Did you know that under the Florida Statutes a recovery for personal injuries is limited against a government agency? Under Florida's sovereign immunity statute the most a government agency will have to pay is $100,000.00 per an individual's claim. If a jury awards more than the cap on damages the injured party must petition the Legistlature to collect the rest of the award. Situations where...
A Tampa jury awarded a family $23.5 million dollars for the wrongful birth of their second child. The jury found a University of South Florida physician was negligent for giving the go ahead to the couple to have a second child even though the couple's first child had severe disabling birth defects. Had the doctor properly diagnosed this genetic disorder (Smith-Lemil-Opitz syndrome) in the...
It appears that justice was served last Thursday when a Jury in Polk County, Florida returned a verdict of nearly $45 million in a wrongful death and personal injury case. Last year, Morgan Bryant, 9, and Brittany Hooten, 8, were killed when the car they were riding in was struck practically head on by a large commercial truck. Morgan's mother, Carla, who was two months pregnant at the time of...
This past weekend the Castleberry Food Company expanded its voluntary recall of canned meat products after 16 cans of chili sauce tested positive for botulinum toxin, the toxin resulting in botulism. FDA officials said the cans showed signs of swelling, a telltale indicator of botulism contamination. People were advised to throw away more than 90 types of canned chili, beef stew, corned beef...
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned a rule set in place by the Bush Administration that allowed truckers to work longer hours, which increased the number of fatigue related truck accidents. The new rule had increased the average number of driving hours from approximately 8.5 hours per day to 11 hours per day.A panel of three judges ruled that the Federal...
The manufacturer of Oxycontin pain medicine was fined over 600 million dollars for fraudulently representing to physicians that OxyContin was less addictive and less subject to abuse than other pain medications. In fact just the opposite was true as the drug is so addictive it has been compared to heroin. The statements resulted in sales of billions of dollars for the manufacturer of the...
One person was killed and three more injured in an early morning car crash involving three vehicles on I-4. One of the vehicles left the highway, went thru a guardrail and landed on a power pole below at the intersection of Wymore and Rogers. After being ejected from the vehicles, one of the injured was airlifted to ORMC and the other two went to ORMC and Florida Hospital via ambulance. Power...
The Rand Corp has issued the results of its study of drivers 65 and older. What they discovered is that the 65 and older group are only 33% more likely to cause auto accidents than younger drivers ages 18 to 25 and have only a slightly increased chance over those age 26 to 64.The study looked at auto accident results in 2001 and showed that 65 year olds, roughly 15% of the population, caused...
Well they are at it again. State Farm announced it is dropping coverage for more Florida residents. These policy holders are not being dumped because of something they did wrong. They did not make fraudulent insurance claims or make excessive claims under homeowners or hurricane insurance claims. They are being dumped so that State Farm can reduce its risk and keep only the most profitable...
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a recall for approximately 1 million Easy-Bake Ovens. This defective product recall comes after the February repair campaign failed to prevent injuries.Hasbro, Inc., the maker of the Easy-Bake Oven, has reported to the CPSC that repairs suggested in February which were supposed to prevent children from getting their hands or fingers caught in...