Florida Insurance Claims Lawyer Blog

According to a report on CBS 12 News in West Palm Beach, various swimming pool equipment manufacturers have issued a massive voluntary safety recall of swimming pool drain covers after the discovery that the covers could cause swimmers to get trapped on the bottom of the pool and drown. The drain covers in question are flat and relatively small, so a person's body could completely seal off the cover, creating a suction force so strong that he or she could not get free.

Efforts to protect swimmer from drains gained national attention several years ago after news spread about a little girl named Virginia Graeme Baker, who drowned when she got stuck to the drain cover in a hot tub. Two grown men attempted to pull her to safety, but the force was so strong that they could not budge her. Another family almost lost their little boy, when a similar incident occurred in the family swimming pool. In that case, the boy's mother was able to shut off the pump externally and then retrieve her son from the bottom of the pool. Even so, it was a close call, and another minute could have been the difference between life and death. If you ever are faced with a similar situation, be sure to run and turn off the pump, as this will be the best chance of saving the person who has been trapped. The force of the pump can be equal to several hundred pounds of force, and most people simply are not strong enough to free someone from that kind of pressure.

Our West Palm Beach swimming pool injury attorney knows how vital it is to remedy any safety defects in your swimming pool right away. Although many public pools are going to be closed so that the covers can be replaced, private home pools are not subject to as much regulation and could continue to operate without the drain covers being changed. Most homeowners probably do not even know what brand of drain cover they are using in their pools. If you have a swimming pool, you should hire a professional pool maintenance specialist to come and see if your drain cover is one of the recalled brands. Checking it yourself can be difficult and dangerous.

Among the brands affected by the swimming pool drain cover recall are the following: A&A Manufacturing; AquaStar Pool Products, Inc.; Color Match Pool Fittings; Custom Molded Products; Hayward Pool Products; Pentair Water Pool and Spa; Rising Dragon USA; and Waterway Plastics. These manufacturers hail from all over the United States, including California, Tennessee, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and New Jersey. Even if you purchased your drain cover in Florida, it may have come from one of these manufacturers.

If you or a loved one has suffered an injury or death as a result of a faulty drain cover, you may be entitled to compensation from the manufacturer. Manufacturers are responsible for defects in the design of their products that make those products unreasonably dangerous when used as intended or in foreseeable ways. According to the report, most of the drain covers in question were made between 2008 and 2011. Local restricts injured parties to filing personal injury or Florida wrongful death claims within certain limited periods of time, so do not delay. Call our West Palm Beach product liability lawyer today for a consultation to determine what your rights are and how to get you the compensation you deserve.

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When meeting with a West Palm Beach personal injury lawyer it is reasonable for all local residents to expect to have one-on-one meeting with their attorney and receive close, personal updates with the professional regarding their case. Of course, it is also reasonable for local clients to expect that their Florida injury attorney that they are meeting with is the one who is doing the work on the case and ensuring that everything is developing accordingly. Our office prides itself on this close, client-centered relationship--no residents should tolerate anything less.

However, this is not the case in many firms these days. Unfortunately, many local observers have explained how a new trend has developed where many law firms hire outside lawyers, and sometimes paralegals, to help out at the firm on a temporary basis, usually until the completion of a particular project or set of projects. In most cases, after a lawsuit has been filed, the parties go through a process called discovery, where each side is permitted to request certain documents and information from the other side. The parties must respond to these requests within a limited amount of time. Sometimes, where many different employees may have been involved, especially in cases involving big companies, the discovery responses can include thousands and thousands of pages of documents. These documents must be sifted through in a fairly short time, so law firms have gotten into the habit of hiring temporary lawyers who work as independent contractors and go through the documents in order to see if they contain any information relevant to the case.

Temporary lawyers do not work for the firms, but instead, they provide services on an hourly basis for as long as they are needed. Then they move on to other projects with other firms. Therefore, some of these lawyers are not as personally invested in the projects on which they are working, and more importantly, in the clients whom they are serving.

Recently, according to Staffing Talk News one such client launched a lawsuit against its own lawyers in which the client alleged that the firm's use of temporary attorneys had been detrimental to the client's case. Specifically, the client accused the firm of failing to provide adequate supervision over the temporary workers and said that because of the lack of proper supervision, the attorneys ended up turning over documents to the opposing party that were not supposed to be released. It remains to be seen how this case will be resolved, but it has the potential to limit the use of temporary attorneys in major cases throughout the country.

Continue reading "Lawsuit Aims to Expose Inadequacies of Temp Lawyers" »

The untimely and tragic death of Michael Jackson in 2009 pushed what appears to be an ever-growing problem into the national spotlight: the tendency of doctors to over-prescribe medicines for their patients' use. Jackson's doctor, Conrad Murray, is currently being prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter. If convicted, Murray faces the very real prospect of actually spending some time in prison.

According to an article from Reuters, this is a relatively new, but increasingly popular, way in which to deal with problems of Florida medical malpractice. Until recently, criminal prosecution of negligent doctors was virtually nonexistent. If a doctor made a mistake, he or she could expect to be called upon to answer for that mistake in a civil court and possibly to pay out money damages, but the idea of going to jail for a medical mistake was typically not a concern.

Now, however, state prosecutors across the nation are beginning to show an interest in bringing charges against doctors for the more extreme cases of Florida medical malpractice, especially in cases involving excessive dispensing of prescription drugs. Florida prosecutors are leading the charge by aggressively following up on any indications that doctors are abusing the privilege of writing prescriptions. A new law has limited doctors' abilities to dispense drugs at medical clinics, and the Reuters article quotes one state attorney as saying, "Our marching orders are that we will not turn down a pill case coming into this office." This new tone is likely to make doctors pay a little more attention to the pills they are prescribing and any potential side effects or negative interactions that those medications might have.

Although the Florida medical malpractice cases that warrants criminal prosecution are still very much in the minority, this trend is important to note because criminally prosecuted cases can have an effect on the way in which civil cases on the same subjects are resolved. For example, if a doctor is prosecuted and found guilty of criminal negligence, then he or she is much more likely to also be found liable in a medical malpractice suit that involves the same matter. This is true because the legal standard that the evidence is required to meet in a criminal case is higher than that required in a civil case. Therefore, if the evidence is enough to meet the standard in a criminal case, it is likely enough to meet the standard in a civil case, as long as the facts and circumstances involved are substantially the same. Additionally, even if the civil and criminal case diverge in some ways, a conviction in a criminal case will likely make a negligent doctor quite aware of the weaknesses in his or her defense and, as a result, more willing to negotiate and come to a fair and reasonable settlement.

Continue reading "Florida Medical Malpractice Attorneys Get Help from Unlikely Source" »

Our Florida toxic injury lawyer is well aware of some of the consequences that follow from major oil spills. These include things like high wildlife mortality rates, tarballs washing up on beaches, and imbalances in ocean and beach ecosystems. In addition to these problems, there are also other serious dangers, not just to wildlife, but to human life.

During the now-infamous BP oil spill that occurred in 2010, many concerns were raised about how the massive amounts of oil that leaked into the Gulf of Mexico every day for months would affect the health of people, especially those living in the coastal states, like Florida. Toxins that are released into the ocean can leach into the groundwater and eventually become part of the drinking water supply. When that happens, the results can be absolutely catastrophic. Depending on the type of toxins involved, it is possible that people may not even realize that they are drinking contaminated water until it is too late, and they have already contracted some kind of disease. Because it may take time to realize the water is not safe, a great number of people could be affected by the contamination before the problem can be remedied.

Along with other diseases, toxins in drinking water can lead to leukemia or other forms of cancer. Because the risks are so high, there are many federal and state regulations that govern the types and amounts of chemicals that companies are permitted to release into the environment.

In some cases, however, it is necessary for chemicals to be used to clean up the environment. This is precisely what happened last summer during BP's oil spill response. In order to try to contain the spill, BP dumped large quantities of chemical dispersants into the ocean. The purpose of the dispersants is, essentially, to break down the oil and minimize its effects on the ocean. Unfortunately, according to an article by the Environmental News Service, some of the dispersants that BP used in its clean-up efforts contained ingredients that have been linked to cancer and given labels such as "likely carcinogen" or "possible carcinogen." The article notes that BP used more than 1.8 million gallons of dispersants over the course of about three months. And this is but one example of the dangers posed by irresponsible use or disposal of chemicals.

The ultimate question, of course, is how victims of toxic torts, as they are typically called in the legal community, can protect and enforce their rights against the companies and the people who are responsible for exposing the victim to danger. Your Florida toxic torts attorney can help you with the difficult and complex task of identifying the source of the harm you have suffered and finding ways to prove in court that that source really was responsible.

Continue reading "Possible Cancer Risks from Chemical Dispersants Used by BP in Oil Spill" »

With the economy's rapid decline, many consumers, even those who once thought they had excellent job security, have found themselves unemployed and in dire straits. Some have had to rely on credit cards and have gone into debt trying to feed their families and maintain the lifestyles they had before losing their jobs. As the economy has continued to struggle many struggling families have seen their credit card balances grow. Now, many people are struggling to find their way out from underneath mounting debt, even while they continue to try to keep food on the table and clothes on their backs.

With so many consumers battling credit card debt, not to mention mortgage payments and student loans, there has been a glut of companies advertising themselves as loan consolidation experts. These companies target the most desperate and vulnerable of consumers, the ones with high credit card debt, especially those who are struggling just to keep up with the payments each month. In some cases, loan consolidation companies are legitimately helping people in need. However, all too often, these companies charge consumers a fee that can be as high as a few thousand dollars, but they do not deliver the results that they promised. Unfortunately, consumers who are victimized by such companies are often unaware that they have options for fighting back and recovering the fees they paid.

There are two main ways in which consumers can deal with these types of companies. The first is by contacting their state's Attorney General. In Florida, the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Office is available to field complaints about loan consolidation scams. You can even file a complaint online. This option really helps to make sure that others do not become victims of unscrupulous companies who are preying on the vulnerable.

Recently, the Attorney General of Indiana took action against a Florida lawyer, accusing him, in a lawsuit, of being involved in a loan consolidation company that took clients' money upfront but failed to provide loan consolidation services. The Florida Attorney General's office has also received more than 75 complaints about this same attorney, but, according to an article by the Palm Beach Post, those complaints were referred to the Florida Bar, the organization which is responsible for often dealing with accusations of Florida legal malpractice. In spite of all of these complaints, however, the lawyer is in good standing with the Florida bar, with no history of disciplinary action in the last 10 years. Therefore, relying just on the Attorney General or the Florida Bar to discipline rogue attorneys does not always prove very effective.

In order to ensure that dishonest lawyers are stopped and that consumers recover fees paid to unscrupulous lawyers, it is necessary to sue an attorney. In order to do so, it is important to hire a lawyer who has experience with Florida legal malpractice and other lawsuits against attorneys. These types of cases can be especially difficult. Finding an attorney to handle these cases can also be hard because many lawyers feel a duty to protect "their own," which, unfortunately, sometimes surpasses their pursuit of what is right. The type of lawyer who handles Florida legal malpractice claims or any other kind of attorney lawsuit is one who is dedicated to seeking justice in every case and fighting for those who need help.

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