Panama City Florida Injury Lawyer Blog

Every year, ten percent of us are involved in auto accidents, whether fender bender or serious. Wouldn't it be nice to have a source of information about what to do, what not to do, and what your rights are if you're in that ten percent? And even better if the information is free?

I have gotten tired of the increasing aggressiveness of insurance companies. After accidents, their adjusters call people within hours of an event, even in hospitals. They are trained to act friendly, gain the confidence of the person who was hurt, and offer a settlement for pennies on the dollar before the victim even knows the extent of the injuries or effects they will have on living in the future. So I made a DVD to answer the questions that most people ask me as an injury lawyer. It's available to you free.

Information is power, so the best way to combat unfair insurance company tactics is to have clear information about what you can and should do after an auto accident. Call me for a copy, send an e-mail, or stop by my office. You will find it filled with useful information.

This DVD will tell you the two most important things to do if you've been hurt. Of greater importance, it will tell you the most important thing not to do. In short, that is to refuse to talk to an insurance adjuster who calls and wants to question you. The sole purpose of that call is to get information that the insurance company can and will use against you. This DVD will give you more information about how to combat that insurance company dirty tactic. It will also answer questions about whether you really need an attorney. For some claims, such as property damage, you may not. For others, you will, so find out when an attorney will be useful.

A common question is: What is the value of my case? That's a tough one to answer, but this DVD will give some guidance to help with that important question. Cases are valued by information that is stored in the head after thousands of cases are handled, but other tools are available to help us. Another common question is, who will pay for my medical bills and lost wages while I'm recovering. These questions are also answered in this free DVD.

It may surprise you to learn that there is a very fast way to get a stream of money coming in to take care of these problems. Many people are worried that they cannot afford the services of an attorney after a collision. Fortunately for injury victims, injury attorneys work for free until they collect money for the victim. If they are unsuccessful, they do not charge for their time, and most do not even charge for the expenses they have incurred. When successful, they charge a percentage. It's something like a commission. The DVD that you can obtain at no cost from my office will explain in more detail how this works. I encourage you to call or stop by for a copy. Get this information to protect yourself against aggressive insurance companies.

School is back in session for Bay County and many of the other Florida Panhandle counties. Students are transported to and from school either by school bus, car, bicycles or they may walk. It's important for students to be reminded to observe safe habits regardless of their mode of transportation.

Parents work schedules don't always coincide with student school schedules resulting in alternative methods of getting the kids to and from school. Depending on distance, bicycles are often utilized.

In a time where many experts publish statistics of our over-weight youth, riding bicycles can provide the needed exercise for your child but there are many things to consider, such as the distance, the roadways your child will be traveling and whether or not your child will wear the recommended safety gear. Having a helmet hang from the handle bars will not protect their head from trauma in the event of a collision.

In 2008, there were 118 fatalities in the state of Florida involving bicyclists, a slight decrease from the 2007 statistics involving 121 fatalities. These numbers may seem low when considering it includes the entire state, however, it would be devastating if it were your child or loved one.

The number of bicycle related injuries were substantially higher with 4,748 bicyclists and passengers being seriously injured in 2008, a 2.4% increase over the 2007 statistics where 4,690 bicyclists and passengers were injured. Safety equipment, although does not guarantee to prevent injury, can certainly reduce the risk of a serious head trauma in many instances.

It is also just as important for cyclists to observe not only the safe rules of the road but the traffic laws as well. Depending on where you are riding will dictate the appropriate laws to follow. For instance if you are riding on a sidewalk, a bicyclist has the same rights and duties as a pedestrian. While riding in the roadway, you must ride in the same direction as the flow of traffic and ride as far to the right as practicable - meaning within the means and circumstances present at the time.

Continue reading "Florida Bicycle Safety" »

School is back in session for most students, which usually means participating in organized sports will soon begin. Whether it's baseball, football, soccor or cheerleading, high school or college, safety precautions need to be taken to avoid injuries for all.

It is estimated that 30 million kids and teens participate in some form of organized sports in the U.S. The number of injuries among high school students is estimated at 2 million injuries, 500,000 doctor visits and 30,000 injury related hospitalizations this year. For kids under the age of 14, the injuries are estimated to reach 3.5 million with a majority occuring during practice.

Each sport has its own safety gear. Football requires helmets, mouth protection and shoulder pads. In baseball, helmets are also essential along with gloves for grip and athletic cup protection. Whatever the sport is that your child chooses to participate in, be sure you are also ensuring that the proper safety gear is also being used. Strains, sprains and bruising are the most common injuries, many of which could be avoided by taking the time to stretch and limber up prior to playing the sport.

Coaches play a vital role in teaching each participant not only the rules of the sport but also the safety precautions as well. As a parent, it's important for you to get involved with your childs activities and know that the coach is taking the precautions necessary for that particular sport. Stretching excercises and other warm-up activities are just as important as the safety gear itself.

Sports that make physical contact, such as football, obviously need to take more safety precautions. The athletes of today are bigger and faster, meaning the collisions can cause a lot more damage over time. Spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries can affect your child's life into adulthood.

Sports Trauma and Overuse Prevention (STOP), a national campaign, aims to reduce the number of sports related injuries among our young athletes. Sports related injuries have reached epidemic proportions.

High school and college sports injuries occur all the time. Some more serious than others. Many you will never hear about on the news or read in the newspaper but to the families they affect, it is devastating.

One of the more publicized college sports injuries occurred back in 1985 when Marc Buoniconti, son of Nick Buoniconti, the legendary former Miami Dolphins linbacker, sustained a spinal injury during a tackle. He has been paralyzed from the chin down since. Over the last 20 years, he has been an inspiring figure, along with his father, on a mission to find a cure for paralysis.

No family ever wants to experience the devastating effects of this type of injury. Although, sports safety gear can't guarantee prevention of injuries, they are designed to reduce the risk.

Florida is among nine other states that offer 'No fault' auto insurance. New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Kentucky allow drivers to choose from either no-fault or traditional coverage. The main idea behind the No-fault insurance law, also known as Personal Injury Protection (PIP), is to compensate the insured party in a car accident, regardless of who is at fault. The insurance coverage limits and each particular situation will determined what the pay out amount really should be. Individuals injured in an accident with a no-fault insured driver can expect their medical bills, cost of rehabilitation and lost wages to be covered by the policyholder's insurance. For this reason, they may not sue the driver or vehicle owner for pain, emotional distress or suffering, except under certain predetermined conditions known as thresholds.

In Florida, the minimum required liability just $10,000 of personal injury protection and $10,000 of property damage liability (PDL). These limits are barely sufficient and obtaining more coverage is highly recommended.

There are a few things regarding Florida No-fault Insurance that you may not realize. For instance, suing the at fault driver is an option. Although, no-fault insurance law is intended to mean less litigation, it does not necessarily mean you cannot take the at fault driver to court. Obviously, specific conditions or thresholds must be met. Death or significant disfigurement are under verbal threshold, huge medical expenses belong to the monetary threshold.

Continue reading "Things You Need to Know About Florida's No-Fault Insurance" »

Some homeowners insurance companies who are profiling specific dog breeds as dangerous has induced a wave of breed-specific legislation by state and municipal governments to curb dog attack. The SB 1276 in the Florida Senate was intended to allow municipalities to place limits or to deny coverage based on the breed of the dog. The effort appears to have been expunged recently in committee leaving the existing law in place.

Several highly-publicized, pit bull attacks in the 1980s resulted in many communities and dog owners objecting to breed discrimination, which has fueled the legislation.

According to the American Kennel Club, only Ohio has a breed-specific dog law, in this case aimed at pit bull owners. However, a handful of states prohibit breed-specific legislation by local governments, including Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia. Only Pennsylvania and Michigan have laws that prohibit insurers from canceling or denying coverage based on breed, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

It is essential for homeowners who are also dog owners to carry insurance that will cover the cost of injuries your pet should cause to another person or property, with a personal liability limit of $100,000. Because the dog owner's own relatives, friends and neighbors are the most likely victims of a possible dog attack, having insurance means protecting the people who are closest to the dog owner, thereby protecting valuable relationships and ensuring proper treatment of loved ones.

Continue reading "Florida Breed-Specific Legislation" »

Click the link for a list of approved Senior Driver Safety Courses.

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As drivers mature, the time arrives when decisions have to be made about whether they can continue driving. The typical issues are independence and convenience, high insurance costs, and safety. They are intertwined, but let's talk about safety first, and, I'll tell you how to get a guaranteed reduction on Florida insurance premiums if you're fifty-five or older.

Why are insurance premiums so high for older drivers? One reason is that they have higher rates of fatal crashes than all but the youngest drivers. Older people are more susceptible than younger ones to medical complications after a crash, so they are more likely to die than younger drivers. And older drivers don't deal as well with complex traffic situations, so they are in more of the dangerous multiple vehicle collisions, like at intersections where confusion can occur. Vision, especially at night, fitness, flexibility to look to the side for oncoming traffic or over a shoulder when backing up, attention span, and reaction time decline with age. These are factors that contribute to more collisions.

You're probably ready for some good news. There's plenty of it for older drivers. Highway engineers and researchers are finding ways to make some of the areas that are tough for these drivers easier to navigate and negotiate. Places like curves, interchanges, merging lanes, passing lanes, and construction zones. Because of the post World War II baby boom, the sixty-five and older age group, which was 33.5 million in 1995, will exceed 50 million by the year 2020, accounting for about 1/5 of the population of drivers in the U.S. Couple this with increasing traffic volumes, and the demands on these drivers becomes apparent. Maintenance of independence, personal dignity, and the overall quality of life for older persons depends largely on mobility. That means driving, so until all the engineers and researchers can fix our highways to make them less confusing and easier for older drivers to negotiate, we have to find ways to make older drivers safer.

One of those ways is so effective that a Florida law provides for a reduction in insurance premiums of up to 10% for a guaranteed 3 years. How do drivers 55 and older get such a break on their insurance costs? It's very easy. If you're a licensed Florida driver 55 or older and you complete a motor vehicle accident prevention course, you will receive a mandatory reduction on your insurance rate for 3 years. You can do this online, and usually you can do it in sections at your convenience. It's only a 6 to 8 hour course, and one source I checked charges only $14.95 for its online course. You can also take the course in person. Either way, it's a bargain for independence and lower insurance rates.

New federal standards unveiled in June require doctors to start using electronic medical records routinely, including logging patients' diagnoses and visits, ordering prescriptions, monitoring for drug interactions and making records accessible to other medical providers. Advocates say meeting the "meaningful use" standards will save lives, prevent errors, reduce waste and save money.

Doctors who use electronic record according to the standards by 2015 can collect as much as $64,000 each in federal stimulus funds to help them buy hardware and software. Those who don't comply by that date will see their Medicare or Medicaid payments trimmed by one percent per year.

Health care experts have estimated the cost of not having electronic medical records at nearly $78 billion a year. This includes such costs as sending lab results between hospitals and outside laboratories, needlessly duplicating medical procedures and shuttling paper charts among doctors. It is also estimated that just eliminating the phone calls between doctors and pharmacists alone would save nearly $2 billion each year.

Having immediate access to patient prior medical history could also save lives. In an emergency situation, knowing prescribed medications a patient is taking who has never been to that particular hospital before may prevent prescribing counter-effective drugs or performing procedures on someone who may be on high doses of blood thinners without taking the necessary precautions.

But purchasing the system and maintaining it annually is not cheap and many beilieve the stimulus grants will not always offset the costs. Some are concerned older doctors may not want to spend the amount it will take or may not want to learn the new technology opting to retire or close their practice. Other concerns of whether the systems can protect patients privacy have been raised as well as how often systems may become outdated but many doctors are still focusing on the positive and are embracing the change.

During a conference, an auto accident client asked if he did the right thing when he moved his car out of the road after a wreck. His car, which was still driveable, was partially blocking traffic on Highway 98. He decided to move it when some of the other drivers, rubbernecking as they drove through the wreck scene, were nearly involved in collisions. I assured him that he had done the right thing.

Most people think they have to leave their vehicles exactly where they come to rest until the police arrive. They fear moving it, because they might be tampering with evidence showing who was at fault. That may be correct, but for the safety of the drivers involved and other people who are trying to get through the area, the law requires a driver of a disabled vehicle to make every reasonable effort to move the vehicle or have it removed if two conditions are met: (1) the vehicle is driveable, and (2) there are no injuries. If both conditions are met, neither the police nor an insurance company will assess a penalty for moving the vehicle.

Studies in Florida show some interesting things. Collisions cause more than half of the state's street and highway congestion. Depending on the type location where a wreck occurs, 13 to 33% of crashes are caused by earlier wrecks. Why? Because of the rubbernecking. Drivers passing through a wreck scene should go through without slowing unnecessarily. If they do, the chance of their being rear ended goes up astronomically. The studies also show that for every minute spent on the scene by fire and rescue personnel or police, five minutes of traffic congestion results. And injury to those who respond to a wreck is significant, accounting for 59% of police casualties in Florida. It's easy to see why getting a wrecked vehicle out of the way will improve response and clearance times at accident scenes. That in turn will reduce congestion, reduce subsequent collisions, and improve safety conditions for the drivers and responders like police, fire and rescue personnel. In fact it's the law to Move Over if you are able when approaching emergency vehicles at an accident scene.

A major part of my practice is devoted to educating people about how to recognize and avoid dangers. I would rather they be safe than to get calls from them after a wreck, so follow these steps after a collision.

1. Check for injuries. If someone's hurt, call 911 immediately, and wait for emergency personnel.
2. If there are no injuries, move the vehicles off the road to a safe place.
3. Also if there are no injuries, now call 911 to report the wreck. Follow the dispatcher's instructions.
4. Follow law enforcement's directives when they arrive, and report the wreck to your own insurance company.
5. Finally, remember this. Don't ever, ever talk to the other person's insurance company without first talking to a lawyer. It is the absolute enemy.

Continue reading "After a Wreck, Can You Legally Move Your Car Out of the Road?" »

You can use all the skill, care and common sense you possess to drive safely, but you can't control the behavior of drivers around you. If a wreck happens, basic knowledge might help you avoid unnecessary hassles. If you're a person who would rather drive to Oregon nonstop than to read your insurance policy or traffic laws, it's time to read this brief tip.

Although the criminal laws could apply if, for example, a drunk driver hit you, most often you're going to have a civil claim either settled or taken to circuit court under civil law. Almost always, the other driver's bodily injury liability coverage under his automobile insurance policy will be responsible for paying for your damages. The law doesn't require the other driver to drive perfectly, only reasonably, to avoid a wreck with you. Here's an example. Let's say you're driving along on Back Beach Road, and you decide to suddenly hit your brakes and dive into the median to go back for something you forgot. The other driver doesn't have to be a mind reader. The law could excuse him for rear ending you after the sudden, unexpected action you took. On the other hand, if he wasn't watching your normal deceleration and rear ends you, he's in trouble.

Sometimes I see people hire the family lawyer who does their wills, real estate matters, and basic contracts to try to handle their automobile accident case. That can be alright if the lawyer is well versed in accident law and insurance matters. But, this type law changes like the shifting sands and has many nuances that the uninitiated may be dangerously unfamiliar with. Therefore, be aware of some principles of law that can be important. One is that the other driver may not be the only responsible party. This is true if someone else owns the car he was carelessly driving. The point is that your lawyer must know where to look for more than one policy that could pay benefits to you.

Another is that the fault situation doesn't have to be picture perfect for you to be substantially successful. It's not unusual for one driver to be much greater at fault than the other but for the other to also have some fault in causing the wreck. I'll give you an example. Let's say a driver pulled out immediately in front of you, but you were going a little over the speed limit. You couldn't have avoided the collision caused by his negligent driving even if you'd been driving within the posted speed limit, but your injuries wouldn't have been quite as bad. Let's also say the other driver was 90% at fault compared to your 10%. Many people would think they couldn't be successful in a case to get monetary compensation for their injuries, but the law says you are entitled to 90% of the value of your injuries, exactly the percentage of the other party's fault. If the stakes are high, get representation for whatever type legal case you have. You deserve it for your future.

Continue reading "Car Wrecks and Florida Insurance" »

I recently discussed some of the dirty tricks the insurance industry uses to deny claims or to delay payments and told you I would later give examples. Today, I'll tell you about one of the techniques used by insurance companies to increase their bottom lines.

Consider this scenario. You are in your car running an errand. Suddenly, a pickup truck crosses the center line from the opposite direction and smashes into you head on. When you wake up from the coma days later, you have collapsed lungs, multiple broken bones, medical bills beyond imagination, and the news that your next painful months will be under the constant care of medical personnel. Now, you get the unexpected news from the insurance company that you had paid premiums to for years. It has denied coverage to you, because it claims the driver who hit you acted in a moment of deliberate road rage, so the accident was not really an accident at all. As such, it wasn't covered. You can't work, your bills pile up, and your insurance company has said "goodbye" to you. This is the true story of a 60-year-old woman who had a $2 million policy with one of the largest insurance companies in the U.S.

That insurance company, like others, is in the business of denying claims as a way to boost its bottom line profits. Her company even had an employee program that offered incentives, including $25 gift certificates and pizza parties, to adjusters who met low payment goals. It wasn't and isn't the only insurance company systematically denying claims without good reason. Some of the nations' largest companies, including the infamous AIG, hated within the legal world and so tarnished by its near economic failure and government bailout that it has changed its name to protect the guilty, have earned reputations as aggressive claims fighters in an attempt to boost their bottom lines. That's not what the policyholders pay them to do.

One company that I'll refer to as "Sadstate" Insurance gave adjusters who denied valid claims rewards like portable refrigerators. When units of another insurer lost money, its executives put in place new teams of adjusters to systematically reject thousands of valid claims. Following an earthquake in California, one company's officials forged signatures on waivers of earthquake coverage to avoid paying quake-related claims.

These travesties of justice are usually, but not always, caught by vigilant attorneys as was the case of the lady I mentioned whose insurance company claimed the wreck was deliberate, not accidental. She eventually prevailed but only after a legal battle that she shouldn't have had to engage in. Too many people are victims twice in a wreck, first, because of the fault of a careless driver and, then, a second time, from the dirty tricks of an insurance company.

Continue reading "More About Dirty Tricks of the Insurance Industry" »

The U.S. insurance industry has trillions of dollars in assets, enjoys average profits of over $30 billion a year, and pays its CEO's more than any other industry. But insurance companies still engage in dirty tricks and unethical behavior to boost their bottom lines even further.

The current economic turmoil affecting the insurance industry on Wall Street has only made the outlook bleaker for consumers living on Main Street in every U.S. city. Insurance companies are likely to demand huge rate hikes and refuse more claims than ever. Some of the most recognized insurance companies, the same ones that spend billions on advertising just like oil giant BP does in its industry, trying to earn your trust, have worked out methods to deny claims, delay payments, confuse consumers with incomprehensible language, and retroactively refuse anyone who may cost them money.

Some of the nation's largest insurance companies, like AIG that earned such a bad reputation when details of its inept business practices and government bailout became known, have denied valid claims in an attempt to boost their bottom lines. These companies have rewarded their employees who successfully denied claims, replaced employees who would not, and when all else failed, engaged in outright fraud to avoid paying claims.

Continue reading "Insurance Companies Tricks of the Trade" »

After reading over two thousand pages of the new health insurance law and committee reports about it, in an earlier column I started telling you about some of the new law's benefits. If you are an elderly person, these benefits are important, maybe crucial. Let me tell you more about how this law that became effective in March will help you.

Some health care insurance companies have imposed yearly caps on the amount of medical or hospital care they will pay. Since that seems to be contrary to the idea that in exchange for a premium paid, an insurance company will accept the risk and pay for whatever care is needed, the new act in September will tightly restrict the refusal of payments by insurance carriers and will limit their restrictions to those defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Better than that, effective in 2014, all plans are prohibited from setting those caps.

Next, the new act makes preventive care free. The idea is that if we can catch disease and illness early, the cost of treating the problems will be so much lower that the health insurance law will actually lower health care costs and save money for businesses, consumers, and the government. Hopefully, it will. Under the act, new plans are required to cover preventive services with absolutely no co-pays and deductibles. This section of the plan, too, will go into effect in September.

A lot of people who are uninsured now because of pre-existing conditions have hope, because in about a week, those people will have immediate access to insurance through a temporary, high risk pool. This law helps young people, too. Think about those who aren't insured by an employment policy because they are still in school, or they can't find a job because of a weak economy. Under old concepts, they might have been covered until age 21, but under this law, they will have medical insurance under their parents' policies until they are 26. That is if the parents agree that they will be covered.

Continue reading "More About What You Need to Know About the New Health Insurance Law" »

Like you, I have been saddened and appalled by the recent oil spill disaster caused by BP. Now, the unthinkable has happened as tar balls have started washing up on our beautiful Florida beaches and oil has been spotted mere miles from our shore. The Gulf is the lifeblood of this region, both economically and environmentally, and, unfortunately, BP has forever changed our community.

The ripple effects are just only now being felt. First, it was the families who rely on the Gulf for their daily work. Now the economic damage has moved onshore. As the number of visitors to the Gulf has been dramatically reduced, every sector of our economy has suffered. From hotels, condominium owners, restaurants and all the different boating businesses to the hardworking Floridians who keep these businesses running, no one seems to be able to escape the oil's reach.

Under federal and Florida law, anyone who is economically or physically affected by the oil spill can recover damages. While BP has initiated a claims process, I have heard from many people who are frustrated with that process and do not feel they are being treated fairly. As of now, the details of the $20 billion escrow fund have not been fully announced. But it is clear that economists, accountants and other experts will be crucial in presenting claims and receiving full compensation for your losses.

A number of attorneys and law firms have come to our area seeking clients, and I am grateful that so many want to help. As a longtime resident of this community, I want to make sure that we receive the best representation we can. To that end, I am working with a group of attorneys from across Florida and the country to handle claims and any litigation that must be filed against BP if those claims are not paid in full.

Continue reading "Oil Reaches Panama City Florida Beaches" »

Most laws are imperfect as they are written or as they are applied, but some good can be found in most of them. The new health insurance law is no exception. Despite the doom and gloom predictions by some, it has some very good parts, and some of them go into effect quickly. Here's a rundown on some of them.

The act provides for small business tax credits. Why is that important? Because tax credits reduce the cost of insurance for the business which means that a business is more likely to provide good insurance for its employees. Under the new law, tax credits of up to 35% of premiums will be immediately available to companies that offer insurance to their employees. Better yet, in 4 years, the tax credits will climb to 50% for small businesses.

You've probably heard about the Medicare Donut Hole that keeps some people from getting Medicare benefits for drugs. The new law starts to close that hole. People who hit it this year get a $250 rebate. Beginning next year, there will be a 50% reduction in the price of brand name drugs in the donut hole, and the hole will be completely eliminated by 2020.

A wonderful benefit of the law beginning only 6 months from now on January 1, 2011, is the elimination of co-payments for preventive services and the complete exemption of preventive services from deductibles under the Medicare program. Health insurance plans are notorious for dropping the coverage of people who are sick, just when they need coverage the most. The new law prevents that practice. This provision will take effect before the end of the year. Insurance companies have been just as notorious about refusing to insure children with pre-existing conditions like leukemia. Before this year is over, that practice will be banned, and 3 years from now, it will be banned for everyone.

Continue reading "What You Should Know About the New Health Insurance Law" »