Florida Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

According to statistics for 2004, 33 percent of passenger vehicle occupant fatalities occurred in vehicles that rolled over. A recent National Highway Safety Administration analysis found that, generally, sport utility vehicles are more likely to roll over in a crash than pickup trucks, which in turn are more likely to roll over than vans or passenger cars. And, even though pickup trucks were more likely to roll over than passenger cars, occupants of a pickup were less likely to sustain fatal injuries than occupants of a passenger car.

Maybe that is why the victim in this single vehicle roll over is lucky to be alive, although she did have serious injuries. Our victim in this Florida truck accident case is a 45 year old single woman living in West Palm Beach, Florida. She had traveled to Indiana with her boyfriend to visit her son and was enroute back to her home at the time of this Florida auto accident. They had borrowed her son’s pickup truck and the boyfriend was driving on State Road 55 in Cross City, Florida early one rainy morning. The victim was asleep when the accident occurred, but feels certain that the driver fell asleep and then over-corrected when he ran off the left shoulder of the road. He then cut across the road to the right shoulder, ran off the road and the truck flipped over one or two times before landing against a tree by the road. The driver denies falling asleep and states that he believes a tire blew and caused the accident.

Whatever happened, the victim through no fault of her own, sustained very serious injuries in this crash, including but not limited to injuries to her neck, right shoulder, head, mid and low back. In fact, her medical expenses eventually amounted to almost $200,000.00. As a result of this accident, she received a huge knot on the right side of her head and sustained severe memory loss and had constant migraines. Her neck had a ruptured disc and a bulging disc and required surgery for disc replacement. Her right shoulder was separated. Her lumbar spine had a ruptured disc and a bulging disc. She is told by her physicians that she may need future surgery.

The victim in this case requested assistance from Attorney Richard D. Schuler because she was concerned about her mounting out-of-pocket expenses, and was fearful that she might require more invasive treatment in the near future. Mr. Schuler pursued settlement with the insurance companies representing the defendants and the uninsured motorists carrier in this matter, and was successful in obtaining a total settlement of hundreds of thousands of dollars for this victim. She will now be able to obtain medical treatment and any surgery she made need in the future

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Posted In: Truck Accidents

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When you plan a fun-filled day of boating, you would never expect to end up losing a portion of your fingers on such an excursion, but that’s exactly what happened to the victim in this case.

The victim in this Florida boating accident was a 28 year old married man who was a karate instructor and owned his own karate studio. He and his wife had very active lives and enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle. They were members of an exclusive boating club located in North Palm Beach, Florida where by paying a membership fee, they were allowed the use of a boat whenever they wished.

On this particular fall day, they had secured the use of a 24 foot power boat for the afternoon with a friend of theirs and anchored just off the beach on the north end of Palm Beach Island. The trio had gone ashore to have lunch just before this incident occurred. When the victim was attempting to climb up the dive ladder to get back onto the boat, his fingers got caught at the hinge of the ladder, partially amputating the third and fourth digit of his right hand.

As they were heading back to the marina, luckily the Marine Patrol was nearby and rushed him to Blue Heron Park where he was picked up by Fire Rescue and taken to the emergency room at St. Mary’s Medical Center. Once there, he was taken into surgery immediately. Unfortunately, this victim would require two more surgeries to his fingers and possibly will require more in the future.

Of course, this victim incurred thousands of dollars in medical expenses and worst of all, he lost a large amount of income from his karate studio since he is no longer able to act as an instructor and, in fact, was unable to work at all for quite some time due to the pain he had to contend with on a daily basis.

This victim contacted Attorney Richard D. Schuler for assistance in obtaining some compensation for the expenses and pain and suffering he endured due to the negligence of the marina and the fact that the ladder on this boat was faultily constructed. This fact was confirmed by a safety expert retained by Mr. Schuler in this case. After extensive investigation Mr. Schuler was successful in settling this case without the necessity of a trial for several hundred thousand dollars

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Posted In: Admiralty Litigation

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It’s a sad fact of life that in the business world, many times the wealthy, powerful individuals and/or corporations try to take advantage of basic, hardworking people and push them out of the way in business transactions to save themselves some money when possible. Such is the case here.

The two victims in this commission entitlement case are real estate brokers who have been involved in the real estate business in Palm Beach County since the early and mid-70’s, initially as salespersons and then subsequently as brokers. One of the principals involved is a very wealthy landowner who owned five sections of land (approximately 4,000 acres) free and clear between the Florida Turnpike and Okeechobee Boulevard. One of these real estate brokers had been working on selling this gentleman’s properties for years. He had an open listing to do so and had brought many offers to the owner on various sections over the years, including the property involved in this case.

This broker spoke with a second broker about the availability of these properties. This second broker felt that a large corporation she dealt with might be interested in some or all of the properties and sent correspondence that introduced the corporation to these properties.

Multiple meetings were held between the corporation and the second broker with the knowledge and permission of the landowner. These meetings took place over a three month period and it soon evolved that the corporation became interested in portions of the property.

During the next month, there were many discussions between this second broker, the large corporation and the landowner, culminating in the corporation issuing a letter to the broker instructing her to make an initial proposal regarding portions this property. As instructed, the broker brought this initial proposal to the landowner from the corporation.

As discussion continued between the broker, the corporation and the landowner, the landowner could determine that the deal was starting to heat up because the corporation had committed itself in writing on it’s stationery making this preliminary offer. At this point, he demanded, as owner, that he carry on the negotiations directly with the corporation and that the brokers take a passive role. The brokers were “frozen out”.

Continue reading " Buyer and Seller of Huge Commercial Property Conspire Against Brokers' Entitlement to Commission " »

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Statistics show that burns rank second as the leading cause of death in children, age 0 to 5. Children are the major concerns for scald or hot water burns due to the fact that children have not fully developed the thickness of their skin. Therefore, they burn faster than adults. According to these same statistics, an average of 300 burn cases per year is reported for children due to high temperature water. Half of the incidents reported of scald burns are due to the unattended hot water used on children.

The victim in this Florida premises liability case was only two years old at the time of this incident. Her mother was working and she was being cared for by her father. At her age, she was still undergoing toilet training, so when she told her father she needed to go to the bathroom, she was unable to wait and made a mess. In order to clean the child and the bathroom, her father removed her clothes and placed her in the shower, after adjusting the temperature to lukewarm. The father reported that the child was gently crying in the shower as he cleaned the bathroom and went out back to throw away the remains of the mess. While he was out back, he heard the little girl make a loud scream. He ran into the bathroom where he found her in a steamy bathroom running in place under the water. He immediately called 911, and rescue personnel airlifted the child first to Delray Community Hospital and later to Jackson Memorial Hospital Burn Unit.

The child remained at the Burn Unit at Jackson Memorial Hospital for several months. She had severe burns over 1/3 of her body surface and needed numerous procedures for the debridement of her burns. Eventually she underwent surgery at the Shriners Burn Center in Ohio. After surgery and weeks of healing, she was fitted with a special mask and suit to wear to hopefully prevent the development of keloid scars from the burns.

The parents of this child contacted Attorney Richard D. Schuler for assistance in this matter. Mr. Schuler conducted an extensive investigation into the cause of this horrific incident and brought suit against not only the owner of the apartment complex, but also the manufacturer of the water heater and the contractor who performed the renovations to the apartment complex and installed the water heater. Several experts were retained regarding the code violations on the property, the inherently dangerous propensities and inadequate size of the particular water heater, and inadequate safety measures taken by the landlord to prevent any tampering with the water heater, among others.

Mr. Schuler was successful in settling with all defendants, without the necessity of a trial, for more than $2 million dollars, which will go a long way toward helping this child on her road to recovery from these devastating injuries.

Posted by Schuler, Halvorson & Weisser | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Premises Liability Litigation

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