Personal Injury Attorney News

In Florida, you are presently required to wear a helmet while operating a bicycle if you are under the age of sixteen and under the age of twenty-one when operating a motorcycle.  You are not required to wear a safety helmet while on a motorcycle if you are at least twenty-one years old and have medical insurance in the amount of at least $10,000.00.

Approximately two million head injuries of all types occur each year in the United States.  1.7 million individuals sustain a traumatic brain injury annually. An estimated 28% of traumatic brain injuries were the result of an automobile accident.

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Imagine being involved in tragic accident that leads to a lawsuit.  You’re the plaintiff, you show up to the first day of trial and discover that your attorney is also representing the defendant.  Anyone can understand why that makes no sense because it is impossible for your counsel to ethically and fully represent either client if they are busy serving their adversary.  In a case that has been litigated for the past 10 years, the University of Miami felt this way when their insurance company assigned one law firm for both the University and another party being sued by the same plaintiff. 

The District Court of Appeal of Florida’s Third Circuit took a look at this in University of Miami v Great American Assurance Company.  This case stems from awful injuries sustained by a four-year-old child.  On July 18, 2000, a boy enrolled in MagiCamp was pulled from the bottom of a pool at the University of Miami.  The child was unresponsive and required hospitalization for extensive injuries.  His parents sued both MagiCamp and the University claiming both were negligent and that the injuries occurred due to a lack of supervision.  MagiCamp was a private company paying to use the University’s facilities.  The University had been an additional named insured on a Great American general liability policy issued for MagiCamp. 

Responding to the lawsuit filed by the child’s parents, MagiCamp claimed that an intervening act caused the injury and that the resulting damages were not caused, in whole or part, by MagiCamp.  This means that MagiCamp was blaming the University.  Great American Assurance provided one law firm to represent both the University and MagiCamp.  The University claimed it was impossible for one firm to adequately represent both parties since there was a conflict of interest between them.  The insurer refused to pay for two firms and the University retained its own counsel at its own expense. (Read More)

As of today, Florida still remains one of the six states without ban on texting while driving, but this year the fight will continue to get these bills passed. A ban on texting while driving, not only make the roads safer but will also decrease deaths that occur each year by distracted drivers. Drivers do not realize how many lives they put at risk, including their own while using a cell phone while operating a motor vehicle. What phone call or text message is worth losing a life?

The proposal will make texting while driving a second offense and the driver would have to commit a first offense such as running a red light or speeding in order to be cited. Once pulled over the officer can issue a ticket for the first offense and a second ticket for texting while driving. A first time fine for texting will amount to $30 and if pulled over again within five years of the first ticket the fine will be doubled. The representative for Boca Raton has filed a bill making it vehicular homicide if a driver causes a fatal crash while using any electronic device. In turn, the potential consequences hopefully will force drivers to behave in a prudent manner.

Lets take an auto accident injury case as an example.  In a majority of car accidents, liability is not an issue.  However, there could be factors that may be raised by the defense that could tend to indicate you either contributed to the accident or contributed to the injury.  For instance, if you are speeding or on your cell phone the defense could contest these facts contributed to the accident and you may be deemed contributory negligent or in non legal terms, your actions contributed to the accident.  

What’s good for goose is good for the gander.  Its an old adage but at least one Florida Court has opined that additional discovery will be allowed by powerful insurance carriers against plaintiff attorneys and the doctors that treat our clients.  The question may be why?  Why would the insurance companies care about the extent of the relationship between a treating physician and the plaintiff attorney I will attempt to bring out the why.  We must first examine the relevant caselaw

In Syken v. Elkins, 644 So.2d 539 (Fla. 3rd DCA 1994), Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal established guidelines for the taking of discovery from an expert medical witness concerning the probability he was biased in favor of the party upon whose behalf he was retained. On appeal, the Florida Supreme Court approved and adopted the Third District’s holding.”  Crable at 26.

The court said the decision “strikes a reasonable balance between a party’s need for information concerning an expert witness’s potential bias and the witness’s right to be free from burdensome and intrusive production requests.” Id. at 522. The holding in Elkins was limited to medical experts. The court subsequently enacted Rule 1.280(b)(4)(A)(iii) which extended its decision to all experts. Both the decision and the Rule attempt to balance a party’s need for information against the burden, annoyance and embarrassment production may cause the expert witness. They also speak to the courts’ concerns that in the absence of reasonable limits, qualified experts may be unwilling to participate in the judicial process and discovery may become unnecessarily and unduly expensive.


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As a creditor harassment attorney, I am rarely shocked by the slimy tactics of Florida debt collectors.  However, this latest tactic takes the cake.

What is a Power of Attorney?

A Power of Attorney is a legal document that gives one person authority over another person’s affairs. The person to whom the authority is granted is referred to as the “agent,” while the person who grants the authority is called the “principal.” The type of authority granted to the agent can vary depending on the type of Power of Attorney issued and the language of the actual document. For example, a Power of Attorney may be issued for just one single act—like giving an agent the power to sell the principal’s home—or it could be a general power of attorney which gives the agent broad powers to perform any legal act on behalf of the principal.

It is important to note that even with a general Power of Attorney there are certain things that an agent may never perform on the principal’s behalf. Regardless of the language of the document, an agent may never sign an affidavit stating that the principal has knowledge of certain facts, vote in a public election on behalf of the principal or take over control of a trust for which the principal was named as trustee.

Mark Gordon, M.D. a distinguished physician, began a crusade years ago talking about the effects of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and hormonal deficiencies.  He mainly worked with boxers, martial artists, and retired football players to conduct his studies concerning hormonal imbalance and its relationship with traumatic brain injury.  His research also included military personal that was suffering from “post-traumatic stress disorder”.  In his vast research, Dr. Gordon found that many individuals who suffered from traumatic brain injury also had a hormonal deficiency.

Whether the trauma was mild, moderate, or severe it still altered the brain's ability to regulate the patient's hormones leading to increased risk of heart attack, stroke, emotional instability, drug and alcohol abuse, depression, anxiety, mood swings, memory loss, fatigue, confusion, amnesia, poor cognition, learning disabilities, decreased communication skills, poor healing, frequent infections, poor fracture healing, poor skin quality, increased body fat, decreased muscle strength and size, infertility, and loss of sex drive. (Dr. Gordon, TBI study).

If you choose or have chosen to wait and see if the pain will subside as opposed to heading off to the physician as a knee-jerk reaction following an auto accident; you still have a case.  In an ideal world, you would be evaluated immediately following an auto accident.  However, there are often obstacles that intervene like a job, family and other responsibilities.  Further, many individuals do not simply opt to see a physician when they are in pain.  Rather, they employ a wait and see approach.  The statement “it just doesn’t matter” is clearly misleading and a half truth at best.  My hope is that consumers do not simply rely on this advice and opt not to pursue a potential case if they fail to have commenced treatment within 14 days following the accident.  This only further illustrates the danger of relying on advice offered by a non-attorney spokesperson from a lawyer referral service. (Read more)