car accident attorney

April 4, 2019

Florida Car Accident Victim: Lyft is Liable for Driver-Distracting App

Distracted driving continues to be a major problem in Florida – one a Palm Beach County lawsuit alleges has been compounded by the “inherently dangerous” technology employed by one of South Florida’s popular rideshare companies. Palm Beach Car accident lawyer

Plaintiff was a pedestrian who sustained serious, life-long injuries in a crash several months ago. The driver who struck her had himself been struck seconds earlier by a Lyft Inc. driver. Plaintiff alleges the Lyft driver was distracted by the company’s digital app, which requires the independent contractors to check their phones constantly behind the wheel.

Are Rideshare Apps Unreasonably Dangerous?

Although this isn’t the first time rideshare drivers and even other technology companies have been accused of liability in distracted driving cases, this matter is a bit different than many of the others our Palm Beach County car accident attorneys have seen. In addition to asserting Lyft’s negligence, plaintiff also raises the issue of product liability. The technology is unreasonably dangerous as designed, according to the complaint. Continue reading

December 5, 2018

Seek South Florida Injury Lawyer Advice for Lawsuit Against Estate of Deceased Defendant

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

A South Florida injury lawyer can give you advice if you were injured as a result of negligence by someone who died in the accident itself or soon thereafter. A personal injury claim doesn’t die when the defendant does, though there can be complications because the case will be filed not against the person, but his or her estate. Typically though, it will still be an insurance company that stands in to represent the defendant and that ultimately foots the bill – especially in Florida car accident lawsuits. car accident lawyer South Florida

An appellate court in California recently addressed several issues that arose from such a situation in Meleski v. Estate of Holtlen, where a plaintiff sued the estate of a decedent, alleged to have been the at-fault driver in a crash in which plaintiff was injured. Although this was an out-of-state case, the same general principles apply with regard to Florida injury litigation.

In this case, plaintiff was injured when defendant ran a red light, colliding with her vehicle. Unfortunately, by the time plaintiff filed her lawsuit, defendant was deceased, apparently of unrelated causes. Decedent had no estate from which she could recover, but he had purchased an auto insurance policy for $100,000 that covered the accident. Plaintiff brought her complaint pursuant to the state’s probate statutes, which allowed her to serve her complaint on the insurance company directly and recover damages from that policy, though limiting recovery of damages to policy limits. Continue reading

November 14, 2018

$3 Million Verdict in Construction Zone Crash Injury Lawsuit Affirmed

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

Work zone crashes are an incredibly serious problem that continues to plague our Florida roads and highways. The U.S. Department of Transportation reports in a single recent year, there were an estimated 97,000 work zone crashes, an increase of nearly 8 percent from just a year earlier – and a 42 percent rise since 2013. Although most only result in property damage, our Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyers know that every single day, there are at least 70 work zone crashes resulting at least one injury and every week, at least a dozen deaths. Even while overall highway traffic deaths decline, work zone crash fatalities are rising. Of those killed, 85 percent were drivers and passengers in cars and 25 percent of those fatal crashes involved a large truck (compared to 12 percent of highway deaths overall). Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorney

Recently, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed a $3 million verdict for plaintiff in a highway construction zone crash lawsuit, after defendant construction company sought a new trial or alternatively a remittitur (reduction of damages).

Work Zone Crash Causes Serious Personal Injury

The work zone crash occurred in June 2010 on a two-lane U.S. Highway where the construction crew was replacing the bridge and approaches to it. The state Department of Transportation had prepared plans for the project, including traffic control, and had supervisors on site to ensure compliance. Defendant construction worker was operating a Caterpillar motor grader in the northbound lane. Plaintiff, with four passengers in his van, attempted to go around the motor grader by crossing the double-yellow line into the southbound lane. The motor grader then turned left, and the two vehicles collided. Plaintiff suffered a double-fractured jaw, broken leg and bruised lung. Continue reading

August 12, 2018

Florida Bad Faith Insurance Verdict Against Auto Insurer Affirmed

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

A $3 million Florida bad faith insurance claim was affirmed recently by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which found the auto insurer refused to tender its $250,000 policy limits to a plaintiff, even though it was well-established her injuries were clearly in excess of that. Broward car accident attorney

As our Broward car accident attorneys can explain, bad faith insurance, as outlined in F.S. 624.155, occurs when an insurer either unreasonably refuses to pay or properly investigate a claim (first-party) or when an insurer unreasonably fails to defend, indemnify or settle a claim within policy limits or investigate for a different party (third-party). As outlined in the 1995 Florida Supreme Court case of State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Laforet, an insurer’s duty of good faith involves the duty to refrain from acting solely on the basis of their own interests in settlement.

Claims for bad faith are separate and apart from the original negligence claim that is filed for crash liability, and can result in plaintiffs being awarded triple their actual damages. Continue reading

July 30, 2018

FIU Pedestrian Bridge Collapse Lawsuits Allege Negligence

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

Following the stunning and tragic collapse of a pedestrian bridge under construction over Southwest Eighth Street at Florida International University in mid-March, resulting in the death of six people killed and several others injured, a total of six lawsuits have so far been filed. It’s likely more will be forthcoming. probate litigation

Each plaintiff was represented by a different Florida personal injury or wrongful death law firm (with the exception of two plaintiffs represented by the same firm), each tasked with the massive undertaking of conducting their own investigations and gathering their own evidence as to what happened and who should be responsible. In some instances, law firms dispatched investigators on the ground while cleanup of the site was still underway, helping to gather critical evidence, while others joined in the weeks that followed. Some of the initial questions raised when there are negligence lawsuits involving that many people for the same incident are:

How closely will they work together? For instance, will they pool resources during the discovery process, which is likely to converge?
How many will file against the exact same defendants?
What degree of independence will they maintain in hiring experts and investigating what went wrong with the design, construction, installation and testing of the bridge?

June 3, 2018

Court: Crash Case Defendant/ Employer Not Entitled to Summary Judgment

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

Many ranches, farms and other agricultural companies arrange for employee housing in addition to wages for their workers. This can raise some interesting legal questions if workers are involved in a collision traveling to-and-from work, especially if one or more is paid during that time. car accident

Typically in workers’ compensation law and with vicarious liability claims, the time in which workers are going to are leaving from work is subject to the “coming-and-going rule.” The coming-and-going rule holds an employee is not acting in the course and scope of employment while traveling to and from work. Therefore, injuries occurring during that time are generally not covered by workers’ compensation and vicarious liability lawsuits.

In a recent case out of Texas, the Texas Supreme Court weighed whether the lower courts had properly granted summary judgment to an employer in a fatal crash case. The court ruled that judgment was improper, reversed and remanded the case to trial for further proceedings. Continue reading

May 31, 2018

Court: Car Accident Plaintiff Motive in Injury Lawsuit Irrelevant

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

In a multiple vehicle car accident, where witnesses may give widely varying accounts of what actually happened and who is at-fault and to what degree, the credibility of each witness and party becomes critical. It’s not uncommon for defense attorneys to challenge the credibility of plaintiffs to challenge their own client’s liability. personal injury attorney

In a recent case before the Hawaii Supreme Court, this was precisely what the defense attorney did, via alleging at various points during the trial that plaintiff was not even in the vehicle, was not injured in the course and scope of employment (she was a home health aide reportedly helping transport a patient to a doctor’s office at the time of the crash) and that she had filed this personal injury lawsuit as a money grab on top of her fraudulent workers’ compensation claim. He went so far as to tell the jury during closing arguments that if they sided with plaintiff, they should be ashamed of themselves as it would consummate plaintiff’s fraud. Mind you, this was not something of which she’d been formally accused or convicted.

Plaintiff sought a jury instruction that would stipulate they could not consider her motive in filing the case, but rather only whether defendant was negligent. Trial court rejected that request, and jurors returned an 11-1 verdict in the defense favor, finding defendant – the rear driver in a three-car pileup – was not the legal cause of plaintiff’s injury. Continue reading

April 9, 2018

Liability When Poor Road Conditions, Construction, Cause Florida Car Accident

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

The majority of car accidents in Fort Lauderdale are the result of driver error, often distraction, impairment or speeding. However, poor road conditions can be a causal or contributing factor. It’s imperative for injury attorneys examining your claim for damages to carefully analyze whether this may be grounds to file claims against additional parties, such as the local municipality, the state or construction company. car accident

In most of these cases, we must show the defendant had a duty of care to maintain the roadway, breached that duty with negligent maintenance, and/ or failed to adequately warn drivers of a potential danger.

Crashes in construction zones are a unique – and serious – problem. The U.S. Department of Transportation reports that in 2015, there were nearly 97,000 crashes in work zones nationally – representing an almost 8 percent increase since 2015 and a 42 percent increase since 2013. Of course, crashes overall have gone up as well, but the increase in these crashes is over-represented. More than a quarter of them involved injury to at least one person and 642 of them resulted in at least one death. More than 40 percent of those deadly crashes were rear-end collisions. Continue reading

March 20, 2018

Negligent Auto Repair Can Be Grounds for Car Accident Lawsuit

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

A collision center in Texas has been ordered to pay $31.5 million to a couple in Dallas who suffered serious injuries as a result of a crash exacerbated by negligent auto repairs. injury attorney

Plaintiffs – husband and wife – suffered horrible injuries as a result of the fiery wreck. These include the husband’s fourth-degree burns, which continues to inflict constant agonizing pain. Although the crash was caused by a negligent driver in a sport utility vehicle, experts would later testify that plaintiffs should have walked away from that collision relatively unscathed. Instead, because of an improper auto repair following a hailstorm several months earlier, vehicle occupants are left with severe and permanent injuries.

The negligent auto repair lawsuit alleged the body shop bowed to pressure from plaintiff’s auto insurer to use the cheapest fix possible – despite knowing that it wasn’t safe. That meant instead of welding the new steal roof to the vehicle, as indicated in the manufacturer’s body repair manual, the piece was glued with an adhesive. So when the vehicle was struck, the roof buckled, the car’s safety cage collapsed and the fuel tank below the driver’s seat ruptured. Plaintiff husband was trapped under the steering wheel while flames engulfed the vehicle. Wife was pulled through the passenger window by another motorist, but it took significantly longer to extract the husband. Continue reading

March 15, 2018

Florida Senate Brake-Checks Texting-and-Driving Bill

By Ansara Law Personal Injury Attorneys

Florida has one of the weakest protections against driver distraction in the nation. While a proposal to toughen our state’s anti-texting-and-driving law was passed by the state House and given Gov. Rick Scott’s blessing, the state Senate has reportedly pumped the brakes on the measure, with news outlets reporting Sent. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, allowing it to stall in his committee for well over a month. car accident attorney

For his part, Bradley has cited concerns about potential racial profiling and the scope of police authority to view drivers’ cell phones during a traffic stop.

As it now stands, F.S. 316.305 prohibits motorists from texting, typing or reading messages, emails and social media posts while engaged in active driving. However, there are a plethora of exceptions, including no restrictions on radio broadcasts, engaging GPS navigation services or wireless communication that doesn’t require reading or the manual entry of data. A fine for a violation is just $50, but even those are rare given that it’s only a secondary offense, as opposed to a primary one. That means police cannot legally stop a driver observed texting-and-driving if that is the sole violation noted. The officer must also observe some other violation, such as speeding, weaving or red light running. Continue reading