Panama City Florida Injury Lawyer Blog

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" »

My thirty years of experience representing people who have been hurt in auto, big truck, and bus accidents has imprinted in my mind the major causes of these accidents. Most injuries and deaths can be avoided if people are aware of the driving behavior that repeatedly maims and kills on our roads. Reckless or erratic behavior kills eighteen hundred people a year.

On the mild side, I'm talking about tailgating that has resulted in an epidemic of rear end collisions and weaving in and out of traffic that causes loss of control. At its worst, it is driving drunk, steering down the wrong side of a road, exceeding the speed limit by a large margin and driving at 80 and above. Speed kills. In the hundred miles from Panama City to Tallahassee or Pensacola, you save only 6 minutes by going 70 instead of 65 mph. And every 5 miles an hour over the speed limit increases the energy of a crash exponentially so that even the best designed vehicles cannot absorb the energy of the impact as they crush. The result is that the body takes the brunt of the crash.

Another huge cause of wrecks is running red lights. Seventy five percent of city collisions are caused by people running lights either intentionally to save an average of one minute driving time or because they are inattentive. Hitting the gas instead of the brake when a light turns to orange or red is disastrous in too many cases. NHTSA statistics for 2007 inform us that fifty-four percent of the 41,059 deaths happened in cars that had frontal damage. When a light is run, one of the cars in the collision will have frontal damage. The other will be hit in the side which is the other of the two most dangerous scenarios in highway or street collisions.

Failure to wear seat belts remains a deadly mistake for too many drivers and passengers. The damage is done when the person strikes the interior of the vehicle with huge force. It is impossible in anything over about an 8 mph collision for a person to brace with his or her arms to prevent striking interior components like the dashboard and windshield. Even worse, a huge percentage of unrestrained occupants are ejected through windows, even those that are closed, and, then, are brain damaged from hitting the pavement or coming into contact with the other vehicle or objects like culverts and trees. Often, when people are ejected, their own vehicle rolls over on them, producing death.

Cell phones are both wonderful and terrible. Inattentive driving, which can lead to the red light running I mentioned a minute ago, killed 4,704 people in 2007 according to NHTSA. While cell phone usage is only one bad idea when on the road (others being adjusting the radio, lighting cigarettes, and text messaging), it's become dangerously prevalent. An estimated one million people are on our roads at any given time driving and talking on cell phones. Avoid these commonly occurring scenarios, and your summer vacation is likely to be a happy and safe one.

Continue reading "Avoiding Highway Accidents that Spoil Summer Vacations" »

During the last few weeks, I described the laws governing how to obtain compensation for oil spill damages. The oil in the Gulf of Mexico is moving nearer to us, and the coming chaos of churning waters during our hurricane season that just began makes further discussion about the oil problem imperative.

Oil hit Dauphin Island off Mobile and was 7 miles south of Pensacola just a week ago. As you've been hearing, it's closer to us now in Bay and Walton Counties. Let me come immediately to some critical points about what you must do and not do if you've lost income or property value because of the BP spill. I'm not going to mince words. We are at war with BP. Don't underestimate the situation. Despite what it says in pretty advertisements or in TV interviews, it's history has been sorry, and its PR people have been spinning the truth 24/7. It started by saying, "We'll pay all legitimate claims," whatever that means. Now, it's saying it's liability is limited. That's certainly clearer, and it serves to tell us that it's going to deny as many claims as possible. Its corporate survival depends on that.

So, what do you need to know? First, avoid the class actions that have been filed like they are the plague. The likelihood of their success is small. Why did some lawyers file class actions even though federal courts hate class actions and refuse to certify the classes when everyone's damages are so different? Only they can tell you, but one thought is that by filing class actions, they thought they could get publicity to attract other victims of the oil spill to become clients. Second, it may be important to avoid any suit that can be transferred to federal multi-district litigation in a court that is yet to be determined by the Washington-based judicial panel on multi-district litigation. It is likely that litigation in that forum will consume years. Look at the Exxon Valdez mess that has been going on in that kind of litigation for over twenty years. The people in Alaska still haven't been paid. Finally, lawyers of all types, criminal, real estate, and divorce, to name a few, are suddenly pronouncing their expertise in negligence or insurance law, the type law that truly governs these cases, and are filing cases in those forums.

Continue reading "Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill - Problems with Oil Spill Litigation" »

In the Florida Panhandle, most people have not lost money or had other damage caused by BP and Transocean from the oil spill in the Gulf. However, some have already suffered large economic losses. Whatever the kind of economic loss they have had, the legal remedies are the same, and some are far better to utilize than others. Some of the stories I get from people calling me for help are appalling.

For instance, the man who owns a nationally sold fishing magazine whose business is failing, because he can't get even his steady advertisers to put money into a magazine about Florida fishing. Or the restaurant owners in Louisiana who say their business has dropped to nothing, because tourists aren't going there or they won't order seafood, because they've heard it's unsafe. The local charter fishermen who have lost jobs since the fisheries have shut down. And the hotel and condo owners and their employees who have suffered due to cancelled rental reservations. All are in the same situation. They have economic losses that can be recovered by following the right steps. If they follow one of the wrong paths, they are likely to be tied up in litigation for years.

Let's examine the different possibilities for economic recovery. The federal law governing recovery of damage due to the oil spill is the Oil Pollution Act (OPA), 33 USC Sec. 2701 and subsequent sections. It provides for broad recovery of losses from responsible parties like BP, and it covers the economic losses of all the people who have called me as I described above. That gives you an idea of how broad the OPA is.

Continue reading "What To Do If You Have Oil Spill Damage" »