South Florida Injury Attorney Blog

A bicycle accident resulted in the death of a Coral Springs teenager who had been riding on the bicycle’s handlebars and was hit by a car. Police are reportedly searching for the person operating the bicycle, who fled the scene. No charges have been filed against the driver of the automobile.

The accident occurred just before 10:00 p.m. on Friday, July 6, 2012. A 1989 Lincoln was heading east on Royal Palm Boulevard. At the same time, a bicycle with a 16 year-old passenger riding on the handlebars attempted to cross the street heading north. The bicycle’s operator reportedly stopped abruptly, causing the passenger to stumble into the Lincoln’s path. The Lincoln then struck the teen. The injured teenager was transported to a hospital, where he died from his injuries on July 12. The operator of the bicycle, who remained unidentified as of the most recent reporting on the story, fled the scene on foot, heading east. The driver of the Lincoln was not injured.

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A family arriving in Florida from Chicago were injured when the limousine they had rented crashed into a pillar in the airport’s parking garage. The family of four and the limo driver were taken to the hospital, although their injuries were said not to be “life-threatening.” Police have not released any further information as to why the driver might have lost control of the vehicle, or if it was driver or mechanical error that caused the crash.

The Chicago family, consisting of a mother and father, a 13 year-old son, and a 7 year-old daughter, arrived at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Wednesday, June 27, 2012. They booked a 2008 Lincoln Navigator limousine to take them from the airport to their destination. Shortly before 3:50 p.m., according to news reports, the 75 year-old limo driver lost control of the limo inside the airport parking garage. The limo collided with a parked car on the ground level, then slammed into a concrete pillar.

The limo was reportedly totalled by the collision. All five occupants of the limo were taken to Broward Health Medical Center. No one was seriously injured, according to authorities at the time. No subsequent media reports on the accident have appeared. Police said that they were investigating the cause of the crash, but local newspapers do not appear to have reported further information.

A spokesperson for the Sheriff’s department stated that the limo driver apparently lost control of the vehicle just before the crash. The reasons for this, including whether it was driver error, a mechanical failure with the vehicle, or simply an accidental set of circumstances, were not immediately apparent.

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A driver’s attempt to pass another vehicle on the shoulder of Interstate 95 may have caused a three-car accident that left one person dead. The accident closed down the highway for four hours on a Saturday evening as investigators attempted to piece together the chain of events. The accident involved four people. One person was killed in the accident, and another was seriously injured. The other two people reportedly did not suffer injuries.

The accident occurred at approximately 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 14, 2012, in the southbound lanes of Interstate 95 in Fort Lauderdale. A man driving a 1999 Isuzu Rodeo reportedly attempted to use the right shoulder of the highway to pass a Ford Mustang. While changing lanes off of the shoulder after passing the Mustang, the Rodeo apparently clipped the Mustang’s front. This caused the Rodeo’s driver to lose control, and his vehicle flipped over. The Mustang veered to the left after the impact, colliding with a 2004 Volvo C70.

A 52 year-old passenger in the Rodeo was thrown from the vehicle when it rolled over. He was reportedly not wearing a seatbelt. Emergency responders pronounced him dead at the scene. The driver of the Rodeo was taken to the hospital with injuries described as “serious.” The drivers of the Mustang and the Volvo were not injured in the collision.

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An alleged drunk driver crashed his pickup truck into a legendary Miami soul food restaurant the weekend before the 4th of July, killing two people and destroying the restaurant’s front. The driver now faces DUI manslaughter charges and multiple charges for driving under the influence, including several charges of DUI with property damage.

At about 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 30, 2012, several men were standing outside Jumbo’s Restaurant in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood. Ken Knight, on of Jumbo’s owners, was talking to two regulars of the restaurant, Wilton Harris and Al Jo Hamlin. Harris and Hamlin, both of whom were pastors, had reportedly just come from a memorial for a Jumbo’s waitress who had died of cancer. Suddenly, according to Knight, a white pickup truck veered off of the street, into the parking lot, and directly towards the restaurant. Other witnesses said they saw the truck speed up as it approached Jumbo’s. Knight said he heard a boom and a crash. The pickup truck had hit a car parked in front of the restaurant, pushing it through the restaurant’s glass windows. The collision threw Hamlin through the window into the restaurant. Knight found Harris pinned under a truck. Both men were killed on impact. About eleven people were in the restaurant, but none of them were injured.

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The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a district court’s grant of summary judgment to the defendants in a products liability claim. The product in question, a propane-fired portable heater, allegedly caused the plaintiff’s house to catch fire when she used it indoors. At issue was whether the warnings included with the product were legally sufficient to notify plaintiff of the dangers of indoor use of the heater, particularly since the warnings were written in English in a largely-Spanish-speaking area of Miami. The district court, in granting summary judgment for the defendants, held that the warning met Florida’s standard for accuracy and clarity, despite any language barriers.

Plaintiff Lilybet Farias, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Cuba who primarily speaks Spanish, purchased two “propane gas-fired infra-red portable heaters” from Home Depot. She claimed that she used the heaters inside her house, not knowing of the danger of fire because she could not read the English-language instructions. On the night of February 9, 2009, she reportedly left a heater on and failed to close a valve on a gas tank. Her home caught fire that night. She claimed the damages equalled around $300,000. She sued the manufacturers of the heater, Enerco Group, Inc. and Mr. Heater, Inc., as well as Home Depot, in state court in Miami-Dade County on November 17, 2009. She alleged negligence and strict liability for failing to warn of a product defect against the three defendants.

The defendants removed the case to federal court that December based on diversity jurisdiction. Farias is a resident of Florida, while both Enerco and Mr. Heater have principal places of business in Ohio. Home Depot is a Delaware corporation. The U.S. District Court in Miami granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on November 19, 2010, finding that her claims of inadequate warning were barred as a matter of law.

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Distracted driving has gained national attention as a serious public hazard. The term typically refers to the use of a cell phone or other mobile communication device that takes a driver’s attention off the road. Distracted driving now accounts for a significant percentage of total accidents in the U.S. The risks of distracted driving are important to understand, as are the rights of people injured by a distracted driver. Driving while distracted constitutes a clear breach of a driver’s duty to operate a vehicle safely and cautiously, making the driver liable for negligence. In situations where a driver is operating a vehicle as part of his or her employment duties, the law may also impute liability to the driver’s employer.

According to the National Safety Council (NSC), a private safety advocacy organization, distracted driving involving cell phones accounted for about twenty-four percent of all car crashes in 2010. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) the government agency that regulates automobile safety, states that distracted driving accounted for 3,092 automobile fatalities that same year. Cell phones frequently serve as evidence in both police investigations and civil suits to establish a driver’s negligence. The NSC describes three types of distraction, visual, manual, and cognitive, that may result from cell phone use while driving. Even the use of a hands-free device may not reduce cognitive distraction.

Many states, counties, and cities have enacted bans on various forms of distracted driving. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), a federal agency that investigates accidents and makes safety recommendations, has called for a nationwide ban on all cell phone use while driving. Currently, no jurisdiction has such a ban. Ten states and the District of Columbia ban all use of handheld cell phones while driving. Thirty-nine states and D.C. ban texting by all drivers. Total bans on all cell phone use apply to novice drivers in thirty-two states and D.C., and to school bus drivers in nineteen states and D.C. Florida, unlike most states, has no bans on cell phone use at all. State law in Florida actually preempts local governments from enacting their own laws regulating cell phone use.

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A federal judge in Miami has dismissed multiple claims without prejudice in a putative class action lawsuit against two football helmet manufacturers. The claim was filed by a father who purchased the defendants’ helmets for his two sons, both of whom are high school football players. Concern over injuries to youth in sports, particularly traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries, has led to closer scrutiny of athletic equipment and more claims for damages when equipment malfunctions or defects cause injuries to players.

Most lawsuits rely on the legal theory of products liability, which holds the manufacturer or distributor of a faulty or defective product liable for damages caused by the product. In this case, the plaintiff pleaded breaches of contract and warranty, as well as violations of consumer protection statutes. The court found that he did not plead his claims with sufficient substance, but gave him until July 20 to amend the complaint.

Frank Enriquez filed suit against Easton-Bell Sports, Inc. (EBSI) and Riddell, Inc. in February 2012 over the line of football helmets known as Revolution Helmets. He states in his amended complaint that the defendants marketed the helmets as offering greater protection against concussions in young players, claiming a thirty-one percent reduction in the likelihood of concussion in athletes that used Revolution Helmets.

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A national health care advocacy organization, the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), recently released a report on injury-related deaths in all fifty states and the District of Columbia, entitled “The Facts Hurt: A State-By-State Injury Prevention Policy Report.” TFAH identified ten “key indicators” of injury prevention in state laws and regulations. The study ranked the states and D.C. based on the number of key indicators present, and it also ranked them based on the rate of deaths per 100,000 people. Florida ranked near the middle on both scales, with only six of the ten key indicators. The state’s annual rate of 66.8 injury-related deaths gives it the eighteenth-highest rate in the country.

Injuries account for over 180,000 deaths each year, according to the study. Among people between the ages of one and forty-four years, injuries are the leading cause of death. Injuries account for nearly 90,000 deaths in that age group, compared to 50,000 for non-communicable disease and less than 10,000 for communicable disease. The study divides injuries into categories, including falls, blunt force injuries, gunshot wounds, cuts or puncture wounds, burns, poisoning, vehicular injuries, and drowning or suffocation. In all, the lifetime costs of injuries, which includes not only immediately medical expenses but also the ongoing cost of care, lost income, and lost productivity, exceed $406 billion per year.

New Mexico has the highest overall injury-related death rate, according to TFAH, with 97.8 deaths per 100,000. New Jersey has the lowest rate at 36.1. Florida is just behind Colorado’s 67.8 and ahead of North Carolina’s 66. TFAH states in its report that it cannot say with certainty why one state has a lower or higher injury-related death rate than another state, but that its list of “key indicators” can offer states guidance on how to effectively prevent injuries.

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