Florida Injury Attorney Blawg

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires employers to pay employees overtime pay, at a rate of time and a half, for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week. However, the Act contains many exemptions. Many court battles have and will continue to be fought over these exemptions. One that is difficult…

Premises liability lawyers, both Plaintiff and Defense, know that evidence of prior accidents or events may, by a showing of substantially similar conditions, be admissible to prove one or more elements of a case. Less well recognized is that no-accident history may also be admitted into evidence for a variety of purposes. No-accident history may…

Florida Statute 627.409 (2010) allows an insurance company to rescind an insurance policy on the grounds of misrepresentation if it can prove: a) The misrepresentation, omission, concealment, or statement is fraudulent or is material either to the acceptance of the risk or to the hazard assumed by the insurer. (b) If the true facts had…

Job one of lawyers who represent individuals who have suffered personal injuries and/or property damage losses is to maximize the client’s recovery. The conventional thinking is that the recovery in every case is limited by the measure of actual damages, in other words, the recovery cannot exceed the loss. Surprisingly, this is a rule that…

For an accident to be compensable (or covered) under the workers’ compensation system, it must happen in the course and scope of the employment. Generally, where the employment has fixed time and location requirements, accidents off the premises during lunch are not compensable. In other words, these accidents do not occur in the course and…

Chapter 440, the body of statutes governing Florida’s workers’ compensation system, places on the injured worker, also known as the Claimant, the burden of proving the accident caused his or her injuries. Almost always, medical evidence is required to meet the burden. Certain elements must be established to meet the burden. Shown below is the…

On the 4th of July, of all days, the following topic should be considered one of utmost importance. The 7th Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right to a trial by jury in civil cases. Seventh Amendment of the US Constitution “In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed…

One would hope and expect in a society purporting to be civilized, that the negligence of any person or company could not be waived before it happened. Astonishingly, Florida law allows just that: pre-accident releases/waivers barring actions based on the subsequent negligence of the released party. In other words, Florida law sanctions the equivalent of…

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires employers to pay employees overtime pay, at a rate of time and a half, for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week. See Section 207 of the Act. To calculate the amount of compensation an employee is owed under the FLSA, the overtime rate (OT…

Jury trials are at the very foundation of American participatory democracy. According to Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, “The jury contributes powerfully to form the judgment and to increase the natural intelligence of a people; and this, in my opinion, is its greatest advantage. It may be regarded as a gratuitous public school,…