Fort Myers car accident lawyer

Helmetless Motorcyclists at Greater Risk Under New Florida Law

November 2, 2023 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

On July 1, 2023, a new law went into effect in Florida that could have a significant impact on helmetless motorcyclists. HB837, also known as the “Comparative Fault” bill, changes how personal injury lawsuits are handled in the state.

Under the old law, Florida followed a system of pure comparative negligence. This meant that even if a plaintiff was partially at fault for their own injuries, they could still recover damages from the defendant, as long as the defendant was also at fault. The amount of damages that the plaintiff could recover would be reduced in proportion to their own negligence.

However, HB837 changes Florida to a modified comparative negligence system with a 51% bar. This means that if a plaintiff is found to be 51% or more at fault for their own injuries, they cannot recover any damages from the defendant, even if the defendant was also at fault.

Florida Woman Injured When Car Crashes Into Her House

December 26, 2017 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

A Florida woman was seriously injured when a car came crashing into her Orange County home one recent Tuesday morning as she sat at her kitchen table. The 61-year-old driver reportedly failed to negotiate a curve as she approached the house. The homeowner was pinned until first responders arrived. She was transported to a hospital for treatment, and is expected to survive, The Orlando Sentinel reported.

The driver, who suffered minor injuries, was ticketed for careless driving and told authorities she has no memory of what happened.

Although it can be tempting to write off such an incident as bizarre and isolated, the reality is many homes, business and even government buildings are vulnerable to this kind of assault. Continue reading ›

Coming and Going Rule Analyzed in Crashes Involving Workers

November 5, 2017 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

If you’re injured in a car accident or have lost someone you love in a crash, one of the questions important to ask is whether the negligent driver was acting in the course and scope of their employment. This matters because if they were furthering the interests of their employer at the time of the crash, the employer could be held vicariously liable.

Vicarious liability of employees is allowed thanks to the doctrine of respondeat superior, which is Latin for, “let the master answer.” Vicarious liability does not require a showing that the company necessarily did anything wrong. Rather, one must show the employee – acting on behalf of the employer – was negligent. We see this a lot in trucking accident cases or bus accident cases, but it can also be applied with many other types of workers as well. In our increasingly mobile workforce, it’s not uncommon for employees to be on the move regularly throughout the course of their work day, or to be running errands for their employer outside of normal business hours.

In cases of professional drivers, vicarious liability may be easy to establish because it’s the employee’s job to drive. If they were on-the-clock, it’s pretty easily settled. However, there are some nuances to this. Some of the same legal doctrines that apply in workers’ compensation cases can come into play in these cases too. Continue reading ›

Florida Given “Red Light” by Highway Safety Advocates

February 17, 2017 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

Florida received one of the worst rankings for gaps in highway safety laws, which are costing lives on our roads every day. The ranking was issued by Advocates for Highway Auto Safety in its most recent report, 2017 Roadmap of State Highway Safety Laws. The 58-page report begins by detailing the fact that we’ve had two consecutive years nationally of rising death rates on our roads. In 2015, there were nearly 35,100 people killed in motor vehicle accidents, an 8 percent increase over the previous year. That’s a bigger increase than we’ve seen in almost 50 years, and Florida has followed similar trends.

The Florida Department of Transportation reported in 2015 that there were 374,350 total crashes that year, an increase of almost 9 percent from the previous year. As far as fatal crashes, there were 2,700 in 2015, which was an increase of 15.5 percent from the year before. There were an average of 1,025 crashes every day in the Sunshine State in 2015, versus 943 the previous year.

One of the main reasons, according to Roadmap researchers, has to do with the fact that states are failing to enact – or maintain – the kinds of legislation that we know can help save lives. Florida in particular is failing on this front. Continue reading ›

Report: Uptick in Traffic Deaths Outpaces Travel Increases

February 17, 2017 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

When word spread that traffic deaths had increased 8 percent in the first nine months of 2016, continuing an alarming surge in roadway fatalities, one of the many explanations offered by traffic safety experts was that there were more people on the roads. However, as The Associated Press pointed out, this is only half the story.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did note that drivers are logging more miles on the road these days than ever before. However, that doesn’t really give us the full picture because the increase in car accident deaths is actually rising faster than our collective increases in mileage. While crash deaths are up 8 percent, vehicle miles traveled only rose 3 percent during that time frame, according to the NHTSA.

In the first three quarters of 2016, there were nearly 27,900 traffic deaths nationally. That’s compared to the 25,800 recorded during the first eight months of 2015. Continue reading ›

Report: Lee County Traffic Deaths Soar More Than 10 Percent in 2016

January 13, 2017 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

The number of traffic deaths in Lee County soared higher than at any point in a decade – and more than 10 percent in just a single year.

That’s according to the latest report from The New-Press, which as of Jan. 1st still only had numbers through early December 2016. There were more than 100 deaths by that time, which is the first time they went over that mark since 2007. And actually, the early 2016 figure was slightly higher – 109 compared to the 106 counted in 2007. There were 121 in 2006 and 150 in 2005. But the numbers had been steady falling the last ten years. The number of Lee County roadway deaths dipped to the lowest point in 2012, when there were 64 who lost their lives on our roadways.

These figures fail to take into account the hundreds of more people who were seriously injured – sometimes permanently – as a result of careless drivers in Southwest Florida. Statewide, the news agency reported there were 3,161 traffic deaths as of Dec. 30th. That marked an increase of 222 over the previous year – and didn’t include figures from the notoriously perilous New Year’s Eve. Continue reading ›

Small v. Sayre – Making Your Injury Lawsuit Appealable

December 16, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

The goal of any civil injury litigation attorney is to either resolve the matter favorably for a client in a pre-trial settlement or to secure a winning verdict at trial. Unfortunately, law, as in life, is not always so clean-cut, and some cases prove more challenging than others. At Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner, Attorneys for the Injured, we believe in our cases and our clients and we will fight tirelessly to obtain fair compensation for their injuries.

However, we also recognize that in some situations, appealing part or all of a verdict may be in a client’s best interest. For this reason, it is imperative to make your injury lawsuit appealable. The legal war isn’t necessarily over when you receive an unfavorable trial court judgment. In some cases, you can appeal that finding. Doing so could result in a reversal, an order for a new trial or an order for increased damages. In order to get to that point, your case needs to be appealable.

What does this mean? In general, it includes:

Keeping the record clean by immediately correcting any misstatement by the court or the opposing counsel;
Taking remedial measures to clean up prejudicial evidence and preserve the evidence if it remains (i.e., filing a motion for mistrial if prejudicial evidence gets before a jury);
Preserve objections to the court’s imperfect jury instructions;
Preserve appellate arguments post-trial with careful post-trial motions (i.e., motions for judgment notwithstanding verdict, motions to modify/ correct/ reform judgment, motions for a new trial, etc.)

Martin v. Powers – Can Rental Car Be Uninsured for UM Coverage Purposes?

November 15, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

People might assume that a vehicle legally owned by a multi-million dollar corporation is adequately insured. But when it comes to rental cars, they may find themselves disappointed.

Approximately 1 in 4 drivers in Florida has no insurance, despite law that requires it. Florida’s vicarious liability laws consider motor vehicles to be a dangerous instrumentality, which means vehicle owners (if different from the driver) can be held responsible for injuries caused – even if the owner wasn’t directly negligent. It used to be that rental car companies were included. However, the 2005 passage of a federal law known as the Graves Amendment eliminated this avenue of financial recovery. The Graves Amendment, codified in 49 U.S.C. 30106, preempts and abolishes any state statute or common law precedent that held rental or leasing agencies vicariously liable for the negligent actions of their drivers – except when the owner was negligent or engaged in criminal wrongdoing.

When drivers rent a vehicle, he or she is given the option to purchase insurance through the rental car company. However, they aren’t required to do so and many don’t. Further, it’s not unheard of for rental car companies to rent vehicles to drivers with no insurance. But that effectively leaves the vehicle with no insurance in the event of a crash. So what’s the best way to protect yourself? Uninsured/ underinsured motorist coverage. Yet even then, as the recent case of Martin v. Powers shows, injured plaintiffs may still find themselves in for a fight. Continue reading ›

$3M Wrongful Death Lawsuit Judgment Upheld Against State DOT in NC

November 11, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

The North Carolina Department of Transportation is still liable to pay $3 million for the deaths of three people on a state roadway where a traffic signal was promised but never installed. That was the ruling handed down recently by the North Carolina Supreme Court in Holt v. N.C. DOT.

The state appealed the trial court verdict that found it was liable, despite the argument that fault rested solely with two drivers who were drag racing at speeds that topped nearly 90 mph. Justices ruled that fact didn’t negate the DOT’s responsibility to install this traffic light – one engineers knew was needed. Although state officials argued they could not anticipated every illegal action that might take place on a public road, the state high court justices found that speeding vehicles was a foreseeable possibility.

Victims in this case include a local professor and her 2-year-old daughter, who were on their way to church, and a 13-year-old boy who was returning from a nearby amusement park. According to appellate court records, the 13-year-old was riding in a vehicle with his 11-year-old friend, driven by a 20-year-old man. When the driver stopped for traffic at one intersection, he and decedent noticed two female friends in an adjacent vehicle. They began joking and gesturing at one another. When the light turned green, both drivers took off at a high rate of speed in the same direction, approaching the intersection where the professor was preparing to make a left turn. The two young drivers were engaging in a race in which speeds reached 86 mph. Continue reading ›

When Fort Myers Car Accidents Are Caused by Poor Road Conditions

October 30, 2016 | Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner

While 90 percent of all auto accidents are caused by human mistakes, 1 in 10 are caused by some other factor, including poor road conditions. That could include some dangers posed by inclement weather, but primarily, we’re talking about conditions of the actual road or traffic engineering that make it unsafe.

Some examples might include:

Obscured road signs;
Worn/ uneven surfaces;
Defective guardrails;
Tar overbanding;
Potholes;
Poor drainage;
Ill-positioned tree/ pole/ bridge;
Faded paint on the road;
Inoperative/ non-existent traffic signals.

All these elements are the responsibility of city, county or state governments to maintain. A 2009 study commissioned by the Transportation Construction Coalition revealed that over the course of 18 months, poor highway design and conditions are a factor (if not the cause) of about half of all fatal traffic accidents in the U.S. Study authors opined bad highway design played a role in more motor vehicle deaths than speeding, failure to wear a seat belt and alcohol use. Continue reading ›