Florida Injury Attorney Blawg

Can a Worker Injured Outside Florida Be Eligible for Florida Workers’ Compensation Benefits? Under § 440.09(1)(d), Fla. Stat., an employee injured outside Florida may still be entitled to Florida workers’ compensation benefits if certain conditions are met: “If an accident happens while the employee is employed elsewhere than in this state, which would entitle the…

A core responsibility of lawyers representing clients with personal injury or property-damage claims is to maximize recovery. Conventional wisdom holds that recovery is limited to actual damages – the plaintiff cannot collect more than the loss suffered. Florida law, however, provides a pathway to expand recovery when subrogation, reimbursement, or contribution rights exist. In Despointes…

Florida’s Wrongful Death Act, §§ 768.16–768.26, Fla. Stat., focuses on the losses suffered by individual survivors and creates a distinct entitlement to damages for each one. Although each survivor has a separate claim for damages, they may not bring separate lawsuits. Rather, the decedent’s personal representative is the sole party with standing to file a…

Companies make billions of dollars leasing and renting motor vehicles. One might expect that with such profits would come a corresponding responsibility to compensate innocent people injured through the negligent operation of those vehicles. They don’t. The Florida Legislature once believed they should. It may still believe so, but its will has been overridden by…

Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist (UM/UIM) coverage – governed by section 627.727, Florida Statutes – is first-party insurance designed to compensate insureds for both economic damages (such as medical expenses and lost wages) and non-economic damages (such as pain and suffering) resulting from motor vehicle accidents caused by uninsured or underinsured drivers. Although every automobile insurer authorized to…

Disabled commercial vehicles pose significant hazards to motorists. Although approaching drivers often bear much of the blame for rear-end collisions, commercial vehicles that become disabled in active lanes of traffic frequently contribute to serious and fatal accidents—often through little or no fault of the approaching motorist. These crashes occur not only at night or in…

Florida Statute 624.155 gives people the right to sue insurance companies if they mishandle claims and cause financial harm. However, workers’ compensation insurance carriers are exempt from these provisions. Section 440.11(4) provides as follows: “Notwithstanding the provisions of s. 624.155, the liability of a carrier to an employee or to anyone entitled to bring suit in…

For those of us in Florida familiar with the constraints of the state’s sovereign immunity law, Florida Statute 768.28, the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. §§ 2671-2680, comes as a pleasant surprise. Under the state law, judgment damages against the state—or any of its agencies or subdivisions — are capped at $200,000 per…

Most work-related injuries arise from acute, single-incident accidents — a fall, a lifting injury, or a sudden mechanical failure. With few exceptions (such as injuries caused by horseplay), these “one-time” accidents are compensable under Florida’s workers’ compensation system. But what about injuries that develop gradually over time — through years of physical stress or repetitive…

Florida premises liability law governs the responsibility of those who possess or control land for injuries sustained by individuals on their property. It is a negligence-based system, meaning that liability is determined according to the degree of fault. This principle is known as comparative fault, codified in Florida Statute § 768.81, entitled Comparative Fault. Under…