When I saw that three tractor trailers loaded with copper cable had been stolen from Southwire in Carrollton, Georgia, it reminded me of my days as a young prosecutor out in the country. See Steve Wilson’s report in the Times-Georgian for details.
As a young Assistant District Attorney right out of law school, I prosecuted cases of both an 18-wheeler theft and theft of coils of copper cable from a Georgia Power substation construction site, right up the road from Carrollton in Haralson County. The copper theft case was the only time I’ve seen a packed courtroom applaud a jury verdict.
Over the years, whenever copper prices go up, copper thieves steal wire from power stations and transformers for resale on the black market. Sending semi trucks to pick up loads of copper cable directly from the manufacturer, under a fraudulent truck brokerage contract (if that is in fact what happened), is brazenly efficient.
Ken Shigley is a truck and bus safety trial attorney representing seriously injured people and families of people killed in tractor trailer, big rig, semi, intermodal container freight, log truck, cement truck, dump truck, log truck and bus accidents statewide in Georgia.
Mr. Shigley has extensive experience representing parties in interstate trucking collision cases, and in the past two years has spoken at national interstate trucking litigation seminars in Chicago (trucking insurance), New Orleans (trial tactics and side underride issues), St. Louis (punitive damages), San Francisco (dealing with insolvent trucking companies), Atlanta (trucking insurance, closing argument), Nashville (use of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations), and Amelia Island (overview of trucking litigation).
Mr. Shigley served as chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Litigation Institute and is a national board member of the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group. He is currently Treasurer of the 41,000 member State Bar of Georgia, of which he will become President-Elect on 6/19/10 and President in on 6/4/11. This blog expresses only personal views of Mr. Shigley, and nothing in it should be construed as expressing any opinion on behalf of any organization of which Mr. Shigley is a member or officer.
A Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, he has been listed as a “Super Lawyer” (Atlanta Magazine), among the “Legal Elite” (Georgia Trend Magazine), and in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers (Martindale). In addition to trucking litigation, he has broad experience in products liability, catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, spinal cord injury, brain injury and burn injury cases.
This post is subject to our ethical disclaimer.