South Florida Injury Lawyers Blog

Published on: August 25, 2016

Piazza v. Kellim – Nightclub Shooting Liability Lawsuit

The family of a teen foreign exchange student who was fatally shot outside of a nightclub in Portland, Ore. will be allowed to continue pursuit of their premises liability lawsuit following a new ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court.

Peruvian Martha Paz de Noboa Delgado was killed in 2009 as she waited outside of a teen nightclub with a group of other foreign exchange students. She had been dropped off at the location, reportedly in a rough part of town, by her host family. She was just 17-years-old. It was later revealed the 24-year-old gunman suffered from schizophrenia. He opened fire on the group of students, wounding seven and killing two before turning the gun on himself.

Delgado’s estate filed a wrongful death lawsuit, Piazza v. Kellim, against the nightclub and related companies, as well as against the foreign exchange organization. The $1.8 million claim argues that the owners of the club and related firms failed to take reasonable measures to protect customers. Namely, they forced young patrons to wait outside in what they knew was a high-crime area. The club and others nearby had a long history of problems with crime, and yet did not allow customers to wait inside for entry. The lawsuit further asserts the club did not have sufficient security. Against the student foreign exchange program, plaintiffs asserted a failure to provide adequate training to the host family. Continue reading →

Published on: August 19, 2016

Defective Bicycle Lawsuit: Applebaum v. Target

By Dean Freeman

Florida bicycle accidents that result in serious injuries are often caused by collisions with motor vehicles. However, there are some bike accidents that are the result of defective bicycles.

In those situations, depending on the circumstances, there are a number of entities that may be held responsible. Those include:

Designers
Manufacturers
Wholesalers
Distributors
Retailers

However, in order to hold any one of these entities accountable, plaintiffs need to prove there was a defect in the bike and that this defect was the cause of plaintiff’s injuries. Continue reading →

Published on: August 12, 2016

Gearhart v. Mutual of Enumclaw Ins Co. – UIM Anti-Stacking Language Invalid

By Dean Freeman

Many auto insurance policies contain anti-stacking provisions that are intended to avoid applying multiple sets of deductibles or multiple sets of limits to cover a single car accident. It’s important that Florida car accident victims understand whether their policy allows for stacked coverage because it can significantly impact the amount of damages to which you are entitled.

The allowance of these provisions with respect to uninsured motorist (UM)/ underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage varies significantly from state-to-state.

Recently, the Idaho Supreme Court considered whether the UIM anti-stacking language in two separate policies that covered a young man seriously injured in an auto accident was valid. In Gearhart v. Mutual of Enumclaw Ins Co., the divorced parents of a young man seriously injured in a crash both sought UIM benefits under separate auto insurance policies that both covered him in the event of a crash. Now, following the court’s ruling, they’ll be able to collect on those benefits, which will go toward helping their son recover. Continue reading →

Published on: August 4, 2016

Bowers v. P. Wile’s, Inc. – Garden Store Slip-and-Fall

By Dean Freeman

In most trip-and-fall or slip-and-fall lawsuits, injured persons hoping to prevail have to prove actual or constructive knowledge. That is, they have to show the property owner/ manager knew or should have known about the hazard, either because:

They created it;
They were informed of it;
It existed for such a length of time, it should have been discovered in the course of reasonable care.

It is the plaintiff who bears this burden of proof. Continue reading →

Published on: July 28, 2016

Walsh v. Mack Trucks Inc. et al – Improper Truck Loading

By Dean Freeman

Improper loading on large trucks can cause horrific trucking accidents that can result in serious injury or death. Motorists shouldn’t have to dodge large trucks because debris is flying off the back or the vehicle is swerving because the loads are off-balance.

A truck traveling at highway speeds can be thrown off-balance even even by a seemingly small object or boxes shifting inside.

In cases where improper loading causes a crash, victims deserve to be fully compensated to the greatest extent possible. Continue reading →

Published on: July 23, 2016

Florida Bus Accident With Truck Kills 5, Injures 25

By Dean Freeman

A Florida bus crash killed at least five people and injured 25 others after investigators say the bus driver ran a red light on a Florida highway and slammed into a tractor-trailer.

The Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) reports that among those killed were the driver of the semi-truck, a 4-year-old child aboard the bus and three others also on the bus.

Investigators say both the bus – with 34 people on board – and the semi-truck burst into flames upon impact. The Wakulla County Sheriff’s Office reports that fatalities likely would have been much more numerous had first-responder deputies not boarded the bus and started pulling victims off before the bus became fully engulfed in flames. Continue reading →

Published on: July 19, 2016

$53M Birth Injury Verdict Awarded to Mother, Boy With Cerebral Palsy

By Dean Freeman

A jury in Illinois has awarded a near-record $53 million to a young boy born with a serious brain injury after his mother says he suffered 12 hours of fetal distress during her full-term delivery.

The damage award was announced following a month-long trial in which the boy’s mother and legal guardian sued the hospital and several doctors for not sooner recognizing and acting on the obvious signs of fetal distress her unborn child was experiencing. The appropriate course of action, she contended, would have been an emergency c-section as soon as she was admitted to the hospital. This should have been clear, she said, as soon as she was hooked up to the fetal monitoring unit after she reported that her child had stopped moving inside her womb.

Unfortunately, it was around 2 a.m. when she arrived at the hospital and only student residents were on staff to care for her. Plaintiff attorneys presented evidence indicating those residents were either occupied, sleeping or unable to fully grasp or adequately respond to the severity of her situation. For 12 hours, her lawyers explained to jurors, her son was slowly suffocating. Continue reading →

Published on: July 14, 2016

Orlando Shooting Prompts Closer Scrutiny of Security Guard Screening

By Dean Freeman

Last month’s Orlando gay nightclub shooting proved the deadliest in national history, and prompted a flurry of fierce debate on what to do to address issues of terrorism, homophobia and access to firearms. Another less widely covered issue was that of security guard screening, and it’s relevant to injury lawyers who handle Florida premises liability lawsuits.

The 29-year-old gunman who killed 50 and injured 53 at Pulse was identified by officials as Omar Mateen, a U.S. citizen whose father was native to Afghanistan. Mateen worked as a security guard for a company called G4S Plc. It’s a British company with clients in more than 100 countries, including the U.S. He had been employed by the company since 2007. The company’s U.S. headquarters is in Jupiter, FL and it employs some 611,000 people globally in prisons, airports, ports, cash transport services and more.

After the shooting, questions arose regarding to what extent Mateen was screened. We know that he, along with every other armed guard in Florida, has to be certified officially as mentally and emotionally stable. But how exactly is that done? According to Security Info Watch, an industry publication, there was no point at which a psychologist ever sat down and reviewed his records or talked to those who knew him or even interviewed him face-to-face. The determination for who is “mentally and emotionally stable” is done with a written personality test that is standard for all guards. These tests offer a host of true-false questions that are then assessed by a contracted psychologist. Continue reading →

Published on: July 6, 2016

Disney Liability for Fatal Alligator Attack That Killed Child Weighed

By Dean Freeman

Disney World is facing a serious liability after a fatal alligator attack at one of its resorts that claimed the life of a 2-year-old boy. The toddler had been splashing in 6 inches of water along the shore of a man-made lagoon, where the resort invited guests to gather that evening to watch an outdoor movie.

Posted alongside of the shore were a number of “No Swimming” signs, but nowhere did it mention the threat of alligators – despite the fact that alligators were known to live in the water and further, staffers had complained to management that guests had been feeding the gators and they feared there would be an incident.

Legal analysts and personal injury attorneys reviewing the known facts of the case have largely concluded that those “No Swimming” signs probably weren’t enough to issue an adequate warning for a serious risk that was foreseeable. The park, which attracts 55 million visitors annually, cooperated with wildlife officials and law enforcement in terminating six alligators on the premises and have also created additional barriers to the site. However, these actions will not be enough to shield the company from liability. Continue reading →

Published on: June 28, 2016

Court to Weigh Brand Liability for Generic Drugs

By Dean Freeman

The highest court in California is taking on the issue of whether a brand name pharmaceutical company can be held liable for injuries caused by a generic version of a branded drug it no longer owns.

Many courts are eyeing this case because federal law has essentially left users of generic drugs without much remedy when the drug they use proves defective. That’s because the warning and usage labels are created by the brand name manufacturer, but because brand name manufacturers aren’t the ones making the drugs at issue, many courts have held they cannot be liable. Then, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Pliva v. Mensing limited generic drug makers’ pharmaceutical injury liability. The Pliva decision is complicated, but the gist of it is that generic manufacturers aren’t liable for the injuries caused by their drugs.

In T.H. v. Novartis Pharm. Corp., granted review by the California Supreme Court earlier this month, the appeals court rejected the invitation by the defendant manufacturer to follow other state authorities that have held brand name drug manufacturers can’t be held liable under any theory for injury caused by a product other than its own. Will the California Supreme Court affirm? Continue reading →