Gainesville Personal Injury Blog

Florida’s New Personal Injury Protection Law
April 19, 2012
Florida’s Governor Rick Scott made changing Florida’s Personal Injury Protection insurance laws a top priority. He claimed staged accidents and insurance fraud was costing Floridians “a billion dollars a year” by paying higher insurance premiums.
The Florida House and Senate narrowly passed major changes to the law that Governor Scott will happily sign. The sweeping changes to PIP will take affect on January 1, 2013. Below are highlights of the new law and how it will affect you and your loved ones.
PIP is the mandatory insurance all Florida auto owners are required to carry. It was designed to ensure anyone injured in a Florida car crash receive medical care and reimbursement for lost wages. Typically Florida PIP insurance paid 80 percent of an injured person’s medical bills and 60 percent of lost wages up to $10,000 regardless of fault.
The new law forces the injured to seek medical attention within fourteen days of the crash. In those fourteen days, if the injured seeks medical care anywhere but a hospital, the PIP benefits are reduced to $2,500. This included chiropractic care. After the two week window closes, no bills will be paid by PIP.
In other words, for an injured individual to be eligible to receive the full $10,000 PIP benefits, he or she must be seen and receive medical care from a medical doctor, osteopathic physician, dentist, physician’s assistant or advanced registered nurse practitioner who diagnoses the patient with an “emergency medical condition”. The new PIP law defines an “emergency medical condition” as an injury that is so acute and serious that if the injured did not receive treatment it would put the person’s health, bodily functions, body organs or parts in “serious jeopardy”. If not seriously hurt as defined, PIP insurance benefits are now limited to $2,500. Massage and acupuncture are no longer reimbursed expenses.
To further discourage anyone from seeking treatment, the new law allows insurance companies to take Examinations Under Oath (EUO) of their own insureds BEFORE any benefits will be paid. An EUO is essentially a deposition by an insurance company fraud investigator. If you are involved in an a car accident and your insurance company requests an EUO, contact a lawyer IMMEDIATELY and DO NOT attend the EUO without the benefit of counsel.
The new PIP law serves to create a huge hurdle to those seeking medical care after a vehicular accident. In fact, it forces the injured to seek hospital care, which is more expensive, or risk not being eligible for the full $10K PIP benefit. It also subjects the injured to interrogation by their insurance companies before benefits will be extended.
As citizens of the state of Florida, you deserve to see a return of the untouched premiums enjoyed by insurance companies.  After all, that was the intent of the Governor in passing the new law.

By David Schepp , Posted Feb 21st 2012 @ 12:14PM

A woman responsible for taking care of a 95-year-old with dementia was arrested Sunday after leaving her in a car for more than two hours to gamble at a South Florida casino, police say.

According to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Maria Holly, 53, was arrested after a visitor to the Seminole Casino Coconut Creek noticed the 95-year-old woman sitting in a car and called police.

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Part-Time JobsThe elder woman, Belle Sapstein, who wasn’t able to answer questions about herself because of her dementia, was uninjured, police say. She was taken to a local hospital for observation and was still listed as a patient there Monday afternoon, the newspaper says.

Surveillance video from the casino, located about 40 miles north of Miami, reportedly showed Holly driving into the parking lot at 4:49 p.m. on Sunday. An officer was dispatched at 7:07 p.m.

Though Sapstein appeared to suffer no distress from the incident, she was left alone without food, drink or a cellphone, WPTV in Palm Beach says, citing a report by a police officer responding to the call.

Holly, who says she is a licensed nurse, thought it was OK to leave the elderly woman in the car, according to the arrest report.

Broward County Circuit Judge Louis Schiff ordered Holly to be held on $6,000 bond and to have no contact with Sapstein, the TV station reports. Schiff also prohibited Holly from working as a caregiver until her criminal case is resolved.
A woman responsible for taking care of a 95-year-old with dementia was arrested Sunday after leaving her in a car for more than two hours to gamble at a South Florida casino, police say.

According to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Maria Holly, 53, was arrested after a visitor to the Seminole Casino Coconut Creek noticed the 95-year-old woman sitting in a car and called police.

Hiring Now
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Government Jobs
Part-Time JobsThe elder woman, Belle Sapstein, who wasn’t able to answer questions about herself because of her dementia, was uninjured, police say. She was taken to a local hospital for observation and was still listed as a patient there Monday afternoon, the newspaper says.

Surveillance video from the casino, located about 40 miles north of Miami, reportedly showed Holly driving into the parking lot at 4:49 p.m. on Sunday. An officer was dispatched at 7:07 p.m.

Though Sapstein appeared to suffer no distress from the incident, she was left alone without food, drink or a cellphone, WPTV in Palm Beach says, citing a report by a police officer responding to the call.

Holly, who says she is a licensed nurse, thought it was OK to leave the elderly woman in the car, according to the arrest report.

Broward County Circuit Judge Louis Schiff ordered Holly to be held on $6,000 bond and to have no contact with Sapstein, the TV station reports. Schiff also prohibited Holly from working as a caregiver until her criminal case is resolved.

Florida Nursing Home Negligence Lawsuit Results in $200M Verdict
Published: January 17th, 2012

A Florida jury has awarded $200 million to the family of a 92-year-old woman who was trapped for an hour at the bottom of a nursing home stairwell before dying.
The nursing home negligence lawsuit was filed by the family of Elvira Nunziata against Pinellas Park Care and Rehabilitation Center and Trans Health Management Inc., which ran the facility.

According to the complaint, Nunziata, who was wheelchair bound and suffered from dementia, fell down the stairwell in her chair in October 2004.

The lawsuit alleges that as a result of neglect by the nursing home, no one noticed that Nunziata had gone missing for an hour before she was found at the bottom of the stairwell, despite alarms on her clothing and on the emergency door. She was still strapped into her wheelchair when she was found. Paramedics were called but she died shortly after they arrived on the scene.

The Pinellas County jury deliberated for less than an hour before awarding Nunziata’s son and estate $60 million in compensatory damages and $140 million in punitive damages. The verdict is one of the largest nursing home negligence lawsuit awards, if not the largest, in Florida history.

Nunziata had wandered away from a group of residents. She was known to wander and had previously suffered falls and other injuries. Former workers at the nursing home testified that the facility suffered from understaffing at the time of the accident.

Trans Health Management Inc. no longer manages the facility. It is unclear whether the company intends to appeal the verdict.

Florida highway pileup kills at least 10 people

Associated Press
Officials work at the scene of a multi-vehicle wreck on Interstate 75 at Paynes Prairie on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, south of Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/The Gainesville Sun, Matt Stamey)
By MIKE SCHNEIDER

The Associated Press

GAINESVILLE, Fla. —

A long line of cars and trucks collided one after another early Sunday on a dark Florida highway so shrouded in haze and smoke that drivers were instantly blinded. At least 10 people were killed.

When rescuers first arrived, they could only listen for screams and moans because the poor visibility made it difficult to find victims in wreckage that was strewn for nearly a mile, police said.

Authorities were still trying to determine what caused the pileup south of Gainesville on Interstate 75, which had been closed for a time before the accidents because of the mixture of fog and heavy smoke from a brush fire that may have been intentionally set. At least a dozen cars and six tractor-trailers were involved, and some burst into flames.

Steven R. Camps of Gainesville said he and some friends were driving home several hours before dawn when they were drawn into the pileup.

“You could hear cars hitting each other. People were crying. People were screaming. It was crazy,” he said. “If I could give you an idea of what it looked like, I would say it looked like the end of the world.”

Photographs of the scene taken hours later revealed an aftermath that resembled a Hollywood disaster movie. Twisted, burned-out vehicles were scattered across the pavement, with smoke still rising from the wreckage.

Cars appeared to have smashed into the big rigs and, in one case, a motor home. Some cars were crushed beneath the heavier trucks.

Reporters who were allowed to view the site saw bodies still inside a burned-out Grand Prix. One tractor-trailer was burned down to its skeleton, charred pages of books and magazines in its cargo area. And the tires of every vehicle had burned away, leaving only steel belts.

Before Camps hit the fog bank, a friend who was driving ahead of him in a separate vehicle called to warn of the road conditions. The friend said he had just seen an accident and warned Camps to be careful as he approached the Paynes Prairie area just south of Gainesville.

A short time later, Camps said, traffic stopped along the northbound lanes.

“You couldn’t see anything. People were pulling off the road,” he said.

Camps said he began talking about the road conditions to a man in the car stopped next to them when another vehicle hit the man’s car.

The man’s vehicle was crushed under a semi-truck stopped in front of them. Camps said his car was hit twice, but he and another friend were able to jump out. They took cover in the grass on the shoulder of the road.

All around them, cars and trucks were on fire, and they could hear explosions as the vehicles burned.

“It was happening on both sides of the road, so there was nowhere to go. It blew my mind,” he said, explaining that the scene “looked like someone was picking up cars and throwing them.”

Authorities had not released the names of victims Sunday evening, but said one passenger car had four fatalities and a “tour bus-like” vehicle also was involved in the pileup.

At least 18 people were taken to a hospital.

All six lanes of the interstate — which runs virtually the entire length of Florida — were closed most of Sunday afternoon as investigators surveyed the site and firefighters put out the last of the flames.

The northbound lanes of I-75 were reopened around 5:30 p.m. EST, but the southbound lanes remained closed.

“Our standard operating procedure is to get the road open as quickly as possible but let’s not forget we have 10 people who are not with us today,” said Lt. Patrick Riordan, a Florida Highway Patrol spokesman. “So we are going to take our time assessing the situation.”

It was not clear when the highway would fully reopen because part of the road melted, police said.

At some point before the pileup, police briefly closed the highway because of the fog and smoke. The road was reopened when visibility improved.

Riordan said he was not sure how much time passed between the reopening of the highway and the first crash.

Traffic was being diverted much of Sunday onto U.S. 301 and State Road 27, Riordan said.

A spokeswoman for the Florida Forest Service, Ludie Bond, said the fire began Saturday, and investigators were trying to determine whether the blaze had been intentionally set. She said there were no controlled burns in the area and no lightning.

Bond also said the fire had burned 62 acres and was contained but still burning Sunday. A similar fire nearby has been burning since mid-November because the dried vegetation is so thick and deep. No homes are threatened.

Four years ago, heavy fog and smoke were blamed for another serious crash.

In January 2008, four people were killed and 38 injured in a series of similar crashes on Interstate 4 between Orlando and Tampa, about 125 miles south of Sunday’s crash. More than 70 vehicles were involved in those crashes, including one pileup that involved 40 vehicles.

Florida Alachua County I-75 Pileup News Video
January 29, 2012
By LBG1
Zero visibility from dense fog, smoke from marsh fire

[Photo-Image: Deadly January 29, 2012, Florida I-75 Multiple Car Crash]

WOGX FOX 51 news report video of the deadly January 29, 2012, Florida I-75 highway pile-up.

Several dead in multiple crashes on I-75: MyFoxORLANDO.com
My FOX Orlando,Several dead in multiple crashes on I-75 :

[Snip]

ALACHUA COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) – A long line of cars and trucks collided one after another early Sunday on I-75 in Alachua County. The Florida Highway Patrol says it happened around 4:00 a.m. in both the northbound and southbound lanes at mile marker 379. There were at least twelve passenger cars and approximately seven semi-trucks involved resulting in 10 fatalities. At least eighteen others were transported to Shands Hospital in Gainesville and other local hospitals. Both north and south lanes of I-75 will remain closed until the roadway is cleared.

An arbitration agreement is a written contract in which two or more parties agree to settle a dispute outside of court. The arbitration agreement is ordinarily a clause in a larger contract. The dispute may be about the performance of a specific contract, a claim of unfair or illegal treatment in the workplace, a faulty product, among other various issues. People are free to agree to use arbitration concerning anything that they could otherwise resolve through legal proceedings.

Many Arbitration Agreements contain clauses that may limit your recovery, control how your claim is handled, or even waive your right to a jury trial.  You may find such Agreements contained in doctor’s offices, hospitals, nursing homes, and various business offices.

If you are asked to sign a contract that contains an Arbitration Agreement, call an attorney first. If you or a loved one has already suffered an injury and an Arbitration Agreement has been signed, call my office to see if the Agreement can be overturned.

I welcome the opportunity to speak to you.

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