer owners.
The tragedy of deadly premises liability cases involving fires is that faulty smoke detectors often make what should have been a survivable fire in an otherwise well-maintained property a deadly catastrophe.
Defective Products – Another Cause of Fires
As we alluded to earlier, product defects can also be a catalyst of structure fires. An electronic device may seem well-made and in perfect working order on the outside, but a poor configuration or other product defect in a device’s circuitry could pose a serious threat to the structure’s occupants. We have filed and won many class action lawsuits for clients harmed by defective products.
Smoke detectors aren’t the only devices prone to defects. A wide range of consumer appliances and devices can be dangerously defective, including:
- Televisions
- Toasters
- Laptop computers
- Dishwashers
- Ceiling fans
- Battery packs and other devices with rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.
Of course, these are just a few of the products fire investigators may look at in determining the cause of a fire, and those findings will in turn determine if a property owner took proper and adequate precautions to prevent fire on their property.
Premises Liability Lawyers
If you or someone close to you suffered a preventable injury on someone else’s property, either by fire or some other incident, contact our premises liability lawyers for a free, no-obligation evaluation. You can reach Parker Miller in our Atlanta office or Evan Allen in our Mobile office.
