Florida Injury Attorney Blawg

By its decision in Vargas v. Enterprise Leasing Company (Case no.: SC08-2269; opinion issued on April 21, 2011), the Supreme Court of Florida has declared that car rental agencies, unlike regular citizens and other businesses, are not vicariously liable for accidents involving the vehicles they own. Score one for big business! Rafael Vargas was rear-ended…

What are the rights of expectant parents for the death of a fetus from an incident like a slip and fall or medical malpractice? Surprisingly, because a fetus is not considered a person under Florida’s Wrongful Death Act, Tanner v. Hartog, 696 So.2d 705 (Fla. 1997), neither parent may bring a claim for wrongful death…

Whether a person injured on real property owned or controlled by another will be successful in bringing a claim for damages, depends in large part on the injured person’s status on the property at the time of the accident. The general categories and the duty owed under each are set forth in the following outline:…

Florida premises liability law is the body of law which makes the person who is in possession of land or premises responsible for certain injuries suffered by persons who are present on the premises. It is a negligence-based system, meaning that responsibility is apportioned in accordance with fault. This is known as the concept of…

Our law firm (along with co-counsel firm Domnick & Shevin, LLP) is currently involved in litigation against the Enterprise car rental company. In 2008, Enterprise rented a vehicle, in Miami, to a person whose Florida driver’s license was under suspension for failing to appear in court on a number of motor vehicle moving violations. After…

Fault (or negligence) is always an issue in Florida motor vehicle accident personal injury cases. For an individual to be successful in claiming damages against another party, the claimant has the burden of proving that the other party caused the accident. In some cases, proving fault is an easy matter. In others, the issue will…

Since the establishment of a workers’ compensation system in Florida more than 80 years ago, business and insurance interests have steadily tried to whittle away workers’ rights with varying degrees of success. The high water mark for them arrived in the late 1990s with the election of Jeb Bush as Florida’s Governor. For the next…

Florida law imposes a duty on insurers to act reasonably in the discharge of the fiduciary duty they owe their policy holders. In the case of an injury claim against a policy holder (insured), the insurance company is duty bound to settle within the policy limits when it can and should do so. When the…

It is common practice to seek PIP benefits for an insured who has paid money out-of-pocket to satisfy a workers’ compensation lien. Is the PIP carrier let off the hook for payments when the workers’ compensation lien is waived? According to the holding in Cannino v. Progressive Insurance Co., Fla: Dist. Court of Appeals, 2nd…

In our firm’s continuing effort to inform the public of important legal issues, from time to time we will reproduce in our blog letters, articles, and papers written by other people. Today’s entry, published in the March, 2011 edition of The Florida Bar Journal, was written by Rutledge R. Liles, one of the most esteemed…