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 […]
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 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 […]
This Holiday means a lot to me. I spend a lot of time thinking about all of the wrongful death clients I have had the privilege to represent. I think of the dead and the families left behind. I think of the countless hours spent meeting with the families in the immediate aftermath and years […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Legal advice and strategy in your personal injury case require a detailed understanding of the various responsible parties and their insurance. Your lawyer should anticipate coverage issues in advance and address them with you so that you can make informed decisions about pursuing your case and a recovery with meaning. The Eighth Circuit agreed with […]
In the late 1980s, Florida’s legislature passed lots of special rules for medical malpractice cases – hoops to be jumped through before a case can be filed. These laws, on the books from the time I became a lawyer, spawned warehouses full of legal challenges, appeals, opinions, and related paperwork. Whether the laws accomplished anything […]
