However, our Fort Lauderdale tourist injury lawyers know it’s likely that the damage caps applicable to Florida state and local government agencies in injury lawsuits, as imposed by F.S. 768.28, will reduce that award to $200,000 (the maximum any one person can receive in such a case; It’s possible more could be secured with a successful claims bill passed by state lawmakers, though that could take years). The problem with such caps, of course, is they are not only arbitrary but sometimes serve as a lawsuit deterrent, preventing all the most severe catastrophic injury claims. Further, they can make government agencies less likely to address dangerous conditions that threaten the taxpayers footing the bill.

In this case, plaintiff testified she’d been lying in the sand with her shorts draped over her face when a lifeguard operating a patrol vehicle drove over her. But it didn’t end there. The now-49-year-old says she was trapped under the vehicle. City officials dispute the claim the truck tires came in contact with plaintiff, instead arguing the bulk of her injuries, defense asserted, was the undercarriage of the truck. Still, the city accepted liability in the case.

The issue jurors were left to decide was whether plaintiff was entitled to recover monetary damages for her injuries and if so, how much. A doctor testifying for the defense argued the woman still had full range of motion in each of her limbs and neck and had suffered no permanent scarring form the incident. While the woman’s attorneys sought $1 million in damages, the city’s lawyers initially offered her just $40,000. That offer was increased the week before trial to $100,000. Jurors awarded her 150 percent more than the city’s most recent settlement offer. It appears they gave greater credence to the expert witness testimony of plaintiff’s physician, who testified about the ongoing health effects of the incident, as well as plaintiff’s own testimony, in which she showed the jury visible scars on her body she insisted were the result of the city-owned truck running over her. According to her account (supported by her doctor) the woman suffers permanent neurological damage and chronic pain, for which she routinely receives painful cortisone injections.Fighting for Damages in a Fort Lauderdale Tourist Injury Lawsuit

This case shows the importance of establishing not just negligence by another, but the victim’s damages, or the sum total of losses incurred by the victim. As our Fort Lauderdale tourist injury attorneys can explain, it these include the sort of tangible, concrete losses – like medical bills from necessary treatment and procedures or the loss of wages from the time needed to take off work because of the injury. These are called economic damages. There are also non-economic damages, which encompasses things like emotional distress, pain and suffering and loss of life enjoyment. (Both fall under the umbrella of “compensatory damages,” intended to compensate the victim. There are also “punitive damages,” awarded to the victim but intended to punish the defendant for egregious conduct. Punitive damages aren’t available in cases against government entities or employees acting in their official roles.)

In this case, plaintiff’s son and husband testified that prior to the accident, she was very physically active and outdoorsy, regularly enjoying surfing, hang gliding and master-level gardening work. All of that, they now say, is gone, the chronic pain from the accident having robbed her of it.

This sort of testimony can be powerful and compelling for jurors, as clearly in this case it was.

Call Fort Lauderdale Injury Attorney Richard Ansara at (954) 761-4011. Serving Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.

Additional Resources:

Jury awards $250K to woman run over by Fort Lauderdale beach patrol, Sept. 2018, CBS Local Miami

More Blog Entries:

Busting Florida Personal Injury Law Myths, Oct. 8, 2018, Fort Lauderdale Tourist Injury Lawyer Blog

These operations are overseen by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) which reports varying levels of adherence to federal safety laws between carriers. The agency even encourages passengers to, “Look Before You Book” to determine which might be potentially unsafe.

Yet a recent investigation by journalists at CNN revealed that even a company with a “satisfactory” rating may not abide by basic safety rules.

Greyhound is a bus company that ferries some 18 million passengers on its buses every year, its fleet traversing an estimated 5.5 billion miles across the U.S. each year. It’s been well-established by government research that when there are charter bus accidents, driver fatigue is a factor in 37 percent of all cases.

In order to combat this, Greyhound implemented the “150-mile rule,” referred to internally as “G-40.” It’s listed in the driver manual and it’s referenced in training. G-40 states that drivers have to stop every 150 miles to get out of the bus, walk around the vehicle and check the tires, stretch, refresh and complete a series of “short’term alertness management actions,” or exercises, to help remain “completely alert.”

However as it turns out, along the bus company’s listed regular overnight routes, there is no mention of those stops every 150 miles. That’s because as it turns out, G-40 is more of a guideline than a rule. Drivers aren’t required to take action and, according to the attorney of one bus accident victim, “They don’t enforce their 150 miles safety rule because it costs them money.”

In a deposition required as a part of a personal injury lawsuit, the CEO of Greyhound answered that drivers are in charge of ascertaining their own level of fatigue. He answered that drivers are expected to stop and to report those stops, but conceded the company had no enforcement of that rule. He also stated that on some of the longer routes, drivers were permitted to go longer if they felt they were Ok not to stop. Asked whether he would be Ok with a driver on one of these longer trips traveling 333 miles at a stretch without stopping, he answered, “It would be fine with me.”

In 2013, a driver on one of these routes did not abide the 150-mile rules. Other drivers recalled seeing the bus swerving. Passengers noted the driver’s red eyes as they boarded. Greyhound denies the driver was fatigued. But around 1:33 a.m., en route to Cleveland from New York, the bus crashed into the rear of a tractor-trailer on the interstate in Pennsylvania. The force of that crash ejected one passenger, killing her, and injured several others. Among those was an 18-year-old aspiring opera singer, whose voice box was crushed in the accident.

One of those accident victims filed a personal injury lawsuit against the company and was awarded a total of $27 million in damage – including $4 million in punitive damages after the jury determined the bus company gave contradictory language in rules and training related to fatigue levels and failed to enforce internal rules. Jurors also opined the company demonstrated reckless indifference to passenger safety. They tacked on $150 to that punitive damage award, as a reference to the company’s failure to abide the 150-mile rule.

Call Fort Lauderdale Injury Attorney Richard Ansara at (954) 761-4011. Serving Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.

Additional Resources:

Asleep at the wheel? Greyhound fails to enforce its own safety rule, May 24, 2016, By Sara Ganim and Scott Zamost, CNN

More Blog Entries:

Fatal Florida Car Accident Spurs Lawsuit Against Uber, Driver, Deputy, May 25, 2016, Fort Lauderdale Tourist Injury Lawyer