Motor Vehicle Accident Category Archives — Page 28 of 28 — South Florida Injury Attorneys Blog Published by South Florida Injury Lawyers

October 22, 2014

Fourth District Court of Appeal Holds That Prior Jury Determination is Binding in Uninsured Motorist Case

Uninsured or underinsured motorists are not an uncommon problem in Florida. A recent study conducted by the Insurance Research Council showed that in 2012 Florida ranked second in the nation in the number of uninsured drivers, with approximately 3.2 million of the state’s drivers being uninsured at the time. In fact, Florida had only about a million fewer uninsured drivers than California, even though The Golden State boasts a population nearly twice the size of The Sunshine State. Beyond placing their personal pocketbooks in peril, uninsured and underinsured motorists often create legal hassles for those with whom they happen to collide. The sort of frustrations commonly occasioned by accidents with uninsured motorists are at the center of a recent case from the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Geico General Insurance Company v. Paton. Paton involved a dispute between an injured passenger and an insurance company that refused to pay the full policy limit of uninsured motorist benefits following an accident involving an underinsured motorist.

The plaintiff in Paton was injured in a car accident resulting from the negligence of an underinsured driver on January 1, 2008. The driver’s insurance provider, Geico, paid the injured plaintiff $10,000, which was his policy limit. The injured plaintiff’s mother, however, maintained uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage with Geico with a policy limit of $100,000. The injured plaintiff’s attorney made a formal demand to Geico to pay the full policy limit. Geico objected and offered $1,000 in exchange. Subsequent negotiations followed, but Geico never offered more than $5,000 during the course of this back and forth. Eventually, the dispute went to trial, and a jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff and fixed damages, including present and future pain and suffering, at $469,247. Geico did not move for a new trial, and judgment was entered in the plaintiff’s favor but limited to the $100,000 policy limit. The plaintiff then, with the leave of the court, amended her complaint to include a claim for bad faith under § 624.155 of the Florida Statutes. Before a second trial with respect to the added bad faith claim, the plaintiff moved in limine to exclude evidence of damages from the second trial and fix those damages at the amount that was not recovered at the first trial, $369,247. Geico then moved to exclude from evidence in the bad faith trial the damages awarded in the prior underinsured motorist trial and force the plaintiff to prove bad faith damages anew. The trial court granted the plaintiff’s motion and denied Geico. After a second trial, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and the court awarded damages of $369,247. Geico then appealed.

October 8, 2014

Supreme Court of Florida Answers Certified Question Regarding Dangerous Instrumentality Doctrine

by Frankl Kominsky Injury Lawyers

The dangerous instrumentality doctrine is a long-established principle of tort law. Under this doctrine, a person with a property interest in a vehicle is vicariously and strictly liable for the injuries that result from negligent operation of that vehicle by a person to whom he or she granted custody of it. Although the principle is well established, questions regarding its application still arise. For example, in one recent case, Christensen v. Bowen, the Supreme Court addressed a question that arose from it, which had been certified to it by the Fifth District Court of Appeal.

Bowen arose from a motor vehicle accident that occurred in early 2005 when one of the defendants, the former wife of the other defendant, negligently struck and killed another person while operating the vehicle. At the time of the accident, title to the vehicle remained in the name of both the defendants, although the vehicle had been purchased while the defendants were in the process of getting a divorce. At the time of purchase, the then-married defendants signed an application for certificate of title to be issued to them as owner and co-owner. The then-husband never received copy of the certificate of title, since it was mailed to his wife’s address. In addition, the then-husband never had keys or access to the vehicle. Following the accident, the estate of the deceased brought suit against the driver and her former husband. The former wife moved for a directed verdict on the ground that her former husband was an “owner,” but the trial court denied the motion. A jury eventually found that the former husband was not an owner for purposes of applying the dangerous instrumentality doctrine, but his former wife appealed, arguing that the trial court erred by not granting her motion for a directed verdict on ownership. The Fifth District Court of Appeal agreed but certified the question to the Supreme Court of Florida as a question of great public importance.

August 13, 2014

Fourth District Court of Appeal Reverses Trial Court in Broward Auto-Accident Appeal

by Frankl Kominsky Injury Lawyers

As the Fourth District Court of Appeal’s opinion in Marina Dodge, Inc. v. Quinn demonstrates, sometimes the hardest part of a lawsuit is getting the opposing party in court. In Quinn, the Court of Appeals found that the courts of Florida could not exercise personal jurisdiction over two New York auto-retailer corporations that had been sued following a motor vehicle accident in Broward County, Florida.

As noted above, Quinn followed a 2007 motor vehicle accident that led to the serious injury of one of the drivers. The injured driver, the plaintiff in this case, purchased the vehicle involved in the crash in New York four years earlier, when she was still a resident there. Sometime after this transaction but before the accident, the driver relocated to South Florida, where she now resides. After the crash, the seriously injured driver sued the other driver involved in the accident as well as Marina Dodge, Inc. and Webster Auto Brokers, Inc., two New York auto retailing corporations, in the Broward County Circuit Court. With respect to the auto retailers’ liability, the plaintiff argued that the vehicle she purchased in New York was defective and that the defective condition led to the accident and thus her injuries. The corporations both moved to have the claims against them dismissed, arguing that the courts of Florida could not exercise jurisdiction over them. The trial court, however, denied both motions, stating that the corporations had “continuous contact that took place over years with various entities sufficient to permit jurisdiction to lie in the State of Florida.”

Despite the trial court’s certainty on the question of jurisdiction, the Court of Appeal reversed in a unanimous decision. Generally, there are two ways for a plaintiff to show that a court has personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant. First, one can show that the court had specific jurisdiction. For specific jurisdiction to exist, one must first show that the state’s long-arm-statute covers the acts at issue in the suit. If that prong is met, one must then show that there exist sufficient “minimum contacts” between the out-of-state defendant and the state where jurisdiction is sought. For there to be sufficient “minimum contacts,” one must generally demonstrate that the defendant “deliberately [engaged] in significant activities within a State or has created “continuing obligations” between himself and residents of the [state]” such that “he manifestly has availed himself of the privilege of conducting business there.”Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 475-76 (U.S. 1985) (internal quotations marks and citations omitted). Alternatively, one can show that general jurisdiction exists. Since the Florida long-arm-statute provision for general jurisdiction is read coextensively with the constitutional requirement for general jurisdiction, see Caiazzo v. Am. Royal Arts Corp., 73 So.3d 245, 250 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011) (pdf downloadable link), one must just show that the defendant engaged in “continuous, substantial, and systematic” contact with the state.
Continue reading

June 18, 2014

Davie Police Identify Men Involved in Possible Wrong-Way Driving Accident

by Frankl Kominsky Injury Lawyers

On Wednesday, June 18, 2014, police identified the two men who were injured on Tuesday in a possible wrong-way motor vehicle accident on a stretch of State Road 84 in Davie. Dale Engle, the Davie Police Captain, identified the man reported to have been driving west in the eastbound lanes of State Road 84 before colliding with a black pickup truck. Prior to the accident, police had received several calls about a “reckless” driver headed in the wrong direction on State Road 84.

Police are still in the process of investigating the crash, but Captain Engle said that neither drugs nor alcohol appear to have contributed to the crash. He further noted that, although the roads were wet, weather conditions did not seem to have been a factor.

The driver of the vehicle headed in the wrong direction, who resides in Miami, may have, according to Engle, been unfamiliar with the roads in the area, which have been under construction for an extended period of time as Interstate 595 is widened. The driver of the black pickup truck, who was treated at Broward Health Medical Center for broken bones in his feet, is conscious and said he did not remember seeing the other vehicle before the collision.

May 28, 2014

Conceding Liability: A Good Strategy?

by Frankl Kominsky Injury Lawyers

Typically, the thought of conceding liability in a negligence suit runs counter to conventional legal strategy. In fact, attorneys often spend considerable time trying to counteract even banal admissions that occur prior to formal litigation that could be construed as declarations of liability. However, a recent case coming from Florida’s Second District Court of Appeals demonstrates how a proactive admission of guilt can occasionally work in a defendant’s favor.

In Swanson v. Robles, the Second District Court of Appeals held that allowing evidence of a defendant’s drug use during the first phase of a trial when the defendant had already admitted liability for both compensatory and punitive damages was reversible error. The case arose from a traffic accident in October 2008. A truck being driven by the defendant struck a vehicle owned by the City of Tampa and a city employee who was unloading traffic counters at the rear of the vehicle. The city employee died immediately following the collision, and his estate brought a wrongful death action against the driver, seeking both compensatory damages for the deceased’s widow and compensatory and punitive damages for the estate. The defendant brought a motion to bifurcate the trial, so that evidence of his drug use (Xanax, methadone, and marijuana) would not be admitted and prejudice the jury. In light of his admission of liability, the defendant argued that such evidence was no longer probative with respect to determining whether or not he was liable for compensatory damages and punitive damages or for determining the amount of compensatory damages. The evidence was not excluded, and the defendant brought an appeal, arguing that permitting the evidence was in error.

The Second District Court of Appeal agreed. The Court found that, since the defendant had conceded liability with respect to both compensatory and punitive damages, evidence of his drug use was no longer relevant for determining liability for either sort of damages or with respect to determining the amount of compensatory damages. Although compensatory damages include “pain and suffering,” the court held that possible knowledge of drug use was not probative for determining the amount of damages reflecting loss of companionship and protection. In addition, the court held that, while evidence of drug use may be probative with respect to determining the amount of punitive damages, the amount of those damages would be handled in the second stage of the bifurcated trial, and thus the evidence of the drug use only served to inflame the jury during the first stage and lead to a possibly higher assessment of compensatory damages.

May 14, 2014

Florida Senate and House of Representatives Pass the Aaron Cohen Life Protection Act

by Frankl Kominsky Injury Lawyers

On Tuesday, April 22, the Florida House of Representatives unanimously voted in favor of enacting the Aaron Cohen Life Protection Act, legislation that stiffens penalties for hit-and-run drivers. This follows the March 26 unanimous vote of the Florida Senate in favor of the Act, which will now go to the Governor’s desk for approval and signature. The Aaron Cohen Life Protection Act is the product of an unfortunate death of a cyclist who was hit while riding on the Rickenbacker Causeway in February 2012.

The hit-and-run driver, who was on probation for cocaine charges and was driving with a suspended license, had been carousing at a bar in Coconut Grove shortly before the 6 AM accident. After he hit the deceased person and another cyclist, the driver did not stop to offer assistance or wait for the authorities. Instead, he continued his journey home, where he concealed the damaged vehicle under a tarp. By the time he eventually surrendered to authorities, 18 hours after the accident, the police were unable to take a timely blood alcohol test. Inability to ascertain the driver’s blood alcohol level helped him avoid manslaughter charges. The driver eventually pled guilty to charges of driving with a suspended license, leaving the scene of an accident involving death, and leaving the scene of an accident involving great bodily harm. The driver was sentenced to only one year in prison and only served 264 days of the sentence.

The Aaron Cohen Life Protection Act seeks to eliminate the incentive hit-and-run drivers have in leaving the scene of an accident. The new law amends Florida’s Leaving the Scene of an Accident Law, which was enacted in 1971. The law creates a mandatory minimum sentence of three, seven, or 10 years for leaving the scene of an accident, depending on whether a person was injured, seriously injured, or fatally injured. The legislation also increases the mandatory minimum sentence for leaving the scene of an accident while under the influence of alcohol from two years to 10 years and provides for a three-year revocation of the offender’s license. By imposing these mandatory minimums, lawmakers hope that hit-and-run drivers, especially those under the influence of alcohol or drugs, will no longer see any incentive in fleeing.
Continue reading

April 9, 2014

A Review of “Examination Under Oath” and “Independent Medical Examination” Provisions for PIP Benefits

by Frankl Kominsky Injury Lawyers

Although Florida instituted a no-fault insurance scheme to assure swift recovery for auto accident victims and dissuade needless litigation involving small claims, insurers have often conditioned the receipt of benefits in various ways that have made the benefit acquisition process increasingly protracted and involved. Two common provisions that insurers incorporate into their no-fault contracts are the requirement that the insured submit to an “Examination Under Oath” (EUO) prior to receiving benefits and the requirement that the insured undergo an “Independent Medical Examination” (IME) if he or she is seeking coverage for treatment of a physical injury.

In June of last year, the Supreme Court of Florida rendered a decision in Nunez v. Geico, which took a strong stance related to the propriety of EUO provisions. In Nunez, the court held that although the PIP statute, § 627.736 Florida Statutes, is silent with respect to EUOs, delaying or denying coverage based on the insured’s failure to submit to an oral examination under oath was inconsistent with the statutory goal under § 627.736 “of ensuring swift and virtually automatic payment of benefits” and, thus, invalid. Geico noted concerns related to fraud, but the majority held that an insurer concerned about fraud could make use of § 627.736(6)(c), which allows for court-ordered discovery upon a showing of good cause. In reaching this decision, the court compared EUOs to Independent Medical Exams, the latter of which are directly addressed and permitted under § 627.736.

Although the court staked a strong position in Nunez, the impact of the decision is limited. Before the court even rendered its opinion, the Florida Legislature passed new laws that amended the PIP statute in order to permit EUOs in no-fault insurance policies. Accordingly, only PIP claims delayed or denied prior to implementation of the legislation are affected by the Nunez decision. In addition, the new legislation modified the preexisting IME provisions to allow an insurer to deny coverage when the insured has unreasonably failed to attend a scheduled IME. Failing to attend two scheduled IMEs creates a rebuttable presumption of unreasonableness.