Florida Injury Lawyer Blog

Etherton v. Owners Insurance Co. – Bad Faith Insurance After Car Accident

July 17, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

Auto insurance companies make lots of promises. They vow to be “on your side” and “like a good neighbor.” The truth of the matter is, when it comes time to pay a claim, they will do anything in their power NOT to pay it – or at least to minimize the amount they will compensate you.

Bad faith insurance action – when an insurance company fails to deal with a customer in good faith – the penalties may be quite severe. If a judge or jury holds an insurer liable for bad faith action, the insured may be paid triple the original damages. This is intended to deter such action in the first place.

Many actions can be categorized as “bad faith,” but we generally see it manifest in car accident claims through claims that are swiftly denied or wrongly delayed or in low-ball settlement offers that are far below what the claim is actually worth. Continue reading ›

Virtual Reality of Pokemon Go App Creates Real-World Liability Questions

July 15, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

To anyone looking on, it may have seemed like some kind of odd drug epidemic had swept South Florida. Dozens or even hundreds of people, wandering seemingly aimlessly around local parks, public libraries and college campuses.

Cape Coral Police Officer Ray Schilke first got wind of the phenomenon when he got a call of a suspicious person. The man was driving slowly through the park. “He looks like he’s watching people,” the caller told dispatch.

“That’s when things got a little bit hairy,” Schilke said in a now popular video. “He was playing Pokemon Go, and he was like 25-years-old.” Continue reading ›

Excessive Speed a Factor in Horrific Crash That Killed Family on Way to School Play

July 12, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

The family of four was on their way to a school play at a local high school. They were just minutes from it starting. Meanwhile, a 20-year-old driving a turbocharged BMW was heading home after picking up some Chinese takeout for his family. He was traveling at a mind-bending 115 mph – 70 mph over the speed limit on the Maryland road.

The crash was described by The Washington Post as “thunderous.” The BMW struck the Chevrolet Volt at a broadside angle. Although horrified onlookers tried valiantly to rescue the family in the Volt – uprooting a metal sign so they could fight to pry the door open, smashing the rear car window and a doctor who crawled into the car to try to administer medical attention – three of the four inside perished. The sole survivor lost her mother, father and her 18-year-old brother, her only sibling, in that crash. She suffered life-threatening injuries, but ultimately survived.

Meanwhile, the driver of that BMW was in hysterics nearby. “It’s all my fault!” he could be heard screaming. Continue reading ›

Wrong-Way Crashes Curse Florida Roads

July 7, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

Wrong-way crashes are becoming a serious problem on Southwest Florida roadways, and The News-Press recently explored this issue on both a micro-level and from a statewide perspective.

As The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) noted in its 2012 investigation into the issue, wrong-way driving tends to have very serious consequences – in fact much more so than other types of dangerous driving behaviors. Although it occurs relatively infrequently – about 3 percent of all accidents on high-speed, divided highway accidents – drivers are 27 times more likely to be killed in wrong-way crashes than in other types of accidents.

Local media picked up on the issue after a series of high-profile wrong-way crashes in Southwest Florida. One of those included a teenager killed in a Lehigh Acres car accident in which a wrong-way driver struck her head-on. Continue reading ›

Carter v. Kern High School District: $10M for Student Mascot Injury

July 7, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

A school district in California agreed to pay $10.5 million to a former student who suffered a brain injury after he was violently mobbed by classmates while dressed in a mock mascot uniform of the rival team.The traumatic brain injury occurred after the student begged school administrators to let him take the chicken suit off after he’d suffered an initial beating while wearing it. School officials, however, coerced him to go back out with it.

In Carter v. Kern High School District, the 24-year-old plaintiff, just 17 at the time of the 2010 attack, asserted he wore the chicken suit to the pep rally to make fun of the rival team. When he first did so, he was attacked by two students. He went to the school activities director, who forced him to continue wearing it by threatening him with having to pay the $75 rental fee if he refused to keep it on. He did as he was told.

However, during the rally, a number of students – including several of the school football players – dog piled up on top of him. He was hit, kicked and punched. It was supposed to be a “mock fight,” so officials never stepped in to intervene. After suffering a traumatic brain injury, plaintiff had to spend six months in a brain injury treatment center. He lost out on his senior year of high school. His classmates surpassed him in heading off to college. He continues to suffer the effects of the brain injury. His medical costs are expected to reach more than $5 million in the course of his life. The attack reportedly also damaged his pituitary gland, and he will be required to take growth hormones for the rest of his life. He also reportedly will require special education classes and ongoing therapy. Continue reading ›

New Safe Rental Car Act Now In Effect, Prohibits Use of Recalled Vehicles

July 4, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

It seems such a common-sense measure for rental car companies: Don’t rent out vehicles that have been recalled until they’ve been repaired.

But until June 1, 2016, there was no law stopped from them from doing so. Many rental car companies routinely rented to customers vehicles they knew were unsafe. Very few faced any consequences for it.

Then in 2004, two sisters, ages 20 and 24, picked up a rental car they assumed was safe. Little did they know, it had actually been recalled for leaking steering fluid. They were the fourth customers to rent the vehicle after the recall was announced. As they were driving, the steering fluid began to leak. The sister who was driving lost control of the car and slammed into a semi-truck before the car burst into flames, killing them both. Since then, their mother has been fighting to hold the rental car company accountable and to enact legislation that would ensure this never happened again. Continue reading ›

Deputies: Distracted Driving Kills 7-Year-Old in Fort Myers

July 2, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

The family of a 7-year-old girl is reeling from an unfathomable loss after she was struck and killed by an alleged distracted driver in front of her Fort Myers home.

It happened near her father’s house on Jupiter Road, where she was riding her tricycle.

The suspect, a 27-year-old man also from Fort Myers, was reportedly driving his work van, which belongs to a local roofing company. Witnesses told Lee County Sheriff’s deputies the driver, a relative of the girl, was distracted and waving to family members when he struck the girl. Authorities later discovered an open container of alcohol inside the work van, but investigators do not believe the driver was under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the crash. However, he did not have a license. Continue reading ›

Allen v. Montalvan – Florida Car Accident Settlements Involving Minors

June 30, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

Motor vehicle accidents are known to be the No. 1 killer of children in the U.S. under the age of 14. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates every year that more than 1,100 children are killed and 167,000 are injured in traffic crashes.

So it makes sense that a fair amount of car accident settlements would involve minors as interested parties. Florida law requires that anytime there is a settlement with a gross amount that meets or exceeds $50,000, the court must appoint a guardian ad litem to ensure the child’s interests are protected. This is outlined in F.S. 744.3025(1)(b). The law also allows the courts to appoint a guardian ad litem in any case for personal injury, property damage or wrongful death that exceeds $15,000 if the court believes it’s necessary to protect the minor’s interests. However, once that gross amount hits $50,000, the appointment is mandatory.

This was a sticking point in the recent case of Allen v. Montalvan, before Florida’s 4th District Court of Appeal. This was a tragic case in which a grandmother was killed while her two children (one adult) and two minor grandchildren were injured when a drunk driver slammed into their vehicle. The passengers, including the underage children, all suffered varying degrees of personal injury. Continue reading ›

Florida Motorcyclist Injured by Bus Collision to Sue the City

June 27, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

It was December when the 20-year-old young man from Tallahassee had just plunked down a down payment for his first motorcycle. He had some previous experience on the bike and was ready to commit to being a responsible bike owner himself. The bike was so new, in fact, he was on his way to the insurance office to obtain coverage when the motorcycle accident happened.

According to The Tallahassee Democrat, the driver behind the wheel of that Dial-A-Ride bus pleaded no contest in connection with the crash. A judge found her guilty of failure to yield to oncoming traffic with serious bodily injury to the victim. According to records, the bus driver for the service, which offers curb-to-curb pick-up for the elderly and those with disabilities, was making a left turn when she struck the young motorcyclist.

The same day she was adjudicated in court and her license was suspended for 90 days, she was assigned to other duties at the service – but not fired. In fact, the driver has a history of preventable collisions while driving city buses – seven total going back to 1998. Among those cases, reporters noted:

Striking a Honda Civic in 2006;
Slamming into the mirror of a parked sport utility vehicle;
Rear-ending another vehicle in 2012.

Collier County Jury Awards $5M in Fatal Marco Island Crash Lawsuit

June 24, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

A Collier County jury recently awarded $5.1 million the family of a 91-year-old woman killed in a Marco Island car accident caused by a man reportedly traveling 77 mph in a 30 mph zone before running a stop sign in November 2013.

The civil judgment comes almost exactly one year after the conclusion of the criminal case, in which the defendant, also from Marco Island, was sentenced to 14 years in prison. This was just one year less than the maximum 15 years he faced on the charge of vehicular manslaughter. Defendant had three prior DUI arrests and two tickets for excessive speeding. He was not charged with DUI manslaughter in this instance, prosecutors say, because only one official at the scene detected signs of impairment that might warrant a blood draw. Without that evidence, proving defendant was drunk at the time of the fatal crash was nearly impossible. Nonetheless, the criminal court judge apparently wasn’t swayed by his pleas for leniency that pointed out his participation in half a dozen charitable golf outings annually. His attorney asked for a maximum of three years. The judge gave him nearly five times that.

At the civil trial, plaintiffs attorneys presented evidence that defendant had consumed five shots of liquor and three beers in the hours just before the crash. A bartender at the establishment defendant had earlier patronized testified at trial. Continue reading ›