Miami Injury Lawyer Blawg

On February 13, 2010, Fabio Noguera was driving southbound in his Ford Escort in the right lane of I-95 approaching the Gateway Boulevard exit in Boynton Beach. A tractor-trailer truck veered into him and struck the left rear of his car. The driver's side of Noguera's car spun in front of the truck, and the car was pushed forward until the truck stopped.

At the time of the accident Noguera was suffering from pre-existing injuries. Specifically, Noguera had suffered for more than 30 years from chronic rheumatoid arthritis. His hips and knees had been replaced, but Noguera claimed he was able to function at a high level.
In this accident Noguera injured his neck and lower back.

However, the accident aggrevated Noguera's condition. The neck and back injuries prevented Noguera from maintaining his exercise regimen, and that aggravated his rheumatoid arthritis.

The law in Florida holds the person that causes an accident is responsible for aggrevation of a pre-existing condition.

The Standard Jury Instruction States:

If you find that__________ caused a bodily injury, and that the injury resulted in an aggravation of an existing disease or physical defect or activation of a latent disease or physical defect, you should attempt to decide what portion of __________condition resulted from the aggravation or activation. If you can make that determination, then you should award only those damages resulting from the aggravation or activation. However, if you cannot make that determination, or if it cannot be said that the condition would have existed apart from the injury, then you should award damages for the entire condition suffered by__________.

The jury awarded $2.15 million for past and future medical expenses, $116,227 for past and future lost wages and $12 million for past and future pain and suffering. However, the jury found Noguera 50 percent liable for the accident, which cut the award in half.

As if Bicycle Accidents were not a big enough problem, a teenage boy was riding his bicycle to school when he was struck by Davie Police Chief, Patrick Lynn.

Frank Conner, 15, was riding his bike to school when he was hit. Lynn was turning right onto Nob Hill Road when he struck Conner, who was in the crosswalk heading south. This type of accident is very common, and is usually caused by a distracted driver who is looking to his left for oncoming traffic while making a right turn.

The police chief was at fault for failure to yield the right of way, but did not receive a ticket.

As reported by The Sun Sentinel, Sandra Levine, the crash victim's sister and legal guardian, was angry.

"I'm a little upset that the chief was at fault in the accident and didn't get a ticket," she said Thursday. "If I would have hit someone, I would have gotten a ticket. So because he's a police chief he doesn't get in trouble?"

Police departments across the country face a similar dilemma when top brass are involved in both serious and minor traffic accidents, said Eugene O'Donnell, a professor with John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

"This is becoming a very hot topic in the police world," he said. "There is an obvious conflict when an officer from the same department investigates an accident involving one of their colleagues. And it's more difficult when it's the chief who is a party to the accident. That officer gets put in a terribly bad position."

Sandy Hardwick, who witnessed the accident, had the same question.

"Why didn't they give him a ticket?" she said. "Because he's a chief. If it was me, I would have gotten a ticket. If it was you, you would have gotten a ticket. He should be ticketed. The light was red and the bicyclist had the right of way. The kid was hysterical. He was crying, he was shaking."

As a Miami Personal Injury attorney, I cannot remember the last time I saw a police officer or any county employees cited for causing an accident. In fact, in a case we recently concluded, a Metro-Dade bus struck our client while he was riding his bicycle. The video from the bus showed our client being struck by the bus. Incredibly enough the investigatng police officer, also from Dade County concluded my client kicked the bus.

Fortunately, we were able to obtain the video from the bus and resolve the case after filing a lawsuit.

Emergency room doctors often need to act quickly, and the failure to do so can result in a medical malpractice claim. The role of an Emergency room doctor is often to stabilize the patient so that a specialist may then assume the care of the patient. When dealing with trauma patients, the first order of concern is often to stop the bleeding.

As reported in The New York Times, tranexamic acid has been saving lives of Americans in battlefields by slowing the bleeding of even gravely wounded soldiers

A 2010 study by Dr. Ian Roberts(audio) reported on the benefits of tranexamic acid. Following the study The World Health Organization added tranexamic acid to its essential drugs list last year, and British ambulances now carry it. The fact that it is carried on ambulances is important because a new analysis of the 2010 CRASH-2 study shows that tranexamic acid should be given as early as possible to bleeding trauma patients; if treatment is not given until three hours or later after injury, it is less effective and could even be harmful.

Incredibly enough, because this effective drug is so inexpensive, it has not yet been adopted in all emergency rooms. Because there is so little profit in it, the companies that make it do not champion it. Despite the fact that this drug could save thousands of lives of car accident, shooting, and stabbing victims.

Many companies in India and China make tranexamic acid. Pfizer, which makes an injectable form for hemophiliacs (and donated thousands of doses to the Crash-2 trial), declined to give sales figures or even discuss administering it to trauma patients because the Food and Drug Administration has not approved that use. A company spokeswoman declined to say whether Pfizer had applied for approval. (Doctors may prescribe approved drugs for "off-label" uses, but drugmakers cannot endorse off-label uses without F.D.A. permission.)

This drug is very similar to another break through drug known as tPA, which has the opposite effect in that it is a clot buster. Like tranexamic acid, it to needs to be given within three hours of the onset of stroke symptoms. If given after three hours, the results can be fatal. tPA is the standard of care for patients who present to the emergency room within 3 hours of stroke onset and meet other criteria. The failure to administer tPA can lead to a
claim for medical malpractice. Hopefully, tranexamic acid will become the standard of care for trauma patients, and the failure to administer tranexamic acid will be medical negligence.

Negligence of a physician as defined by Florida Jury Instructions:

Negligence is the failure to use reasonable care. Reasonable care on the part of a physician is that level of care, skill and treatment which, in light of all relevant surrounding circumstances, is recognized as acceptable and appropriate by similar and reasonably careful physician. Negligence on the part of a physician is doing something that a reasonably careful physician would not do under like circumstances or failing to do something that a reasonably careful physician would do under like circumstances.

The key is that the treatment or procedure is recognized as acceptable and appropriate.

In a 24 hour period from late Saturday to Sunday night 10 people and an unborn baby were killed in car accidents in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Yes, as a MIami Car Accident Lawyer I am never surprised by the number of accidents on any given week, but 10 deaths in one day is shocking.

The crashes ranged from a head-on collision on the Gratigny at 5:00 a.m., where presumably the wrong way driver was drunk to a 10 year old skateboarder.

Of course, no weekend in South Florida would be complete without a Hit and Run accident.
That award goes to Eric Garcia an unlicensed 19 year old from Fort Lauderdale who ran over a 5-year-old girl riding a Big Wheel in front of her home. As reported by The MIami Herald, the owner of the car Mario Argumedo also 19, was in the car with Garcia when they collided with the girl. Argumendo, who owns the car, ran to the girl after the crash, picked her up and carried her over to her mother before running back into the car and driving it away from the scene. He was also arrested and charged with leaving the scene of a crash involving death, tampering with evidence and allowing an unlicensed driver operate a vehicle in his possession.

The girl's desperate mother began to drive her daughter to a hospital, but pulled over near Sunrise Boulevard and Interstate 95, where she called fire rescue. The girl was unresponsive when paramedics arrived.

She was taken to Broward General Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

As a Miami Car Accident Attorney it infuriates me to see Governor Scott handout yet another gift to the insurance industry. The new PIP law which was passed in the closing moments of the legislative session was the center piece of Governor Scott's agenda. I am the first to agree that the PIP system in its current format needed change. The change was simple, focus on cutting out fraud and the clinics that recruit patients with the promise of $10,000.00. Work on those unscrupilous medical providers and you can save consumers money. However, Governor Scott chose a different route. On the very day that Governor Scott received a check from United Automobile Insurance Company in the amount of $100,000.00 he pushed for legislation that limits the amount of payable insurance benefits.

Allow me to explain the new law in comparison to our current PIP law. Under the current system, if a person in injured in a car accident, the injured individual is entitled to $10,000.00 of medical benefits for reasonable and necessary medical expenses. Of course we all pay a premium for that insurance. The insurance includes but is not limited to treatment by medical doctors, chiropractors, massage therapists, and for diagnostic testing. Yes, this system was abused by fraudulent medical providers, lawyers, and individuals, and was in need of fraud reform.

The new law which goes into effect January 1, 2013, penalizes the 99% of Floridians that do right. The law essentially limits benefits to $2,500.00. Consumers will pay a premium for up to $10,000.00 of insurance, but will really only be getting $2,500.00 of coverage.

The new law requires an injured person seek service within 14 days following an accident. Not sure if you were hurt? If you think you were hurt, you better get to hospital or a doctor.
More importantly, in order to qualify for the $10,000.00 of coverage, a determination must be made that the injured person suffered an EMERGENCY MEDICAL CONDITION.

Specifically, the new law states:

Reimbursement for services and care provided in subparagraph 1. or subparagraph 2. is limited to $2,500 if any provider listed in subparagraph 1. or subparagraph 2. determines that the injured person did not have an emergency medical condition.

"Emergency Medical Condition" means a medical condition manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity, which may include severe pain, such that the absence of immediate medical attention could reasonable be expected to result in any of the following:

(a) Serious jeopardy to patient health.
(b) Serious impairment to bodily functions.
(c) Serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part.

This law was a pure gift to the insurance industry.