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Earlier this month, a Florida State Trooper was seriously injured in a Florida car accident when he was struck by a motorist while responding to the scene of an accident on the side of the highway. According to a local news report, the original accident was between two vehicles heading south on the Palmetto Expressway. Evidently, the state trooper was on scene assisting the motorists involved in that collision when another motorist failed to take notice of the accident and crashed into the back of one of the cars.

The force from that collision sent the car spinning around, and it then crashed into the other car that was involved in the original accident. The state trooper, who was standing near both cars, was struck by one of them and was thrown to the side of the road. The trooper was flown to a nearby hospital with serious injuries.

Police told reporters that the driver who caused the subsequent collision had alcohol on his breath and consented to a blood-draw. The results confirmed that the driver was driving under the influence of alcohol. He was arrested on several DUI-related charges.

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Putting your child on a school bus may be the safest way to get your child to school. School buses are designed to be safer than passenger vehicles in preventing crashes and injuries. However, despite the heavy regulations placed on school buses, South Florida school bus accidents still happen.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, from 2006 to 2015, there were 1,313 fatalities in school transportation-related crashes, or around 131 fatalities per year. A school transportation-related crash was defined as a crash that involved a school bus, or a non-school bus functioning as a bus, transporting children to or from school or school-related activities. There were 301 school-age children killed in school transportation-related crashes, 54 of whom were occupants of school transportation vehicles. In addition, of the school-age fatalities in school transportation-related crashes, most occurred between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. or from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV) reported there were 134,790 children involved in crashes in Florida in 2016. It also noted there was a 32 percent increase in fatalities from 2014. The DHSMV cautioned drivers to properly stop for school buses. As of July 1, 2017, a new Florida law took effect, the Cameron Mathew Act, which increases the minimum penalty for drivers who illegally pass a school bus, resulting in injuries or death.

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Every person on the road has to be wary of other drivers, especially those drivers who are fatigued and may not be safely operating a vehicle. A recent news article highlights the dangers associated with the transportation of agricultural workers, a danger all Florida drivers face.

In a Florida auto accident involving a truck and a bus, four people were killed in an early morning collision near St. Marks. According to federal investigators, the crash highlighted problems with safety regulations concerning the transportation of migrant farmworkers. The crash occurred at around 5:00 AM and was deemed to be the fault of the bus driver. The bus was being driven by a migrant farmworker who had finished a day’s work picking crops.

Investigators determined that the bus company failed to adequately oversee the driver. It also found there was a lack of effective oversight by the Department of Labor and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. In addition to the four people killed in the crash, 29 others were injured. The investigation thus far shows that the driver failed to stop at a blinking red light and stop sign at an intersection.

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Earlier this month, an appellate court issued a written opinion in a Florida premises liability lawsuit that arose after the plaintiff fell off an examination table in the defendant doctor’s office. The court was tasked with determining if the plaintiff’s lawsuit should be dismissed because she failed to comply with the applicable statute of limitations. Ultimately, the court concluded that the plaintiff’s lawsuit was not a “medical malpractice” lawsuit as defined by the statute and that her claim need not comply with the stricter statute of limitations for medical malpractice lawsuits.

The Facts of the Case

The plaintiff was seeing the defendant doctor so that he could remove a catheter. When the doctor came into the examination room, he instructed the plaintiff to climb onto the examination table. He then pulled out a stool so that she could more easily get atop the table. The plaintiff safely climbed onto the table, and the doctor performed the procedure without any complications.

After the procedure, the doctor told the plaintiff to go to the front desk and make a follow-up appointment the following week. The doctor then left the examination room without pulling out the stool to help the plaintiff descend off the table. The plaintiff attempted to get off the table but fell as she did so.

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Before a Florida medical malpractice lawsuit proceeds to trial, the parties go through the pre-trial discovery process, in which each side requests information of the other side that they believe will be relevant in the case. While most relevant material is discoverable, historically some categories of evidence have not been discoverable because they fit within a privilege.

In 2004, Florida citizens amended their constitution, adding a “right to have access to any records made or received in the course of business by a health care facility or provider relating to any adverse medical incident.” This has come to be known as Amendment 7. Recently, the Florida Supreme Court issued a written opinion clarifying how far Amendment 7 reaches.

The Facts

The plaintiff filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the defendant doctors after her bile duct was severed during a routine medical procedure. Pursuant to Amendment 7, the plaintiff requested a number of her medical records relating to the medical procedure. The defendants claimed that the medical records were exempt from the rules of discovery, citing several privileges.

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Earlier this month, the Florida Supreme Court issued a written opinion in a case that will likely have great implications across the State. The case involved allegations of Florida medical malpractice brought by the wife of a man who died while in the defendant doctor’s care. The issue involved a discovery rule that allowed for a defendant doctor to compel the plaintiff to release the names of previous health care providers and allowed for the defendant to arrange meetings with the providers without the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s attorney present.

Ultimately, the court concluded that the plaintiff had the ability to assert her husband’s right to privacy to challenge the discovery rules and that the rules were unconstitutional because they burdened the plaintiff’s right to access the court system.

The Discovery Rules

The discovery rules at issue allowed for informal discovery, whereby the defendant could request certain information from the plaintiff. Among the information that could be requested by the defendant were the names of all previous medical care providers. A 2013 amendment to the rules also allowed for the defendant to arrange ex parte meetings with the medical care providers. The plaintiff challenged the aspect of the rules that allowed for ex parte meetings.

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When a party is injured due to the allegedly negligent act of another person, company, or government entity, the injured party can seek compensation for their injuries through a South Florida personal injury lawsuit. Many of these cases are resolved in pre-trial settlement negotiations, with less than 5% of cases proceeding to trial. The reason most cases settle before reaching trial is because the parties involved prefer the certainty of agreed-upon negotiations rather than the uncertainty of a jury trial.

In addition to a jury trial being an uncertainty, once a jury enters a verdict in favor of a party, it is usually final. There are several exceptions, however. The first exception is if the judge overseeing the trial makes a legal error. For example, if a judge prevents a certain key witness from testifying or makes an erroneous legal ruling, the party against which that ruling was made can appeal that specific issue to a higher court. If that party is successful on appeal, the case will usually get remanded back to the lower court with instructions on how to proceed.

Another exception to the general rule of finality is in a post-trial motion arguing that the jury’s verdict was against the weight of the evidence. These motions, brought after both parties have closed and the jury has entered a verdict, argue that the jury came to the wrong conclusion given the evidence presented.

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Earlier this month, an appellate court issued a written opinion in a Florida car accident lawsuit that illustrates the difficulties some motorists encounter when filing insurance claims after an accident. The case presented the court with the opportunity to discuss when a plaintiff’s failure to fulfill a “condition precedent” prior to filing a claim with his own insurance company can be fatal to a plaintiff’s claim. The court concluded that, generally, such a failure will prevent the plaintiff from recovering damages; however, when the insurance company fails to raise the issue in a timely manner, the objection will be considered waived.

The Facts of the Case

The plaintiff sustained injuries in a Florida car accident. The plaintiff was a passenger in a car that was being operated by her father. The plaintiff claimed that the other driver was at fault, but that driver did not have adequate insurance coverage to compensate the plaintiff for the injuries she sustained.

At the time of the collision, the plaintiff was covered under two insurance policies:  her mother’s policy with Allstate and her father’s policy with Geico. Both policies had underinsured/uninsured motorist insurance. The Geico policy’s limit was $20,000, and the Allstate policy’s limit was $25,000. The Allstate policy contained an “other insurance” clause, stating that the insured must exhaust all other insurance policies available before a claim under the Allstate policy.

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In any South Florida personal injury case, one of the judge’s primary roles is to instruct the jury on the applicable law of the case. To help make sure that all Florida judges are providing similar instructions to juries across the state, a set of standard jury instructions has been created. The standard jury instructions provide the jurors with guidance, asking the jurors to answer individual questions that eventually lead to the ultimate conclusion. Once the jurors answer the questions, the judge will announce the decision and render a verdict.

In Florida, there are several types of product liability claims, including manufacturing defect and design defect claims. When a Florida product liability case is brought under a theory of strict liability, Standard Jury Instruction 403.7 applies. Strict liability can be seen as “liability without fault,” meaning that a defendant manufacturer can be found liable without a determination that the manufacturer was negligent. In other words, the mere fact that the product was unreasonably dangerous is sufficient to establish liability.

Instruction 403.7 pertains to both design defect and manufacturing defect claims, and it allows for a manufacturer to be held liable when a product is “unreasonably dangerous.” The instruction defines an “unreasonably dangerous” product as one that “fails to perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect when used as intended or when used in a manner reasonably foreseeable by the manufacturer and/or the risk of danger in the design outweighs the benefits.”

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Hurricane Irma wreaked havoc across much of South Florida last month, leaving many residents with the monumental task of rebuilding their lives in the wake of the storm. Some Floridians were lucky and were able to avoid the storm for the most part, making their transition to post-hurricane life smooth. However, for others, fallen trees, damaged roofs and windows, and extreme water damage caused significant property damage, requiring tens of thousands of dollars to rebuild, if not more.

For most affected homeowners, their South Florida property insurance policy should cover much of the damage they sustained in the storm. Indeed, according to a recent news report, there have been approximately 562,000 insurance claims filed related to Hurricane Irma damage. Added up, these claims represent about a $3.6 billion loss, and that figure is expected to increase with time. Most of the claims came from Miami-Dade, Orange, Broward, and Lee Counties.

Given the number of claims filed in South Florida last month, one may expect that a homeowner will face significant delays when waiting for their claim to be approved. In addition, if the insurance company does not agree with the homeowner’s claim amount, it may offer a reduced figure in hopes of a quick settlement. A desperate homeowner in need of financial assistance to rebuild their life may be tempted by such an offer; however, an insurance company’s initial offer is rarely non-negotiable.

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Contact Information
Plantation Office
8211 W Broward Blvd #460
Plantation, FL 33324
Phone: (954) 653-9969
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2332 Galiano St, 2nd Floor
Coral Gables, FL 33134
Phone: (305) 259-7100
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West Palm Beach, FL 33401
Phone: (561) 275-1010
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450 N Park Rd, #803
Hollywood, FL 33021
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