Articles Tagged with Fort Lauderdale car accident

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If you’re injured in a Fort Lauderdale car accident, you may be aware that your first avenue to collect damages is personal injury protection (or “PIP”) coverage. This is state-mandated auto insurance that you pay for that will cover a portion of your medical bills and lost wages if you are injured in a Florida car accident – regardless of who is at-fault. However, as our Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyers can explain, PIP is not likely to cover all of your damages – particularly if it was a serious wreck. That is why if someone else caused the crash (or exacerbated your injuries from it), you will want to explore stepping outside of that no-fault system and filing a claim against the at-fault driver. Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyer

What PIP Does NOT Cover

Although PIP is the go-to for no-fault accident coverage in Florida, it does not cover every scenario, every type of loss – or even every person. The following is a list of what PIP won’t cover:

  • Property damage. If your car is damaged in the crash, you’ll need to file a separate claim with your own insurance company (or the insurer of the at-fault driver) in order to be compensated for necessary repairs. Florida law requires drivers carry at least $10,000 in property damage liability coverage.
  • Motorcycle operators. PIP coverage is not mandated – or even available – to owners/operators of motorcycles or other self-propelled vehicles. Motorcyclists must rely on other types of auto insurance coverage.
  • More than $10,000 in medical expenses. No matter how serious your injuries are, PIP is only going to cover up to $10,000 in medical expenses. In fact, PIP is only designed to cover up to 80 percent of “reasonable medical expenses.” Furthermore, if your injuries are not “emergent,” PIP may cover no more than $2,500 in medical expenses. Unless you take legal action against the at-fault driver, you and/or your health insurer will be liable for the rest. If your injuries are “serious and permanent,” as outlined in F.S. 627.727, you may step out of the no-fault system and pursue a claim against the at-fault driver for damages for the full amount of your losses. If they do not have insurance or lack enough insurance, you may file a claim with your own uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) carrier for the difference.
  • More than 60 percent of your lost wages. PIP will cover up to 60 percent of your lost wages if you can’t work due to your injuries – but not if it equals more than $10,000 (and usually far less because that is all that’s available to cover your medical expenses too). If you can’t return to work at all or must take a lower-paying job as a result of your injuries, you could be facing substantial income losses. These are recoverable from the at-fault party if you step outside the no-fault system and pursue damages.
  • Pain and suffering. PIP coverage only covers economic losses. This would include things like medical bills and lost wages. But Florida car accident victims are traumatized, both physically and emotionally. The law recognizes the impact of this, which is why crash victims can pursue damages (compensation) for pain and suffering – but only in a civil claim. You won’t recover pain and suffering damages from your PIP carrier.

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Accidents happen. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, they happened more than 6.4 million times a year, killing more than 37,000 and injuring more than 2.7 million.Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyer

Perhaps just as scary is the fact that nearly 27 percent of Florida drivers have no insurance.

Even drivers who carry the minimum amount of insurance won’t have enough to cover your damages in the event of a serious crash. Although Florida law requires drivers to carry $10,000 in personal protection and $10,000 in property damage coverage, it doesn’t strictly require bodily injury coverage, which is paid to others hurt if you’re negligent in causing a crash. Drivers are required to be responsible for up to $20,000 in bodily injury coverage per crash ($10,000 per person), but having insurance to cover that amount isn’t strictly required.

What this means, as our Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyers can explain, is that smart Florida drivers don’t waive or skimp on their uninsured/underinsured motorist benefits. It one of the best and sometimes the only way you’ll get anything close to full compensation for your injuries after a crash. Continue reading

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Every year, there are roughly 1.7 million rear-end collisions on U.S. roadways, killing some 17,000 and injuring another 500,000. That’s according to a report from the National Transportation Safety Board, which has been pushing for years for automakers to make collision avoidance systems standard in all vehicles. The NTSB estimates 80 percent of deaths and injuries resulting from rear-end crashes could be avoided with such systems, available in some makes and models, but not yet all. Fort Lauderdale rear-end collision

As Fort Lauderdale injury lawyers can explain, the occasion of a rear-end collision carries with it the rebuttable presumption of negligence by the driver in the rear. A rebuttable presumption is a legal presumption made by the court, taken as try unless someone can prove otherwise. Thus, it is presumed that the driver in the rear of a rear-end collision was in the wrong because he/she is required by law to maintain an assured clear distance.

An increasing number of rear-end collisions are caused by driver distraction, particularly with smartphones. Evidence that a driver was distracted at the time of a collision can be used as additional evidence of negligence in car accident litigation.

However, as noted in a recent Florida car accident lawsuit ruling by Florida’s 5th District Court of Appeal, the presumption that the rear driver’s negligence was the only cause of a crash can be rebutted if there is any evidence from which a jury can infer the front driver was also negligent. In other words, the rear-end collision rebuttable presumption doesn’t supersede the state’s comparative negligence system, as outlined in F.S. 768.81, wherein a claimant’s own fault contributing to an injury proportionally diminishes the amount of damages he or she can collect. Continue reading

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Motor vehicle manufacturing and design defects can’t be overlooked as possible catalysts in fatal or injurious Florida car accidents. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports there were 30 million vehicles recalled last year, down just slightly from the 29 million the year before, though a significant drop from the record-high 50 million recalled in 2016. A quarter of the cars recalled haven’t been repaired, and these figures don’t include the vehicles with defects not yet identified/admitted by manufacturers.Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyers

Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyers can explain that when a vehicle defect or defective vehicle part plays a role in a crash or exacerbation of injuries, product liability claims may be filed against the auto maker.

Tesla is among the latest to come under intense scrutiny after a number of serious injuries and fatalities resulting from a range of alleged defects that plaintiffs in numerous injury and wrongful death lawsuits say rendered their electric cars unreasonably dangerous. Continue reading

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An appellate court recently affirmed a Florida car accident victim’s right to uninsured motorist benefits from her insurer after successfully arguing a 12-foot ladder left in the road had fallen from a truck whose owner/ driver were not identified. This personal injury case before Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeals was interesting for the fact that:

  • It involved a phantom motor vehicle;
  • The court inferred the ladder in the road had fallen from a pickup truck that had parked in the right emergency lane;
  • The court inferred the ladder had fallen into the road (causing a chain collision) due to negligence in securing the ladder.Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyer

These conclusions were based primarily on circumstantial evidence and witness statements. Plaintiff’s uninsured motorist (UM) insurance carrier argued there was no proof of those last two points, the assertion relying wholly on circumstantial evidence and failing to exclude other possibilities. Defense sought a directed verdict in its favor. The court denied the motion and jurors decided the case in favor of plaintiff. The phantom vehicle was found 60 percent at-fault for the collision, while the soda company truck that rear-ended plaintiff’s vehicle when she made a sudden stop on the highway was 40 percent at-fault. The UM carrier is liable for damages caused by the “phantom vehicle. Continue reading

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When people get ready to buy a car, they may spend a great deal of time researching the various safety features and ensuring (if it isn’t brand new) that it’s checked by a licensed mechanic. But when they rent a vehicle, they may barely give much thought to the vehicle, other than it’s size and how accommodating it will be a for a trip.keys

Yet up until very recently, it was perfectly legal for rental car companies to loan out recalled vehicles to unsuspecting customers – without making repairs or warning customers of the danger. That should alarm motorists everywhere, but it’s especially troubling here in South Florida, which has a booming rental car industry from tourism. Now consider that there have been record vehicle recall rates in recent years – with an average of 900 recalls annually breaking down to some 2.5 every single day. In the last two years, more than 100 million vehicles were impacted by safety recalls. To give you a better idea of how big that is, there are a total of 260 million vehicles registered in the U.S.

The good news is that now, following an arduous legal battle, the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act of 2015, which passed as part of a larger transportation bill, went into effect June 1, 2016 and mandates that rental car companies with 35 or more vehicles in fleet must ground any recalled vehicles until they can be repaired. Continue reading

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A local auto dealership may be facing a vicarious liability lawsuit soon, following a tragic car accident in Delray Beach in which a mechanic behind the wheel lost control of the car and smashed into a motorcycle, fatally injuring one of the riders. driver1

According to The Sun-Sentinel, the Ed Morse Toyota Scion, which is part of the larger Ed Morse Automotive Group, offered condolences to the family of the decedent, a Canadian woman who was the rear passenger of the bike.

Police with the Delray Beach department allege that a mechanic for the auto dealership was speeding along Dixie Highway when he reportedly lost control of the vehicle, a 2002 Lexus sedan. He was reportedly test-driving the vehicle.  Continue reading

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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.caraccident

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

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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.caraccident7

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

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Jurors in Broward County have awarded more than $300,000 to a woman who was seriously injured following a Fort Lauderdale car accident with a police officer six years ago.policecar

Unfortunately, because the defendant is a municipality, the award is capped at $100,000. The city hasn’t yet said whether it will appeal the decision.

Plaintiff, 52, was a passenger in a vehicle driven by her son just a few weeks before Christmas 2010. Defendant Daniel Gowans, a Fort Lauderdale police officer, was responding to a domestic violence call when he arrived at the intersection of Southeast Fourth Avenue and Sunrise Boulevard. His cruiser collided with the vehicle driven by plaintiff’s son. As a result of that impact, plaintiff’s wrist was broken in eight different places. Continue reading

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West Palm Beach, FL 33401
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We serve clients throughout South Florida, including, but not limited to, those in the the following localities: Broward County including Dania Beach, Deerfield Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Hallandale Beach, Hollywood, Lighthouse Point, Pembroke Pines, and Pompano Beach; Miami-Dade County including Coral Gables, Hialeah, Homestead, Key Biscayne, Miami, and Miami Beach; and Palm Beach County including Boca Raton, Delray Beach, West Palm Beach, Belle Glade, Boynton Beach, Jupiter, Lake Worth, and Loxahatchee.

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