This Kind of Courthouse Reporting Reveals a Bias Against Plaintiffs

As reported in Law 360 … The Florida Supreme Court’s recent decision not to reinstate a nearly $31 million jury award against a bar that served alcohol to an underage person who later crashed into a pedestrian was the right call, experts said, and provided much needed clarity on the state’s dram shop statute. Read […]

Law Students Are Learning To Be Trial Lawyers In A “Flight Simulator”

Law students who would traditionally experience only a few courtroom scenarios over a semester have begun working with programs that can provide an entire array of courtroom curveballs, thanks to large language model artificial intelligence technology. Read more at: https://www.law360.com/personal-injury-medical-malpractice/articles/1804884?nl_pk=029cff45-637f-44e3-babf-75563f8e0bfd&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=personal-injury-medical-malpractice&utm_content=2024-02-21&read_main=1&nlsidx=0&nlaidx=1?copied=1 Based on real-life experiences, I have suggestions for “curveball” fact patterns to throw at these […]

Pitards and Hoisting Come to Mind

Insurance companies often use service deadlines to avoid responsibility when plaintiffs have trouble with service of process. I don’t remember seeing an insurance company’s lawyers have the same problem. An insurance company that wanted to avoid defending a company that inspected and certified an amusement park drop tower ride that fatally ejected a 14-year-old boy […]

Florida Homeowner Insurance Claims Hoops That You May Have To Jump Through

But not this notice to DFS if your policy was issued before the date of this statute. The Sixth District Court of Appeal on Wednesday reversed a Collier County Circuit Court judge’s order granting Universal Property and Casualty Insurance Co.’s motion to dismiss a suit brought by its policyholder Rebecca Hughes, and remanded the case for […]

A major victory for Maya’s family, their lawyers, and patients everywhere. I cannot overstate how impressive this work is under difficult circumstances.

A Florida jury tacked on $50 million in punitive damages to a roughly $211 million award to the family of Maya Kowalski, the child at the center of the Netflix documentary “Take Care of Maya,” against Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital for mistreating Maya to the point that her mother took her own life. Read […]

The Impact Rule

In many states, including Florida, a physical impact is required for a plaintiff to recover mental and emotional damages for most torts. There are exceptions for the most egregious misconduct – when some people without any physical impact can recover mental and emotional damages. I have litigated that question successfully on appeal. You can read […]

Med Mal Presuit Rules Can Be A Trap

Many states, like Florida, have presuit rules for medical malpractice cases, passed at the urging of lobbies that represent insurance companies and hospital systems. These rules differ from state to state but generally make filing suit more difficult by setting up a series of procedures your lawyer has to follow. Unsurprisingly, almost every case involves […]

Sackler Immunity and the Purdue Pharma Settlement

SCOTUS court watchers were a little shocked that the Court blocked the Purdue Pharma / Sackler settlement – even if temporarily – and there is a lot of buzz about how they will answer this question: whether the Bankruptcy Code authorizes a court to approve, as part of a plan of reorganization under Chapter 11 […]

Our Experience Litigating Seat Belt Defects

When I worked with my Father, we had a case involving catastrophic injuries in a Ford pickup rollover caused by an inoperable seatbelt. We won that case at trial and, to fully recover, we had to take the case to the Florida Supreme Court. I wrote about that case in a prior post linked just […]