Miami Accident Lawyer Blog

September 9, 2014

Bad Jury Instructions Can Lead to Problems Later On

When a personal injury case gets submitted to a jury, the jury doesn’t just automatically know what questions it must decide on, nor does it know what kind of law applies. It’s up to the parties, at the conclusion of a trial to instruct a jury to give them guidance on how to rule. That’s normally done by submitting jury instructions.

Both parties must agree to the instructions, and when they can’t it’s often a judge that will make the final decisions.

Those instructions are vitally important. As you can imagine, subtle wording can persuade a jury, and misstating the law, or what the parties have to prove to win, can be the difference between winning and losing. And when jury instructions are incorrect or inaccurate, it can create huge problems, such was the case in a recent appeal to Florida’s Third District Court of Appeals.

August 25, 2014

The Truth About Dog Bites

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

There are some legal fictions that seem to exist no matter how true or untrue they are. One such fiction is the so-called “one free bite rule.” This is the belief that a dog can bite someone the first time without the owner being liable, but the second time there’s liability. This is actually not true in Florida, though.

Dog Bite Laws

The law is clear that if a dog bites you, the owner is responsible for your injuries, regardless of whether Fido has ever bitten someone in the past, and regardless of the dog’s propensities for being a sweetheart or a killer in the past. There are some exceptions to this law:

August 19, 2014

Miami Judge Declares Florida’s Workers’ Compensation Laws Unconstitutional

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

In a bold decision, Miami Dade’s Judge Cueto struck down Florida’s Workers’ Compensation statute as unconstitutional. The ruling is considered a victory for injured workers.

The History of Workers’ Compensation

Before workers’ compensation, employees injured on the job sued their employers in the same manner other victims sued over their injuries. Legislatures eventually realized this was not fair for many workers, as personal injury suits frequently took a long time to settle. Worse, some on-the-job injuries did not result from negligence, but merely from working in an inherently dangerous job. Many injured workers had little or no monetary relief for their injuries.

August 12, 2014

The Confusing Laws for Victims With Only Emotional or Mental Damages

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

Victims of injuries very often suffer not only physical injuries, but emotional ones as well. Anxiety, fear, post traumatic stress disorder, and any number of mental ailments are natural consequences of injury, and damages for these injuries can be recovered from a liable party in a personal injury suit. But what if you have only mental or emotional injuries, without physical injury? In these cases, the law makes it much tougher to recover damages.

Situations Where Victims Might Have Only Emotional/Mental Damages

In many cases, someone may suffer no physical injury or impact at all, but still have mental or emotional injury. Emotional damage can stem from an event that happened to you, or from witnessing something happen to a loved one. Some common examples of situations where there may only be emotional damage would be:

August 7, 2014

Suing the State Can Be an Uphill Battle

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

If you are injured by an agency of the state or city government, or any public entity, you are entitled to recover damages for your injuries. Governments, just like private companies, can be sued for negligence. However, government entities are often protected by what is known as “sovereign immunity,” a concept that can make suing and recovering, much more difficult for injured Florida victims.

What is Sovereign Immunity?

Sovereign Immunity has its roots from the days when we were an English colony. It means that you can’t sue the King—in modern days of course, “the King” being the government (sometimes called “the sovereign”). In many countries, citizens can’t sue their governments at all. But in Florida as well as many other states, the state has consented by statute to allow itself to be sued for certain things, and only up to a certain amount.

July 31, 2014

Child Injured in Sumo Suit Raises Liability Questions

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

A Florida charter school is being sued by a student for personal injuries arising from a traumatic brain injury suffered during an organized and sanctioned school function featuring, of all things, Sumo Wrestling. The tragedy brings up questions about who is at fault when events such as these go wrong; our Miami injury attorneys may be able to provide valuable answers.

What Exactly Happened?

The event featured large, inflatable suits, which children (and adults) fit themselves into. The size of the suit is supposed to allow them to smash into each other in the same way that a sumo wrestler might, and also allows the user to tumble, roll around, and bounce off the floor and walls, presumably protected by the large inflatable “body” that they are fitted inside of. The activity is often used at carnivals or festivals, and can even be rented for private functions.

July 24, 2014

Falling in the Wrong Location Can Affect Your Right to Recover Damages

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

If you trip and fall on someone else’s property because a dangerous condition existed, such as, for example, a wet substance, the property owner should be liable for your injuries. At least, that’s the basic idea behind premises liability. But the ability to show a business owner is liable for your injuries may actually hinge on where the dangerous condition was, and whether you had permission to be in the area you fell. Our Miami premises liability attorneys are prepared to help you recover compensation for your injuries.

Premises Liability and Trespassing

We’ve all been in the situation where we are in a store, hospital, or someone’s house, and had full permission to be there. But that doesn’t mean you have permission to be just anywhere on on the premises. What if you are in, for example, a grocery store, and you fall and injure yourself in the stockroom? Were you allowed to be there? What if the door to the stock room is open? What if an employee expressly tells you to go into the stockroom to find an item? What if you go into the stockroom and then venture into the employee lounge and fall there?

July 17, 2014

Malpractice Suits Are Often About More Than Compensation

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

A recent article from Forbes discussed the topic of medical malpractice lawsuits, particularly, how the motivation in filing a malpractice lawsuit is not always about a monetary damage award. Although many areas of personal injury law have emotional aspects to them which go beyond monetary awards, medical malpractice lawsuits and the emotion involved in them can be especially motivated by more than simply a damage award. It is critical to secure the services of a skilled Miami malpractice attorney to succeed in your case.

Recent Case of Malpractice

The Forbes article discussed a daughter whose mother was in a hospital. The mother was not doing well, and the patient’s daughter called the treating doctor to change medications. She was met with a refusal to even respond, with the treating doctor saying that it was a weekend and he needed a break. The mother eventually did survive, but the daughter, upset with the standard of care, and wanting to effect a change, opted to file a formal complaint with the governing medical board as opposed to filing a lawsuit.

July 8, 2014

Florida Governor Approves Law Limiting Liability For Nursing Home Abuse

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

Our Miami nursing home abuse attorneys have previously discussed unfortunate incidents in which elderly individuals were the victims of nursing home abuse and/or neglect. In August, we discussed a case in which a Florida jury awarded more than $1.1 billion to the son of a woman who had suffered abuse at the hands of a negligent Polk County nursing home. Apparently, that was not the first time the operators of that nursing home were under fire for such misconduct as a different Polk County jury awarded a $114 million verdict against the companies in another nursing home abuse case.

Falls Can Be a Sign of Nursing Home Abuse

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, falls are the leading cause of injury death and the most common cause of nonfatal injuries and hospital admissions for trauma in adults over 65. Further, the CDC estimates that 20-30% of falls result in moderate to severe injuries such as lacerations, hip fractures, or head traumas, and are the most common cause of traumatic brain injuries.

July 3, 2014

New Study Finds That Brain Injuries Increase With Bike-Sharing Programs

by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

Over the last year, our Miami personal injury lawyers have discussed the dangers associated with bicycling in Florida. Last September, 24-year-old bicyclist Jacob Landis was severely injured after being struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bicycle in the final leg of a cross-country cycling trip in Polk County, Florida. In October, a young couple, Rob Lemon and Hilary Michalak, died after being struck by a motorist while riding their tandem bike on the Memorial Causeway in Clearwater, Florida.

Florida a Dangerous Place for Cyclists

According to report by the NHTSA found that Florida’s bicyclist fatality rate consistently exceeded that of the rest of the United States and often ranked highest among the states. In 2011, Florida bicycle fatality rates were almost triple the national average, and, between 2010 and 2011, the bicycle fatality rate increased from 0.40 fatalities per 100,000 persons, to 0.63. In the same year, Florida made up only six percent of the U.S. population in 2011, but accounted for 17.4 percent of all U.S. bicycle fatalities.