Car Accidents

April 12, 2016

Roddey v. Wal-Mart Stores – Shoplifter Wrongful Death Case Proceeds

Usually, perpetrators fleeing a crime scene will be afforded little protection under the law for injuries they sustain as a result.

However, there are exceptions and it’s important to consider that under Florida’s comparative fault statute, F.S. 768.81, those who are partially to blame for their own injuries can still collect damages from others who shared responsibility.

The recent case of Roddey v. Wal-Mart, though not a Florida case, is a good example of this. In this South Carolina Supreme Court case, justices were asked to decide whether lower courts erred in issuing a directed verdict in favor of a store whose contracted security guard chased down an alleged shoplifter – with fatal consequences. Continue reading

April 8, 2016

Hughes v. Farmers Auto Ins. Ass’n – Per-Accident Insurance Limits

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

In many Fort Lauderdale car accident cases, the amount of damages available will be determined by how much insurance coverage is involved.

Auto insurance policy limits are generally expressed as:

Amount per person;
Amount per accident.

So let’s say there is a policy that allows $100,000 per person and up to $150,000 per accident. That would mean if only one person is hurt, he or she could collect up to $100,000. However, if two people equally suffer $100,000 in damages, the most either could collect would be $75,000 – because the policy limit is $150,000. Continue reading

April 5, 2016

De La Torre v. Gallardo – Florida Dram Shop Law

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

When a drunk driver crashes into your vehicle in Florida, what recourse do you have to recover damages?

The answer depends on the underlying circumstances, but generally, you will want to explore:

The at-fault driver/ insurance;
The owner of the vehicle/ insurance;
The employer of the at-fault driver (if he or she was working);
The establishment that served the at-fault driver alcohol.

That last one – which falls under Florida’s dram shop law – will only work if the drunk driver was either under 21 or known to the establishment to be habitually addicted to alcohol. Per F.S. 768.125, those are the only circumstances under which an establishment may be held accountable for the injurious actions of a drunk driver. Continue reading

March 25, 2016

Rish v. Simao – Low Impact Car Accident Defense

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

Just because a Fort Lauderdale car accident occurs at relatively low speeds does not mean it cannot cause serious injuries. Consider that a typical passenger car weighs about 2,000 pounds. If that vehicle makes impact at 10 mph, it’s going to strike with 3.7 tons of force.

Of course, this has the potential to cause injuries.

Still, that won’t prevent the at-fault driver from asserting the low-impact defense if they can help it. They will try to introduce as evidence pictures of the minimal amount of damage to the vehicle. They may also introduce witness testimony to illustrate the crash occurred in stop-and-go traffic or while vehicles were not traveling fast. They may also highlight the fact that plaintiff refused medical attention immediately after the crash, insinuating that plaintiff may be exaggerating the extent of his or her injuries. Continue reading

March 20, 2016

Report: U.S. Drivers are Distracted More Than Half the Time

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

One of the biggest and most precise studies to date on the problem of distracted driving in the U.S. has been released. The results are not good.

Researchers with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, in a new paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that Americans are in some way distracted more than 50 percent of the time when they are behind the wheel. Of all the crashes the study authors observed, almost 70 percent involved some type of “observable” distraction. That means the actual number is probably even higher, as humans can be easily distracted even by their own thoughts.

But it gets worse: The U.S. used to be one of the safest place for motorists. Prior to the early aughts, we had fewer traffic deaths per mile traveled than most other developed countries. Today, we rank 17th out of 29. Continue reading

March 16, 2016

Family Wins $124M for Car Accident Injury From Seat Defect

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

A defective car seat resulted in permanent and profound injuries to a then-7-year-old boy.

Now, a jury in Texas has awarded his family $124 million, assigning 55 percent of the blame to the car manufacturer. Another 25 percent of the blame was assigned to the driver who rear-ended the car he was in. His father was assigned 20 percent liability, because neither he nor his son, who was seated directly behind him, were wearing a seat belt.

This tragic case highlights not only the estimated 100 serious injuries – mostly to children – that resulted from this specific defect since 1989, but also the fact that defective vehicles resulted in a record 900 recalls last year. In total, 51 million vehicles were taken off the market for a myriad of dangerous aspects, from defective airbags to dysfunctional brakes. Continue reading

March 14, 2016

Florida Supreme Court: Insurers Can’t Unreasonably Delay

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

The Florida Supreme Court recently made it clear that auto insurance companies don’t have the right to ward off bad faith lawsuits after years of unreasonable delays, denials and non-response by paying the policy limits at the last minute.

In Fridman v. Safeco Ins. Co. of Ill., the court denied a bid by the insurer to assert it couldn’t have acted in bad faith because it did finally pay the insured. But bad faith by insurers can be revealed as much as much by the timing of the payment as the amount.

And in this case, the plaintiff – a man who was injured in a car accident by an underinsured driver – waited four full years to get a check from the insurance company. And even then, it came with settlement agreement language that effectively barred him from taking further action to collect anything further. He refused to accept it, and it was another six months before the insurer sent him another check with no such language.

But by that time, plaintiff was set on pursuing a bad faith insurance action. In Florida, people can file either a first- or third-party lawsuit against insurance companies for delaying or denying reasonable claims for benefits under the policy. If the court finds the insurer was liable for the underlying claim and acted in bad faith toward the insured, it can be made to pay triple damages. That’s not three times the policy limit – that’s three times the actual damages. Continue reading

March 6, 2016

Brown v. Davis – $3 Million Accident Verdict Upheld

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

A $3 million damage award for the wrongful death of a husband and father killed in a car accident was upheld recently by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

In Brown v. Davis, decedent was killed on a bridge crossing over the Mississippi River between Illinois and Missouri. His injuries occurred when a huge “log skidder” tractor fell off of a large truck and onto his vehicle.

The truck was driven by one defendant for his uncle, another defendant, who owned a logging company, also named as defendant. Plaintiff was decedent’s wife and mother of his two children. She alleged defendant’s were negligent because driver failed to exercise due caution, the owner of the vehicle failed to block oncoming traffic and the company was vicariously liable. Continue reading

March 2, 2016

Study: Technology Could Curb Florida Rear-End Accidents

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

Just weeks ago, a driver operating a passenger car rear-ended a Broward County public school bus on Northeast Ninth Avenue in Fort Lauderdale. The entire hood of the black Acura TSX was underneath the bus.

No one was seriously injured, but as evidenced by news reports, these kinds of incidents aren’t all that common. If someone could miss a large yellow bus looming in front of them, it stands to reason smaller vehicles stopped in traffic are at higher risk. AAA reports distracted driving accounts for between a quarter and half of all crashes, and likely an even larger chunk of rear-end crashes.

Drivers simply aren’t paying attention to what’s happening in front of them. In fact, a recent Virginia Tech study, “Second Strategic Highway Research Program Naturalistic Driving Study,” found after analyzing three years’ worth of footage that 75 percent of crashes are due to driver error and people are engaged in distracted behavior 68 percent of the time they are behind the wheel. Continue reading

February 23, 2016

Florida Bill Seeks End to Traffic Crash Drownings

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

Last year, a University of Central Florida student left a friend’s house to pick up her mother and grandmother from the airport at 4 a.m. She never arrived. After reportedly falling asleep at the wheel, 21-year-old Chloe Arenas careened off the road and into an unguarded retention pond. Having lost consciousness from the impact of the crash, she drowned.

Now, her best friend is advocating for legislative change on her behalf. She has spoken out to lawmakers in support of a Florida bill that would require state and local transportation officials to install barriers near retention ponds and other bodies of water identified as dangerous or where other motorists have died after leaving the roadway.

The measure, called Chloe’s Law, is named after the young Orlando woman who “died in a completely preventable accident.” The bill has passed its first House committee. Continue reading