Miami Accident Lawyer Blog

June 29, 2015

Three Reasons to Hire a Miami Personal Injury Lawyer

You are driving along a major road in Broward County, Miami Beach, Coral Cables, or any other locality in Florida when you get t-boned by another vehicle. The damage to your vehicle is extensive and you suffer serious physical injuries in the collision. Should you hire a Miami personal injury lawyer? This is an important question many Floridians struggle with. You may have heard some erroneous information about lawyers and needing to pay a big retainer fee to even speak to a lawyer for a few minutes. Do not hesitate. Below are three important reasons why it makes sense for you to speak to a Miami, FL injury lawyer.

Insurance Companies Treat People Differently if They Don’t Have a Lawyer

Make no mistake about it. When an insurance adjuster gets a call or letter from an unrepresented claimant, they routinely treat that claimant differently. In fact, many insurance adjusters will try to reach out to you shortly after the accident and offer a quick settlement before you even think about contacting an experienced Miami personal injury attorney. There have even been instances where an insurance adjuster will mislead a claimant and say, “You don’t need a lawyer. They’ll just take a big chunk of your settlement and leave you with a pittance.”

June 22, 2015

Do You Need Experts in a “Simple” Auto Accident Case?

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

It may seem like a personal injury trial that involves an automobile accident, especially one with clear liability, would not need an abundance of experts to make a case to a jury. In fact, to many people, in cases where negligence is clear, the case may seem “easy.” But in fact, even a straightforward auto injury case, can end up involving a multitude of experts.

Who is an Expert?

An expert is needed to testify about matters that require more than what a layperson would know in a given field. In fact, it may even require testimony beyond what someone who is just working in a given field would ordinarily know.

June 18, 2015

Sovereign Immunity Can Affect Your Case if You Don’t Know Where to Look for it

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

Suing the government, whether it is the city or state or an arm or branch of government, seems like a given right. But in many countries, citizens have no right to sue the government because of a doctrine called sovereign immunity. Like many states in the U.S., Florida has enacted laws that specifically allow citizens to sue the government, thus waiving sovereign immunity.

Still, the government can’t be sued the same way private companies or people can. Sovereign immunity has many advantages to the government and its agencies, including a limitation on how much can be recovered in damages by an injured victim.

Who Gets Sovereign Immunity?

June 15, 2015

Bias Evidence Can Hurt, as Well as Help, Injury Victims

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

A few weeks back, we discussed how the relationship between a defendant and the doctors or experts testifying on his behalf can be discovered by the Plaintiff to be used as evidence of bias. Generally, the longer and more sustained the relationship between a party and a doctor, the more likely it is that a jury will infer that the expert’s testimony is biased towards that party.

But defendants also like to use the victim’s lawyers relationship with physicians as a weapon as well, in an attempt to avoid its own responsibility for its negligent acts.

How Clients are Referred to Doctors

June 10, 2015

Closing Argument is Not the Free-for-All That it Often Appears to Be

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

When there are trials on television or in movies, it is common that they skip or edit out much of the evidentiary arguments, the direct examinations, and often even opening statement. But one area that seems to be a great point of entertainment is the closing argument.

The public seems to be fascinated with closing arguments, which appear to be a free-for-all, where attorneys can say what they want and act how they want, often moving a jury to tears. But in fact, there are rules about what can and can’t be said at closing, many of which are ignored by pop culture’s depictions of trials.

The Rules of Closing Arguments

June 8, 2015

Can a Law Change Affect the Rights of a Malpractice Victim Retroactively?

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

When a law changes, the question often arises as to when it is actually effective and whether it can affect or change the rights of parties that may have filed a lawsuit when the old laws were in effect. A new case discusses this principle in the context of medical malpractice.

Law Changes and Retroactivity

It is generally accepted that when a law changes that affects substantive rights, the law change is not retroactive. If the law changed to say that you could only own two dogs, for example, and you already owned three, the change would not apply to you. Law changes that only change procedure (such as how the courts operate), however, generally are retroactive.

June 1, 2015

Slip and Fall Case Questions Whether College is a Business

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

When a lawsuit is filed for injuries that stem from a slip and fall, there are certain things that a personal injury lawyer expects to be questioned. Was the defendant negligent? How severely is the client injured and how do we show those injuries to a jury? But every now and then a personal injury case involves a question that you just can’t anticipate.

Fall Occurs on Broward College Campus

In a recent case, a victim slipped and fell on a substance in an elevator at Broward College (BC)(formerly Broward Community College). She sued BC for negligence, alleging that BC knew or in the exercise or ordinary and due care, should have known, of the existence of the substance.

May 29, 2015

You Could Have a Statute of Limitations Problem Even If You’ve Already Filed a Lawsuit

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

The statute of limitations is the time limit when a lawsuit must be filed. After that time expires, a lawsuit cannot be filed, and a victim will be forever barred from recovery for injuries.

In many injury cases, the statute of limitations (SOL) won’t be an issue—hopefully, a victim will find an attorney relatively quickly, and that attorney will file suit well within the time frame allowed. But there is a hidden SOL problem that many attorneys may not be aware of, that could forever bar a party’s right to recover, even when a lawsuit has already been filed.

Naming the Proper Party

May 28, 2015

A Victim Can Obtain Information About a Defendant’s Expert’s Bias

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

In many personal injury cases, a verdict can turn on the use and effectiveness of expert witnesses. And more than any other type, the expert witnesses in personal injury trials are often doctors who provide testimony as to the nature, severity, and extent of someone’s injuries.

The Need for Expert Bias Discovery

While most victims will use their own doctors and have those doctors testify, defendants will often use outside, non-treating doctors, to provide testimony. Those doctors can’t provide an opinion based on treating the victim, because they’re not the victim’s doctor. But they can and often do render an opinion based on review of medical records, or even a one-time medical examination of the victim.

May 22, 2015

When Does the Impact Rule in Emotional Distress Cases Apply?

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

In many cases, someone who is injured as a result of another’s negligence may not have physical injuries, but rather, emotional injuries. There are many examples where mental anguish or trauma may be even more significant than any physical harm that could have been sustained.

Although we live in an age where mental health awareness is more prevalent than ever, the law has been slow to adapt to mental injuries that don’t stem from physical ones. There has long been concern that allowing people to recover for only mental distress, with no physical injury or impact, will lead to false claims, and is too difficult for a defendant to disprove.

The Impact Rule