Broward Injury Lawyer Blog

September 20, 2019

How Does a Florida Car Accident Settlement Work?

Recovering physically is the first step after a serious car accident. But financial recovery is another key step. Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyer

No one ever plans to get in a car accident, so it’s understandable few have given much thought as to how the civil claims process will unfold. Some of the most common misconceptions include:

“I have to sue the other driver to collect damages.”
“My car accident claim will go to trial.”
“My auto insurance will cover me if I have serious injuries – that’s what it’s there for!”

The truth of the matter is, you may not have to sue anyone at all, and even if you do, your case isn’t likely to go to trial. Most Florida car accident injury claims are resolved through settlement negotiation. Continue reading

September 15, 2019

Payable on Death Accounts: What They Mean For Other Heirs

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

Florida payable on death accounts are financial tools used to keep funds shielded from the probate system. The money is held in a bank account with directions to transfer it to another person/beneficiary upon the primary account holder’s death.

The primary account holder can still access the money while they’re alive, and the recipient will receive whatever still remains in that account after the account holder’s death.

Payable on death accounts, as spelled out in F.S. 655.82 are sometimes the subject of inquiry to our Fort Lauderdale probate litigation attorneys. Let’s say you are the sole surviving heir of a parent. Their spouse has died. They have no other children. You might assume yourself the sole recipient of any of their assets, aside any creditors. However, that may not be the case if your parent had a payable on death account that named someone else the beneficiary. Continue reading

September 14, 2019

Nursing Home Abuse Lawsuit Will be Retried

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

The estate of an elderly, incapacitated woman who was sexually assaulted by a nursing assistant in an alleged case of nursing home abuse will have to take its case back to trial after a state supreme court reversed a $1.7 million award for damages and ordered the case retried. injury lawyer

Central to the decision to retry the case was the fact the trial court removed the question of whether the nursing home aide who reportedly raped the woman was acting in the course and scope of employment.

As Broward nursing home injury attorneys can explain, skilled nursing facilities can be held vicariously liable for the negligence and even intentional misconduct/criminal acts of employees – but only if they were acting in the course and scope of employment. This is known as the doctrine of respondeat superior, Latin for “let the master answer.”

In many cases wherein a plaintiff seeks to hold a company accountable for damages inflicted by a worker, key issues will include:

Whether the worker was an employee or an independent contractor (respondeat superior doesn’t apply where the worker is an independent contractor);
Whether the worker’s actions occurred in the course and/or arose from the scope of his/her employment.

Employers can also be held directly liable under theories like negligent hiring, negligent retention and negligent supervision. Continue reading

September 7, 2019

An Unborn Child’s Right to Collect Damages for Wrongful Death of Parent

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

The pregnant widow of a man shot and killed in South Florida over a puzzling parking lot altercation that resulted in her husband’s death – which she witnessed – has vowed that in addition to pressing for justice from the criminal courts, she will file a civil lawsuit for wrongful death. Would her baby have a claim too?

The right of survivors to claim damages is one of two kinds of wrongful death lawsuits in Florida. The other is an estate claim that seeks recovery of damages on the decedent’s behalf. Fort Lauderdale wrongful death attorney

The Fort Lauderdale wrongful death attorneys at The Ansara Law Firm can help you determine the right of each survivor affected following the death of a loved one due to another’s negligence, recklessness and/or violence. We can also help you determine which kind of wrongful death lawsuit makes the most sense to pursue.

Florida law regarding the civil rights of fetuses can be a touchy subject, but statute does make it clear that a child who was not yet born when a parent died still has the right to pursue wrongful death damages – as long as they are eventually born. Continue reading

August 30, 2019

Florida Jury Awards $30 Million Drunk Driving Brain Injury Lawsuit

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

Jurors weighing the civil penalty in a drunk driving lawsuit awarded nearly $31 million in damages to a young woman who suffered catastrophic brain injuries. Plaintiff was just 18 when she was struck by a pickup truck driven by one of two underage drivers who moments earlier left a bar near the Florida State University campus. drunk driving injury lawyer

The verdict followed the second of two trials in Faircloth v. Cantina Tallahassee, LLC, et al., after the first ended in mistrial in February. The woman’s parents – filing the claim on her behalf, sued the two bars that served alcohol to the underage driver, who did not stop at the street. The victim was on foot, reportedly crossing the street, at the time of the crash.

As our drunk driving injury lawyers can explain, plaintiffs in catastrophic injury claims need to explore every avenue for recovering damages. In impaired driving cases, that means looking at whether a dram shop claim is viable. Continue reading

August 20, 2019

Florida Car Accident Damages Discussed Following $13 Million Jury Award

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

A jury in Gainesville recently awarded $13 million in damages following a Florida car accident in which a woman died in 2016 when another driver struck her vehicle during an illegal pass. The case has made headlines, and sparked a discussion over personal injury lawsuit damages and how they are calculated. car accident lawyer

As long-time Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyers, our Broward injury legal team recognizes that damages aren’t necessarily reflective of real-life losses. They never could be because, after all, how do you put a price tag on a human life or your ability to walk? Assignation of monetary values to such things may seem callous, but it’s the best means we have of helping to compensate people who suffered as a result of someone else’s careless or criminal actions.

Mostly in civil litigation, the damages we’re discussing are these type of “compensatory damages,” intended to “make whole” the individuals who are suffering, rather than about punishing the person who caused the injury. The exception to this is “punitive damages,” intended to penalize particularly egregious wrongs. Continue reading

August 20, 2019

Probate Litigation With Estate of One Embroiled in Legal Trouble

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

The death of alleged sexual predator/billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, 66, in a New York jail cell of apparent suicide has left his estate, with assets reportedly valued at $560 million, the subject of intense interest. Women who were allegedly his child victims had pending civil lawsuits against him. Elderly retirees are trying to recoup the losses incurred when he invested their life savings into bonds and notes he later sold as part of a $470 million scam 25 years ago. Other creditors will inevitably come knocking too. probate litigation lawyer Fort Lauderdale

With so many competing claims, the case is likely headed for a protected and messy contested probate amid an ongoing federal investigation into the activities of Epstein and purported co-conspirators. It will be imperative for each of those staking a claim to work with a civil injury lawyer who has extensive experience with probate litigation, as The Ansara Law Firm does.

Although the Epstein case is unfolding on a stunning scale, it is not so uncommon for probate litigation cases to involve decedents who had been embroiled in legal trouble. That’s often a big part of what leads their estate to probate in the first place. Continue reading

August 19, 2019

Jazz Club Slip-and-Fall Lawsuit Jurors Find Danger Obvious, Plaintiff Warned

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

Prevailing in a Florida slip-and-fall injury lawsuit is no simple task, which is why most injury attorneys will carefully review your claim before pursuing it – especially if they plan to take it to trial. A fair pre-trial settlement is typically the preferred outcome, as trials are expensive (and risky). slip and fall attorney

It’s important that you and your attorney consider any pre-trial settlement offers carefully, as declining a defense settlement offer in a case later favorably decided for the defense could result in an order for YOU to pay the defense’s attorney fees. (As injury lawyers, our fees are contingent on winning, meaning we’re only paid if you’re successful with your claim.)

This is not to say Florida slip-and-fall injury claims aren’t worth pursuing, but it is important to be aware of the potential pitfalls in these cases.

Recently in Georgia (which approaches slip-and-fall case from a similar angle as Florida), jurors considered the claim of a woman who fell at a jazz club and injured her back and hip, requiring extensive physical therapy. Continue reading

August 17, 2019

Report: Florida Guardianship System Riddled With Troubling Conflicts

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

Florida’s guardianship system has come under fire amid revelations of numerous abuses and reports of exploitation, damaging relationships and leaving wards financially and emotionally worse-off. guardianship lawyer Fort Lauderdale

A Fort Lauderdale guardianship attorney can assist individuals looking to intervene in a potentially damaging guardianship arrangement. Although Florida law requires a three-person committee (at least one a physician or psychiatrist) be responsible to examine a person before he/she can be deemed incapacitated, that exam is all it takes before a guardian is suddenly granted broad powers over their ward. Almost every decision in their life can be controlled by a guardian.

What is being discovered in some of these cases is that there is lack of transparency and impartiality. for example, in a case out of Central Florida reported by The Orlando Sentinel, in the case of an elderly man whose sons pushed for guardianship under the care of a “professional guardian” – one whose attorney is not only the son-in-law of a panel doctor who declared numerous individuals incapacitated. The son-in-law also works at the law practice the doctor (who is also a lawyer) founded, the same one at which his wife and daughter still work.

This, ethics experts say, simply “doesn’t pass the smell test.” Is the system designed for the protection of Florida’s elderly and vulnerable people? Or for the benefit of a small group of insiders? Continue reading

August 6, 2019

Florida Hotel Injuries May be Compensable if Preventable

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

Tourism is one of the biggest industries in Florida, with more than 128 million visitors flocking to the Sunshine State last year. A sizable number of those opt to stay in one of the state’s 423,000 hotel rooms. Like any other property owner, hotels, motels and resorts owe a duty of care to their patrons that requires they keep the property in reasonably safe condition, check for hazards and warn guests of any non-obvious dangers that can’t be remedied right away. In the event this does not happen and someone is seriously hurt, those injured should explore the possibility of a hotel injury lawsuit. hotel injury lawyer

Fort Lauderdale injury attorneys will examine your premises liability claim to determine whether it’s viable and identify all potential defendants. Some of the most common hotel injury claims include:

Parking lot injuries;
Swimming pool accidents/drowning;
Slip-and-fall injuries;
Trip-and-fall injuries;
Falls from heights;
Food poisoning;
Burns from fires, hot water, food or drinks;
Elevator/escalator injuries;
Animal attack;
Injury caused by broken/defective furniture;
Bed bugs/unsanitary conditions;
Exposure to toxic chemicals;
Playground injuries;
Assault/battery.

Any one of these incidents can cause serious and lasting injuries and trauma. If there is evidence the hotel staff knew or should have known about the risk and failed to fix it or provide guests warning, there is a good chance a personal injury claim could be successfully made.

Defendant hotels will often argue comparative negligence (i.e., the person injured shared some or all of the blame, proportionately reducing damages) or that the claimant wasn’t as seriously injured as they said. Having an experienced personal injury attorney will be imperative. Continue reading