Florida Injury Attorney Blawg

While it’s bad enough that the employer/carrier (“E/C”) get to hand pick the injured worker’s treating doctors, Section 440.13(9)(c) Florida Statutes (2013) gives them a free shot at defeating opinions they oppose. My recent experience demonstrates the point. In pertinent part, Section 440.13(9)(c) provides: If there is disagreement in the opinions of the health care…

Florida law requires every owner or registrant of an operable personal use motor vehicle to maintain Personal Injury Protection and Property Damage – Liability insurance. See Florida Statute 627.733 Required security. While other types of coverage are available under the standard Florida motor vehicle insurance policy, these are the only two that are mandatory. While…

Herniated intervertebral discs can have significant medical and legal consequences. The symptoms of a herniated disc can range from minor pain all the way up to unbearable, unremitting pain, paresthesia, and numbness. Treatment options include palliative medicine, physical therapy, epidural injections, and surgery. Each of these option can be costly and none is guaranteed effective.…

Understanding Florida motor vehicle insurance law can be puzzling. The various coverage options include Personal Injury Protection (PIP), Bodily Injury (BI), Comprehensive/Collision, Property Damage Liability, and Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist (UM/UIM). Presently, only PIP and Property Damage Liability are mandatory in Florida. Neither of these coverages compensates the victim of an accident for non-economic damages like pain…

Parties to legal actions should always assume that their social media (e.g., Facebook; Twitter) postings will be discovered (discovery is allowed by FRCP 1.350; Discovery of Facebook Content in Florida Cases, 31 No. 2 Trial Advoc. Q 14 (Spring 2012)) and used against them by the other side if helpful. Postings can be used to…

Florida entities seek advance protection from their own negligence in two ways: exculpatory clauses and indemnity agreements. An exculpatory clause purports to deny an injured party the right to recover damages from a person negligently causing his injury. Kitchens of the Oceans, Inc. v. McGladrey & Pullen LLP, 832 So.2d 270 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002).…

Whenever an insured makes a claim, one of the first things every insurance company does is try to figure out ways to deny the claim. Common methods are to assert that the loss is not covered under the policy or that the insured has failed to cooperate with the carrier. Another popular practice is to…

The Medicare Secondary Payer Act of 1980 (“MSP”) — Link to the MSP Manual — was enacted to limit the financial burden on taxpayers for the medical expenses of Medicare beneficiaries whose medical needs are the primary responsibility of some other source. Until 2010, the MSP’s main focus was on workers’ compensation cases. (Florida’s workers’…

Our client was a passenger in a Dodge Dakota truck owned and leased by Enterprise Leasing Company, when it overturned two to three times on the highway at high speed. The driver, who had rented the truck from Enterprise, had fallen asleep at the wheel. Our severely injured client was airlifted to Shands Hospital, in…

For two weeks in November of 2013, I had the privilege of participating in a uniquely American experience. I participated in a civil jury trial in Orlando, Florida (in the Orange County Courthouse, the same courthouse in which Casey Anthony was on trial for first degree murder in the death of her daughter). I was…