Fort Lauderdale injury attorney

Published on: August 12, 2020

Property Damage Options When Involved in an Accident

The first thing you feel after being in a car accident where no one got injured is relief that the accident was not worse than it was. Only then do the worries about finances start. How much will it cost to fix your car? Will you be able to get to your job while your car is being repaired, and if so, how much will you have to pay for alternative transportation, such as rideshare rides or a rental car? Do you have the money to pay your insurance deductible? How much will your car insurance premiums increase as a result of the accident? If you have to go to court, how much time and money will that cost? Your options for the most cost-effective way to pay for property damage vary according to the circumstances of the accident. Freeman Injury Law can help you choose the best course of action.

Florida Car Insurance Basics

Everyone who registers a vehicle in Florida must have two kinds of insurance. The first is Personal Injury Protection (PIP) insurance, which covers medical bills and injury-related lost income only; it does not pay for property damage. The other is property damage liability insurance, which pays for repairs to the other driver’s car if the accident is your fault. What do you do about repairing your own car, then? It depends.

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Published on: August 5, 2020

Florida Punishes Car Owners Who Fail to Carry Insurance – PIP Setoff

By Dean Freeman

You probably have some kind of car insurance, since the law requires it. However, oftentimes you may not know what your car insurance actually pays until it’s too late. After a car accident, you call your insurance company, they might ask you follow-up questions by mail or phone, and then a month or more later, one of the people involved in the accident gets a check covering the some of their eleigible expenses. Just what are all those details that the insurance companies are working out before they decide how much to pay? Different types of car insurance pay for different things, and in some cases, they can even cancel each other out. If you are not sure if the amount that the insurance company offered you after your accident is correct, contact an attorneybefore you accept the settlement offer.

What is PIP Insurance?

All registered vehicle owners in Florida must carry PIP insurance, as well property damage liability insurance. PIP stands for Personal Injury Protection, which covers up to $10,000 of medical expenses and lost income when someone gets injured at an accident, regardless of who is at fault for the accident. In order to get PIP insurance to cover your accident-related expenses, you must seek medical treatment within 14 days of the accident. If a driver collides with a pedestrian or bicyclist who does not own a car (and therefore does not have PIP insurance), the driver’s PIP insurance might also pay the medical expenses and lost income of the pedestrian or bicyclist. If the drivers involved in the accident have additional optional car insurance, such as bodily injury or uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, then the amount covered by PIP gets subtracted from what the other types of insurance must cover. This is called the PIP setoff.

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Published on: September 12, 2016

Judge: Child Brain Injury Victim Shot With Arrow 7 Years Ago Can Proceed With Product Liability Lawsuit

By Dean Freeman

It’s been seven years since a New Jersey girl was shot accidentally in her head with an metal arrow by a young boy, causing her to suffer a massive stroke and aneurysm that almost killed her. Now, according to NJ.com, a judge has allowed that discovery for her claim for product liability – including punitive damages – against the distributor of that arrow set may proceed. However, the judge denied discovery in the claim against the boy’s father, leaving the sporting goods store as the only defendant.

According to news reports of the case, the girl and her twin sister were at a friend’s house one day in July 2010 when she wandered in front of a 9-year-old boy who was practicing archery with a compound bow in the same yard. The arrow, which can only be purchased by an adult with a hunting license, struck the girl between her nose and right eye. It tore through her cerebral artery, lodging into the left temporal lobe in the middle of her brain.

The arrow was reportedly purchased by the boy’s father at a sporting goods store in New Jersey. Under state law, it’s illegal to shoot any metal-tipped arrow without a hunting license – and those are only available in that state when a child turns 10. Further, anyone who sells youth-sized or metal-tipped arrows is supposed to inquire as to whether the user has a child’s hunting license. Continue reading →

Published on: April 22, 2016

City of Beech Grove v. Beloat – Trip-and-Fall Injury Lawsuit to Move Ahead

By Dean Freeman

Government agencies owe a duty to ensure public walkways and thoroughfares are correctly designed and adequately maintained to minimize the risk of danger to pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists. When a dangerous condition results in an unreasonable risk of injury to members of the public, the agency may be liable to pay damages resulting from that injury.

An expose by the Sun Sentinel last year revealed Fort Lauderdale alone has 106 miles of bad sidewalk – enough to stretch from here all the way to Fort Pierce. On top of that, there are more than 850 miles of road throughout the city that really need sidewalks, but don’t have them. As the city strives to improve accessibility for all road users, this is a major challenge.

But even cities that are working toward improvements can’t escape liability if they are aware of a certain problem and fail to fix it or warn the public about it. Take for example the recent case of City of Beech Grove v. Beloat, a trip-and-fall injury lawsuit weighed by the Indiana Supreme Court. Continue reading →

Published on: April 17, 2016

Lompe v. Sunridge Partners – Premises Liability for Apartment Injury

By Dean Freeman

Property owners and property managers have a responsibility to make sure their site is safe for lawful guests. This duty includes residential landlords, who have many responsibilities to their tenants and tenant guests, including ensuring they are safe from an unreasonable risk of harm.

This could include things like:

Broken stairways
Unlit parking lots
Lack of security/ locks on the doors
Not having working smoke detectors

A recent case of Lompe v. Sunridge Partners before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit shows how landlords and property management companies can be liable for failing to make sure their properties are in safe condition. In this situation, it was a broken HVAC system that was the source of serious injury for a young college student. Continue reading →

Published on: November 29, 2015

Cruise Ship Injury Verdict $21M for Defective Door

By Dean Freeman

A cruise ship injury resulted in a$21.5 million verdict in favor of plaintiff after jurors in the federal lawsuit determined the cruise line was grossly negligent for failing to fix a faulty door, which was a known problem.

In Hausman v. Holland America Line-USA et al., tried in the Washington Western District Court in Seattle, plaintiff not only produced evidence of his own injury, but of similar injuries suffered by dozens of other passengers before him involving the same type of sliding glass doors that struck him. These other cases occurred across the company’s fleet, with the issue being faulty sensor settings.

Plaintiff alleged he suffered a minor brain injury when he was struck by the door as he exited behind several cruise members. Surveillance video of the incident, which occurred in open water, shows plaintiff approaching the doors and then being struck in the face and side of the head when the doors shut unexpectedly. Defense argued in trial plaintiff walked into the closing doors. Continue reading →

Published on: April 4, 2015

GEICO v. Kisha – Injury Cases Can’t be Decided on Emotion

By Dean Freeman

Although many personal injury cases inherently conjure emotion in those responsible for deciding their outcome, courts must work hard to ensure emotion is not a substantial factor in the final judgment.

For example, strong dislike of a plaintiff shouldn’t affect whether a jury finds that person entitled to damages, just as dislike of a defendant should not render them liable. But humans are emotional creatures. Sometimes defendants are unlikable and sometimes plaintiff’s situation is so awful, one can’t help but feel for them.

But if a jury does make a decision that is infused with sympathy and based on emotion rather than fact, it must be set aside.

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Published on: December 20, 2014

Report: Toy Injuries Among Children Higher Than Ever

By Dean Freeman

As we near the greatest gift-giving season of the year, we do recognize toys can be of great benefit to children, helping them to develop, learn and explore. However, they are also a source of serious injury.

A new report published in the journal Clinical Pediatrics indicates the number of toy-related injuries among children has risen sharply in the last two decades. Today, a child is rushed to an emergency room every 3 minutes for treatment of a toy-related injury.

In fact, researchers for the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital found more than 3.2 million children were treated in U.S. emergency rooms for toy-related injuries from 1990 through 2011. More than half of these instances involved children under the age of 5.

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Published on: November 1, 2014

Powers v. 31 E 31 LLC – Building Code Violation and Premises Liability

By Dean Freeman

When property owners or managers fail to ensure structures adhere to local and state building codes, there is a high potential for injury. After all, building codes are in place to keep us safe.

Generally, when injury results from a hazard that violates applicable building code standards, a strong case for premises liability can be made. The code itself can help establish constructive knowledge of a dangerous condition. Still, there are sometimes exceptions to the rule, which is why it’s so important to have an attorney with experience on your side.

In some instances, older buildings are allowed to avoid expensive updates to bring a property up-to-date with current codes, a process called being “grandfathered in.” But this does not shield a property owner or manager in all instances, and it definitely doesn’t excuse failure to warn of a dangerous condition that is not obvious to tenants or guests. This is true even in cases where plaintiff may share some degree of fault.

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