North Miami

Published March 22nd, 2021

Proposals to ban damage claims for covid infection are rapidly turning into action.

The GOP-dominated Florida Legislature is moving ahead with bills that would restrict claims against businesses, churches, schools, doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes for failing to protect from COVID. Among the restrictions on the table:

• One-year statute of limitations

• Requiring a showing of “gross negligence” or “intentional misconduct”

• Requiring a physician’s affidavit stating the defendant’s acts or omission were to blame

• Immunity upon a showing of substantial compliance with government health standards or guidelines

These enactments would supposedly protect business, industry and healthcare from a theoretical “avalanche of frivolous lawsuits.” But union leaders for frontline, essential workers say this is like a slap in the face, telling businesses they don’t have to worry about being responsible.

Published March 2nd, 2021

It’s a bad day when you have to tell a seriously injured client that the other driver had no “bodily injury” insurance, and therefore, you can’t help them.

That happens all too often in Florida, where drivers are required to carry “property damage” insurance, which pays if you damage someone’s car, but not “bodily injury” coverage, which pays if you maim or kill someone. That doesn’t seem right.

Presently Florida lawmakers are considering massive changes to Florida’s system of assuring “financial responsibility” on the road, or, in other words, making sure drivers are capable of paying for the harm they cause.
Proposals presently call for doing away with No Fault Insurance also known as Personal Injury Protection (PIP), which pays up to $10,000.00 in benefits to cover your medical bills and lost wages regardless of whether or not you were at fault.

Instead, drivers would be required to maintain bodily injury coverage of at least $25,000.00 per person and $50,000.00 per accident. But then, it is asked, who pays the emergency room bill, if you don’t have PIP? And will this result in a lawsuit for every fender bender?

If passed, these changes would undo decades of law going back to the 70’s. Back then, Florida joined many other states in adopting “no fault insurance” as a means of limiting personal injury awards by restricting damages for pain and suffering only to cases where there is proof of a “permanent injury.” But as it turned out, PIP has not reduced litigation. On the contrary, it’s fostered litigation.

Published February 11th, 2021

Sidewalk trip-and-fall cases are very difficult to win. The local municipality always points out, correctly, that it’s impossible to monitor sidewalk conditions on every street in town all the time. So the challenge becomes to show not that they should have known about the defect, but that they actually did know about it.

Take the case of my client, a lovely middle-aged lady who sustained serious injuries after a fall on a sidewalk in Palm Beach County.
Through public records requests, we learned that the city manager where my client had fallen had written the Florida Department of Transportation twice complaining about hazardous conditions on the sidewalk in the area where my client later fell.

Twice, the Florida Department of Transportation replied to the City Manager by pointing out, correctly, that the defective sidewalks were the responsibility of the city, not the Florida Department of Transportation.
We took the video deposition of the City Manager, and put this exchange of correspondence in front of him and on the record, with the defense attorney sitting there powerless to stop us.

A six-figure settlement and the gratitude of a happy client ensued.

Published January 28th, 2021

As a former investigative reporter-turned-personal injury attorney, one of the sharpest arrows in my quiver is the Florida Public Records Act, Chapter 119 of Florida Statues.

The Public Records Act decrees that it is the policy of the state that its records shall be open to the public. When investigating certain accidents, this can be invaluable.

Three best practices:

• Identify the records custodian to whom you direct your request by name. That way, if you have to sue, you will have a specific individual you can name as defendant, such as “John Jones, Public Works Director as Records custodian, City Public Works Department.”

• If the records aren’t produced after a reasonable time, say at least 30 days, you must send a Notice of Intent to sue so that you will be entitled to an attorney’s fee if you have to sue.

• If then the records are not forthcoming, you have the right to sue in circuit court, and recover in addition to the records, attorney’s fees and court costs.