Florida Personal Injury Laws

Can you recover punitive damages when another driver is texting while driving, and causes an accident and injuries to you?

In Florida that question somewhat unanswered, but yes you can. All depends on the facts. I’m Mel Wright. I’m a partner at Colling Gilbert Wright & Carter. Call us at 1800-49-LEGAL.

By: Mel Wright

Comparative Negligence On A Pedestrian

Comparative negligence on a pedestrian accident case in Florida means that the relative fault of the parties involved in an accident is compared against each other. And in Florida, we’re a pure comparative negligence state, meaning even if you’re partially at fault or mostly at fault, you can still recover damages if another party is determined to be some percentage at fault. Just your damages are reduced by the amount that is determined to be your share of fault. It’s important in a pedestrian accident case that you have attorneys that know how to handle those cases because you are always going to be blamed in a pedestrian accident case for causing your injuries, and it’s important that you have reputable attorneys that have handled pedestrian accident cases to assess comparative fault issues in a pedestrian accident case.

Motorcycle Accident Investigation

The investigation of a motorcycle accident is critical. Oftentimes you will have many witnesses, for example in an intersection collision case, and several years later when you take the depositions or sworn statements of those witness who have all observed the same exact crash, they will have greatly varying versions of what actually happened. So the investigation of a motorcycle accident is critical; you have to preserve evidence at the scene. Where did the motorcycle come to rest? Where did the other vehicles come to rest? Where were witnesses when they observed what happened? Were there skid marks or gouge marks in the roadway?

It’s crucial that you investigate very soon after a motorcycle accident to preserve that evidence that will become critical in later reconstructing the accident to determine who was at fault for the crash.

Injury Is Apparent After An Accident

If you’ve been in a car accident, whether you feel pain immediately at the scene or not, you should go see a doctor right away. The reason for that is there are many times that you can have any injury that is not immediately apparent to you and sometimes doesn’t develop into pain or discomfort for a few hours or a few days. Rather than wait and give it an opportunity to develop, it’s best to see a doctor immediately. That way, you can document any complaints or symptoms you may have, and that way you get a full checkout to ensure that you don’t have some hidden or unknown injury that could be problematic or of greater concern to you.

Benefits To Contingency Fees

Most personal injury attorneys will handle a case on a contingent fee basis meaning that they are paid as a percentage of the total amount of money recovered. The great benefit to you as the client in a contingent fee arrangement is that you don’t have to pay any money to the attorney upfront, so it costs you nothing in advance to hire the lawyer. The attorney is paid as a percentage of the total amount recovered and that percentage varies depending on the total amount that the attorney recoveries for you and the stage in the case at which the money is recovered. If the attorney is unable to recover any money for you for whatever reasons, you don’t owe the attorney anything.

How do you value your car accident case?

There are many different factors that we look at. Things like: how long were you out of work? What were your medical bills? What type of injury did you suffer? Is it an injury that’s going to require surgery? Is it something that’s going to be long-lasting with permanent impairment? So, if you have questions about your car accident case, give me a call. I’m Ron Gilbert with Colling Gilbert Wright & Carter: 1-800-49-LEGAL.

By: Ron Gilbert

Why Our Law Firm Is Different

A lot of clients that come to us have also met with other firms or other lawyers. I think one thing that make our firm special is that each of the partners and each of the lawyers in our firm meet with clients personally. If we take the case we handle the case personally. My clients call me everyday, they e-mail me, they call me on my cellphone. We get personally invested with our clients in their cases. We don’t take a huge volume of cases. We try to take a number of cases that we can handle the client personally and handle the case like it’s a member of our family. I think some firms in Florida and in Orlando take a high volume of cases, and I think the work suffers because the clients don’t get to know their lawyer and the lawyer is not personally invested in their case. If you have a question about a case and would like to sit down with one of us personally and talk about it. If we take the case we’ll handle it personally. Another thing is that we have a team of lawyers and a team of experts that work together on your case. So we’re all fighting for you and fighting for your cause. If you have a question about a case like that or just want to discuss about your options with us, call me. Nathan Carter at 1-800-49-LEGAL.

By: Nathan Carter

Premises Liability Claims in Orlando

Here at Best & Anderson we handle a multitude of cases and kinds of cases. One of those is premises liability. It’s probably the one concept in the law that most people don’t know or understand. Clearly, if you were walking down the sidewalk and a pit bull dog runs out of somebody’s yard and bites you, you would probably figure you have a case – and you probably would. But the rest of the concept is a little more complicated.

Business Premises Liability

If you go to a business – let’s say a convenience store, a bar even, a restaurant, or even an apartment complex – and you’re the victim of a crime, and the criminal is not even related to the business, most people think that’s just a criminal matter for the police. But, in fact, it may be a matter that can be handled in civil court, and you may be entitled to damages for your injuries.

You hear about people that have been abducted and attacked sexually at a business, and no one would ordinarily think they’d have a case because the business owner didn’t cause that directly. But if the business allows a condition to exist, a danger zone to exist, and they knew or should have known that there’s a danger there and they do nothing to correct it, they can be liable. That’s called a foreseeable zone of risk. So, if reasonable people that own a business know of prior criminal activities or the likelihood of disorderly conduct, they have to correct it.

Investigation & Litigation

If someone gets injured even by a criminal unrelated to the business, they could have a case. And you really don’t know ahead of time whether the insurance company or the business has told the truth. You don’t know whether there’ve been prior incidents on that property or not.

Even if you file a claim, you can’t find out what happened without doing investigation. That’s what we do. We get crime grids and we find out how many crimes have been committed on their property. Then, if we can establish that they knew or should have known that there was a danger and someone got injured from that, you could have a good case. Thank you for listening to me.

By: David Best

Call The Police After An Accident

You always want to make sure that you call the police, regardless of severe or how minor an accident is in the state of Florida, because it’s important that the accident is documented. That can include documenting or identifying witnesses who are at the scene who may have observed exactly what happened, because that will become crucial down the road if there is a legal claim.

So you always want to make sure that you call the police, so that the accident gets documented regardless of how minor the accident may be.