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Nationwide, roughly one in seven (13.8%) drivers are not covered by liability insurance and are therefore uninsured. Florida is tied in fourth place with Tennessee and Oklahoma at 24% with the highest percentage of uninsured drivers.

Part of Florida’s numbers are attributable to its motor vehicle insurance laws. Liability insurance is not required to operate a vehicle lawfully on Florida’s streets and highways. The coverage is optional and a premium will be charged to purchase it.

The only coverages that are required to obtain a vehicle registration and, thus, operate a vehicle lawfully, are Personal Injury Protection (PIP) and Property Damage – Liability. (However, in the event of an accident resulting in death or personal injury, if the uninsured motorcyclist or car/truck owner with only PIP/PD is charged with causing the accident, his/her drivers license and all vehicle registrations will be suspended. Sections 316.066(3)(a)1 and 324.051(2)(a) of Florida’s Statutes.) Neither coverage compensates the victim of an at-fault party’s negligence for personal injuries and economic losses.

Little can be done to prevent an accident caused by another person’s fault. However, safeguards can be taken to protect against the one in four chance of finding yourself without insurance coverage to compensate for serious personal injuries and economic losses. The answer is Uninsured Motorist/Underinsured Motorist Coverage. (Florida Statute 627.727.)
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Congressional Republicans are unrestrained hypocrits and ardent agents of America being a money-centered society over a people-centered society. The lure of big money trumps (pun intended) their lip service philosophy of limiting big government to empower the people.

H.R. 5, the so-called Help Efficient, Accessible, Low Cost, Timely Health Care (HEALTH) Act of 2011, is a terrible bill and is as anti-consumer and anti-victim as it gets. This bill would severely limit the ability of injured patients and their families to hold health care and medical products providers accountable. It would also limit remedies against for-profit nursing homes, insurance and pharmaceutical industries, manufacturers of medical devices, and even against doctors who commit intentional torts, such as sexual abuse.

To accomplish all of this, the federal law would preempt laws on the books in every state addressing the same issues.

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Permanent Total Disability (PTD) (440.15(1)) is the most valuable wage loss benefit available under Florida’s workers’ compensation system. Unlike Temporary Partial Disability (TPD) (440.15(4)) and Temporary Total Disability (TTD) (440.15(2)), monetary benefits that are available for only a short period of time, PTD can last for years and includes an annual supplemental increase equal to 3 percent of her or his weekly compensation rate.

The PTD standard has changed numerous times over the years. Until 1996, the standard was to meet a scheduled catastrophic injury, like total blindness or loss of limbs, or prove the inability to perform at least light duty work uninterruptedly on a full-time basis. In 1996, the light duty standard was replaced by the standard required to qualify for Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits, which the Florida Legislature believed was more demanding. In 2002, thanks to Governor Jeb Bush, the SSD standard was replaced by an even more stringent standard. Injured workers would be required to prove that they could not perform at least sedentary duty work on a part-time basis within a 50 mile radius of their homes. This standard prevented all but the most catastrophically injured workers from qualifying for PTD.

Because this standard proved so onerous… and unfair, the Florida Legislature was persuaded to eliminate the part-time element from the PTD requirement in its 2006 version of 440.15.

Pre-1996, one of the ways claimants proved entitlement to PTD benefits was by performing an exhaustive but unsuccessful job search. Because of the many variations in the standard since then, many workers’ compensation practitioners believed that this method no longer applied and abandoned it as a way of proving entitlement to PTD.

Thankfully, in Blake v. Merck & Co., 43 So. 3d 882 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010) the assumption was proven wrong. The Blake court set forth three alternative methods by which a claimant may prove entitlement to PTD benefits: by presenting evidence of (1) permanent medical incapacity to engage in at least sedentary employment, within a 50-mile radius of the employee’s residence, due to physical limitation; (2) permanent work-related physical restrictions coupled with an exhaustive but unsuccessful job search; or (3) permanent work-related physical restrictions that, while not alone totally disabling, preclude Claimant from engaging in at least sedentary employment when combined with vocational factors.
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stacking.jpgStacking coverage is one of the most misunderstood areas of Florida’s motor vehicle insurance laws. The goal of this blog is to help clear up the confusion.

Stacked coverage is a type of coverage that is available within the broader type of coverage known as uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) insurance. Neither coverage is mandatory under Florida law.

In Florida, the only mandatory coverages are Personal Injury Protection (PIP) and Property Damage – Liability. Every other type of coverage is optional.

One type of optional coverage is Bodily Injury, or BI. BI coverage pays for personal injuries, death, and economic losses caused by the insured’s negligence. Because an additional premium is charged for BI coverage, it is not purchased by every insured.

Uninsured/Underinsured coverage protects against the negligent motorist who does not have BI coverage – UM takes its place – or whose BI coverage limits are not sufficient to cover the losses – UIM. In other words, it performs for the insured (the person who has been damaged) as the at-fault party’s BI coverage otherwise would have.

Whenever BI coverage is purchased, UM/UIM will be included in the policy unless waived in writing by the insured. Like BI, it is not mandatory and a premium will be charged for the coverage.

Stacked coverage is an optional type of coverage that is available with the purchase of UM/UIM coverage. Like UM/UIM, stacked coverage will be included in the policy unless waived in writing by the insured.
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In the wake of The Miami Herald’s excellent series, Neglected to Death (Part 1; Part 2; Part 3), on the dire health and safety issues associated with Florida’s nursing home/assisted living facility industry, this is a good time to discuss some legal propositions closely related to the subject.

The Herald series focused on the problems and the state’s role, through AHCA and law enforcement, to control the situation. It paid little attention to the important role the civil justice system can and does play in regulating the system.

Civil law, as opposed to criminal law, is the branch of law dealing with disputes between individuals and/or organizations, in which compensation may be awarded to the victim. For instance, if a car crash victim claims damages against the driver for loss or injury sustained in an accident, this will be a civil law case.

In Florida, nursing home residents and their families harmed by negligence can bring claims through the civil justice system against those responsible for causing the harm. Such claims are brought under the parameters established by Chapter 400 of the Florida Statutes.

Even though victims may have the right to sue under Florida law, there is no guarantee of recovering compensation from the wrongdoers. This is because many of the facilities do not carry adequate insurance to cover losses or operate through a legal tangle of corporations and fictitious names designed to frustrate collection efforts.

Estate of Canavan v. National Healthcare Corp., 889 So. 2d 825 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004), provides some assistance to those trying to collect for nursing home negligence. The case, involving a lawsuit brought by the estate of a deceased nursing home resident, allows victims’ attorneys to hold a company’s directors or statutory managers personally liable for policy-level decisions affecting the operation of a long-term care facility.
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dollars.jpgIn Florida, a claim for wrongful death is brought by a court-appointed personal representative on behalf of the decedent’s estate and survivors. Florida’s Wrongful Death Act (FWDA) (Florida Statute Sections 768.16-768.26) outlines the specific damages recoverable by the estate and the survivors (e.g., surviving spouse and children).

Many wrongful death victims receive medical care for the injuries that have caused them to die. Frequently, Medicare pays those medical expenses.

In 1980, Congress enacted the Medicare Secondary Payer Act. The Act authorized the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to seek reimbursement for medical expenses incurred on behalf of wrongful death victims. One of the policies employed was to seek reimbursements from the property of wrongful death survivors who have no obligation or other connection to Medicare. This was always wrong, but it took a federal court to make the secretary understand.

Cases brought under the FWDA are resolved in favor of the estate and survivors in one of three ways: (1) pre-lawsult settlement; (2) settlement during suit; or (3) jury verdict rendered to a final judgment. When a case is settled, the personal representative is responsible for allocating the settlement proceeds between the estate and the survivors. In many instances, the estate is left with only a tiny portion of the overall recovery.

Until September 29, 2010, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services gave little regard to the allocations made under alternatives (1) and (2). The only allocations respected by the secretary were those made by a jury, alternative (3). Backed by the federal government, the secretary would muscle reimbursements from allocations made to survivors under options (1) and (2), even when the allocations are approved by a probate court judge. This was unacceptable to the personal representative and survivors in Bradley v. Sebelius, 621 F.3d 1330, 2010 WL 3769132 (11th Cir. 2010), who challenged the secretary’s practice of ignoring allocations made by personal representatives and approved by probate courts.
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nursing home abuse.jpgKudos to The Miami Herald for exposing the widespread abuse and neglect of residents within Florida’s nearly 2900 nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, and AHCA’s failure to perform its mandate to regulate and punish the wrongdoers. NEGLECTED TO DEATH Part I; Part II; Part III.

It is a must read and will make your blood boil… unless, of course, you are Governor Rick Scott or one of his merry band of radical right-wing Republican legislators who are pushing to create laws designed to weaken rather than strengthen the rights of private citizens to hold bad facilites accountable.

These are some of The Herald’s findings:

  • 70 People died from abuse or neglect since 2002.
  • 1,732 Homes were caught using illegal restraints like ropes, locking residents in closets, and tranquilizing them since 2002.
  • Only 26 facilities closed down by AHCA since 2002. State regulators could have shut down 70 homes in the past two years for a host of severe violations – including abuse and neglect by caretakes – but in the end, closed just seven.
  • 13,250 Police and rescue calls to a small enclave of ALFs in Broward County since 2005 – essentially one every four hours.
  • While the number of new homes has exploded across the state – 550 in the past five years – the state has dropped critical inspections by 33 percent, allowing some of the worst facilities to stay open.
  • Though the state has the power to impose fines on homes that break the law, the penalties are routinely decreased, delayed or dropped altogether. Consider: In 2009 AHCA could have imposed more than $6 million in fines, but took in just $650,000.

Now for what Rick Scott and his cohorts are seeking to enact:
House Bill 661 and Senate Bill 1396 would cap non-economic damages at $250,000 in wrongful death cases involving nursing homes for the first time. It would also make it more difficult to obtain punitive damages, and prohibit naming an out-of-town owner or investor of a nursing home in a lawsuit.
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dive boat.jpgTourists and local recreational scuba divers who use the services of dive companies, may wish to take note of an event that happened to a diver in California.

A dive company was staging a dive near the oil rig Eureka in 2004 when the a diver surfaced 400 feet away from the vessel after having difficulty equalizing the pressure in his ears. He tried to swim back to the boat, but got leg cramps. No one noticed his absence and a dive master for the company marked him as present. The boat moved to a second site some seven miles away, and there the stranded diver was mistakenly marked as taking a second dive! More than three hours after the diver had been left behind at the first dive site, the crew realized he was missing and radioed the U.S. Coast Guard. The diver was eventually rescued miles away by a ship carrying boy scouts.

The diver sued the dive company. The jury was told that the diver had suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and got skin cancer from exposure. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the diver in the amount of $1.68 million for damages. The trial lasted 23 days.

Florida, although a worldwide mecca for diving, has very little on the books with regard to regulating the sport, and nothing at all focused on dive charters per se. This means that the rules regulating dive charters will mostly be controlled by common law, case made law. This will typically suffice, although it might be nice to have some hard, statutory guidance in place to address common dive charter situations, such as keeping tabs of who is on and and who is off the vessel.
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tractor trailer.jpgAdopted in 1920, Florida’s dangerous instrumentality doctrine imposes strict vicarious liability upon the owner of a motor vehicle who voluntarily entrusts that motor vehicle to an individual whose negligent operation causes damage to another. See Southern Cotton Oil Co. v. Anderson, 80 Fla. 441, 468, 86 So. 629, 637 (1920). As expressed in Southern Cotton Oil:

[O]ne who authorizes and permits an instrumentality that is peculiarly dangerous in its operation to be used by another on the public highway is liable in damages for injuries to third persons caused by the negligent operation of such instrumentality on the highway by one so authorized by the owner.

Over the years, the doctrine has been applied to golf carts, trucks, buses, tow-motors and other motorized vehicles. Meister v. Fisher, 462 So. 2d 1071 (Fla: Supreme Court 1984); See, e.g., Eagle Stevedores, Inc. v. Thomas, 145 So.2d 551 (Fla. 3d DCA 1962).

Does the doctrine apply to trailers that make up the semi, tractor-trailer rigs so common to our highways? To the surprise of many, including some lawyers, the answer is No. See Saullo v. Douglas, 957 So.2d 80 (Fla. 5th DCA 2007); Pullman v. Johnson, 543 So.2d 231 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987); Edwards v. ABC Transportation Co., 616 So.2d 142 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993).
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helpful tips.jpgMotor vehicle accident victims would be well advised to follow these basic suggestions, many of which are applicable to other types of accidents:

  1. DO NOT give any statements, in writing or over the phone, to anyone about your car accident or injuries. This can even apply to your own insurance company, although caution must be taken here to avoid giving your insurance company an excuse for denying coverage. This condition is one reason why it is important to consult with a lawyer about your case as soon as possible. Car accident cases present countless landmines to those who are unaware of them.
  2. Take photographs of your car before it is repaired. Save and give the photographs to your lawyer. If you are unable to take photographs, your lawyer should get it done.
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