Personal Injury Attorney News

Probably the most surprising to those unfamiliar with the subject is the fact that in Florida, when a plaintiff sues a defendant driver that he/she has been involved with in an automobile crash, a jury is not allowed to hear any evidence relating to the defendant’s insurance coverage. See Carl’s Market, Inc. v. Meyer, 69 So. 2d 789 (Fla. 1953). If you have ever been involved in a car crash, you are probably all too familiar with the fact that you are not dealing directly with the at-fault driver who caused the crash. Rather, you are dealing with an insurance adjuster who works for the insurance company and is defending your claim on behalf of their insured, the at-fault driver. It would then make sense that if you bring a lawsuit as a plaintiff the case caption would read “plaintiff vs. insurance company.” However, in Florida, under what is known as the non-joinder statute, Section 627.4136, the defendant in a lawsuit is the actual individual, not his/her insurance company and therefore the jury is forbidden to know about the existence of a defendant’s insurance coverage during trial. This means that at trial, the jury may end up feeling sympathy for the individual defendant, even though he/she is represented at trial by an attorney who is working for their insurance company and is covered under an insurance policy. Moreover, the jury might then be hesitant to provide the plaintiff with the compensation he/she deserves based on the incorrect assumption that the defendant does not have any insurance. This rule also limits the jury from understanding the magnitude of the role that the insurance company has had in defending the plaintiff’s case.

(click on this article to learn more)

https://www.dolmanlaw.com/insurance-companies-dont-want-know-juror-florida/

Essentially, when someone is injured because someone broke a safety rule, such as a traffic law, the injured party has a right to be compensated for their losses. It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Not really. What this means is that if someone harms you then you are allowed to be made whole by financial compensation for both economic and non-economic damages. These are the rules of our justice system in Florida. If you are any other person causes harms or damages, the protection of an Insurance Policy often comes into play.

Each month you loyally pay your insurance premiums to the companies with the cute commercials that make all these promises to stand by you in a time of need. The protection afforded by insurance is that in the event of a claim, the insurance company will protect the personal financial exposure of the policy holder. This may include the hiring of a defense lawyer to legally defend a lawsuit brought upon by an injured plaintiff.