Broward Injury Lawyer Blog

The long Labor Day weekend is synonymous with outdoor barbeques, beaches, boats – and an uptick in fatalities attributed to drunken driving and impaired boating.

Without fail, our Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyers have noted there are always revelers who will take it too far. We might expect a higher-than-usual number of injuries and fatalities, given the reduced price of gasoline this summer. That means more people will be taking longer trips, and boaters will be out on the water for longer.

As they have always done this time of year, law enforcement will be heavily patrolling the roadways, on the lookout for drivers who are impaired or otherwise acting aggressively or recklessly. And as usual, they will be patrolling the waterways as well. However, the enforcement on the latter front may be a bit heavier than in years’ past, in light of the horrific Fourth of July boating crash that killed four people and injured several others on the Biscayne Bay. Officials are desperate to avoid a repeat.
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In personal injury cases, plaintiff’s degree of fault in the incident can impact the size of damages awarded and, in some states, preclude an injured party from receiving anything at all.

Our Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyers know Florida follows the pure comparative negligence model. It’s one of the models that most favors injured parties, and holds that even when a plaintiff is at fault to some degree, he or she can still recover damages, minus the degree of fault. So if the defendant driver is found to be 65 percent at fault for the crash and the plaintiff 35 percent, the plaintiff will only be allowed to collect 65 percent of the damages claimed.

Determining the degree of fault of a defendant is a question for the jury, and one reason why it’s important to have an experienced lawyer to litigate your case.
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In many Florida personal injury cases, either side may request a plaintiff undergo a compulsory medical exam. This is a medical exam conducted to establish or refute arguments made by the opposing side.

Our Fort Lauderdale personal injury lawyers know that while courts often grant these requests, they are not permitted to do so unless good cause has been shown and the parameters are clearly outlined. The exam has to involve a matter that is “in controversy” in the case. That is, it involves a key point that is critical to the requesting side’s position.

This issue was recently before two separate appellate courts in different cases, with one court denying the request and another choosing to narrow it significantly.
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Florida tends to have broad interpretation with regard to vicarious liability in car accident cases. That is, while third parties generally aren’t liable for the actions of someone else, Florida’s dangerous instrumentality doctrine provides that a vehicle is an inherently dangerous tool. Therefore, vehicle owners in Florida are subject to liability anytime that vehicle, driven negligently by a third party with the owner’s knowledge and consent, is involved in a serious crash.

However, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal in Miccosukee Tribe v. Bermudez recently declined to extend this kind of vicarious liability to individuals who aid in a legal defense. The argument in favor of extending liability was based on case law that pertained largely to attorney’s fees, the court found, and could not be used as a basis to require a third party to pay for damages incurred by another person or entity.

Our car accident attorneys in Fort Lauderdale recognize this ruling limits the circumstances under which plaintiffs can pursue other parties for injury compensation. However, the overall impact is likely minimal, as the case involved a series of special circumstances.
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The untimely death of a father in a traffic crash, leaving behind three young children, gave rise to a wrongful death claim that insurers sought to deny. The defendants (the at-fault drivers and two insurers) argued the children had no right to make a claim because the man’s long-estranged wife had been denied compensation, and therefore the children (from another union) were not entitled to a set-aside from her.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, in weighing the case of Force v. Am. Family Mut. Ins. Co., found this to be a serious misinterpretation of the law, bordering on “absurd.”

Our Fort Lauderdale wrongful death lawyers know that while there are statutory hurdles to making such a claim, courts are still inclined to make such decisions on a case-by-case basis. This is important, considering that families today don’t always follow the traditional nuclear model upon which legal theory is often based.
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A woman who sustained permanent soft-tissue injuries as a result of a rear-end collision has prevailed in her $1.1 million lawsuit, following an appeal to Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal.

Fort Lauderdale car accident attorneys understand that while the justices did find evidence of judicial error on the part of the trial court, those errors were ultimately deemed harmless.

The issue on appeal had to do with whether the court improperly excluded expert testimony on behalf of the defendant. The defense never denied liability for the crash. However, there was dispute regarding whether the crash was in fact the cause of the plaintiff’s injuries.
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