Florida Personal Injury Laws

Legal Background

When I went to law school, I had an interest in civil litigation. When I got out I decided I wanted to litigate files. So I went to the best place to cut your teeth doing that, which is insurance defense. After a while I decided I was tired of defending insurance companies and I wanted to make a difference for people who were hurt. In my prior experience, working on the other side. I learned defense tactics, insurance companies policies and and procedures on how they defend claims, on how they defend, mechanisms that they use to defeat claims, defeat suits. My goal is to make sure that the client knows that they are the most important client on my roster. I’m always available. My cell phone is given to them at every client intake meeting. I take calls at all hours of the night, even answer mundane questions like, “What’s happening with my pit payments?” Big firm results, small firm attention, we do everything we can to make sure that our clients know that they are very important to us.

Legal Philosophy

I’ve talked to some of my clients even after they were not my clients, even after we settled their cases just about how their life is going. We want them to think of us as friends, we want them to think of us their companions in this process. We’re not just someone– I mean we are working for them but we’re not just someone that’s working for them, we’re working towards a common goal, which is to make them whole from their injuries. When I can get a settlement that I consider to be good or high quality based on their treatment, injuries, and medical history, that is my favorite part of my entire job. A lot of firms think of their clients as an end result. That’s not how we operate. This is a business but at the end of the day we’re trying to obtain the best result we can for every client we can. Not because of the bottom line, but because when you come in here, we care about you. You are part of our family.

By: Alexander Knapp

What is the value of my car accident claim?

Well, that really depends on things like: How bad is your injury? Did you need surgery? What are your medical bills? Did you lose time from work? How long were you out of work? What are your wages? What is the amount of money that you’ve lost as a result of the accident? So, all those factors work together to value your car accident case. If you’d like to discuss the value of your case, give me a call. I’m Ron Gilbert, with Colling Gilbert Wright & Carter, 180049 legal.

By: Ron Gilbert

Pedestrian Injured By Motor Vehicle

As a pedestrian who’s been injured by a motor vehicle,  it’s very important that you contact a reputable law firm that handles those types of cases, and you want to do that sooner rather than later. Hopefully you have notified the police so that the accident itself is documented. If you have required medical treatment as a result of your injuries, you want to document the injuries through photographs and video taken by family members, so that that evidence can be preserved. But you want an attorney on board quickly that can investigate the accident, because you as a pedestrian, are almost always going to be blamed for your own injuries. Were you crossing at the right crossing point? Were you j-walking? Were you crossing the road against a pedestrian crossing signal? You want an attorney to be able to investigate the accident and reconstruct the accident to determine exactly who was at fault.

Misuse Of A Product

Misuse of a product is always going to be a defense by the defendants and by their insurance company in a product liability or a product defect case. That does not necessarily mean that you cannot recover for injuries that result from a defective product. But what you want to do is make sure that you contact a reputable law firm that handles product liability cases and that has a good track record of getting good results in a product defect case– to assess that case. But understanding that even misuse, while it will always be a defense in the case, it doesn’t excuse negligence or strict liability on the part of the manufacturer or designer or even the seller of that defective product that injured you.

Baxter doesn’t want you to wind up here for the holidays. If you drink, let someone else drive. Make it a happy holiday for everyone. From Baxter, from me, and everyone at Federman & Associates, happy holidays.

By: Evan Fetterman

Insurance Companies Evaluating Your Losses

Insurance companies will evaluate your losses based on your economic and what we call your noneconomic damages. Your economic damages; what are your medical bills from the date of the crash up until the time of the trial or until the time of the settlement conference and what are your medical bills in the future that a doctor can determine are reasonably related to the crash itself. Also, what are your economic losses for missing work or your wage loss. Have you lost work as a result of this crash in the past, will you lose work in the future? So that’s the economic component that the insurance company will assess.

Aside from that is the noneconomic or the human damages element; what is the pain and suffering that you have experienced in the past and into the future related to a crash. What is your mental anguish, your loss of enjoyment of life? And while those damages are not as easily quantifiable as your economic damages, the insurance company will try to place a value on all of those damages together and that will determine what kind of money they may be willing to offer you to settle a case.

Cruise Line Injury Claim

Cruise line claims are different than most negligence claims. In Florida we have a four-year statute of limitations on negligence claims. However, it’s very different when you’ve been injured while on a cruise. The ticket or your cruise contract– it actually is that. It is a contract and there is usually small print language on the back of your contract that requires you to bring your claim or file written notice of your claim with the cruise line, typically within six months of there being an accident. And then to file a lawsuit within one year of the accident which is obviously much different than having a four-year statute of limitations.

All too often in Florida people that have been injured on a cruise line will wait too long because they think they have four years to bring a claim when it’s just not the case. The cruise line ticket or contract applies and you must read that language. You must have family members look at the contract if you’ve been injured while on a cruise line because often times you will no longer have rights to bring a claim if you wait too long and that’s typically more than six months from the date the incident occurred.

Auto Accidents in Orlando

If you’re hurt in an accident, you should know that getting a fair settlement in a timely fashion without having to go through a lengthy trial could have a lot to do with the lawyer who represents you.

Hire a trial lawyer who is well-known by the insurance companies. I’m David Best of the Best Law Firm. I’ve been representing injury victims for over two decades. If you’re injured, call me and put the best firm to work for you.

By: David Best

Rules To An 18 Wheeler Accident

The rules are definitely different when it comes to investigating and determining fault in a case as between a big rig tractor-trailer truck and a car wreck. For example, when it comes to whether or not a given driver ran a red light or ran a stop sign, the rules are similar. However, in the big rig trucking cases, remember we’re dealing with professional drivers with special professional licenses, and when a professional truck driver is in a big rig, he or she is subject to rules pursuant to different state and federal regulations which place a higher responsibility on that particular driver, on the driver’s rig, and on the company responsible for employing that driver. So, yes, they are different.