Young Frankenstein is at the Marina Civic Center Monday night! Enter here for 2 free tickets ($100 value!)
We’ll announce the randomly-drawn winner on our Facebook page this Friday morning! Winner can pick up tickets at Syfrett & Dykes downtown office on Friday or Monday. Event is next Monday night, October 31!
Congrats to Kristi Ford, our winner!
As high school graduation approaches, many teens will be getting a set of wheels for the very first time. If you are helping your teen buy their first car, please take a look at Consumer Report’s safest cars for teen drivers.
The Safe Teen and Novice Driver Uniform Protection Act of 2011 (STANDUP), or S. 528, is a bill that would raise the minimum driving age to 18 and save a lot of lives in the process, according to statistics.
Introduced by New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on March 9, 2011, this bill would provide driver safety grants to states with graduated driver licensing (GDL) laws, which include night-time driving and passenger restrictions for young drivers.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 175 lives could be saved and about 350,000 injuries prevented each year if every state had a strong GDL policy. Graduated Driving Laws help new drivers gain experience under low-risk conditions by granting driving privileges in stages, the CDC said.
In the past decade, more than 90,000 Americans were killed in motor vehicle crashes involving drivers between 15 and 20 years of age, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Young drivers between ages 16 and 20 have a fatality rate that is 4 times higher than the rate for drivers between ages 25 and 70, the administration said.
So is it time to make some changes to prevent needless fatalities and personal injury caused by young, inexperienced drivers? While it might not be popular with teen-agers, it seems to make good sense according to statistics.
Proper inflation of tires is very important to the safety of driving your automobile or motorcycle. And it’s fuel efficient to boot! See our give-away on facebook and get those tires properly inflated this weekend!
For information on proper tire pressure, visit this link:http://cars.cartalk.com/content/advice/tirepressure.html
Distracted driving is causing way too many deaths and personal injuries. This could be a great solution to keep your family members (especially teen-age drivers) from being tempted to text and talk while driving. Check out Protector.com today!
If you are injured, you have the right to know how much insurance coverage the at-fault person has. Under Florida Statute § 627.4137 , upon written request from the injured party or their representative, the insurance company should disclose the following:
Don’t make decisions regarding your legal health without knowing all the facts. If you need assistance in any area regarding a Florida Personal Injury Case we would be happy to talk with you about this at no charge at all.
I am often asked how can I settle my case by myself without getting into trouble? The good news is they are asking the question! Just like no one would try to fly an airplane without some guidance you should not try to settle your personal injury case without some guidance either. Here are three quick tips:
1. Are you certain you know everything about your injury? No one else knows your body better than you do. Are you still on pain medication? Are you still actively treating? Is there talk of a future surgery or extended future medical care? If the answer is yes unknown to any of these questions, then you are probably not ready to settle solo.
2. Do you know how much your medical bills total and what you owe your medical providers? One of the goals of the personal injury settlement is to close this chapter of your life by helping you physically, emotionally and financially. By not dealing with your medical bills you are legally not fulfilling your obligations to the medical providers that helped you when you were injured and needed it most. It will nag at you if you don’t do it. Also, not paying them when your settlement comes in is going to create bigger problems down the road in many ways. You will not have closure. The bills will keep coming. Secondly, if you have a flare up or need additional treatment, you will be starting from scratch with a provider that doesn’t know your history because you won’t return where you know you left a $1,500 unpaid bill. This will cost you more money in the long run because the new doctor will be starting from scratch. Thirdly, have you ever worked and then had your employer fail to pay you? How did you feel/how would you feel? Well, it is the same thing when the doctor treats and you fail to pay him or her. Do the right thing here and your future physical, emotional and finanical health well being will be much better.
3. Do you know how much insurance the other driver had? Under Florida law you are entitled to have this information disclosed to you by their insurance company. See Florida Statute §627.4137. Your case value does not relate to the amount of insurance coverage the at-fault party has, but their insurance coverage is information you need to know.
If the at-fault party only has $10K in limits and you are offered a $10K settlement, then how much better are you really going to be able to do if you sue them and have to collect individually from them? On the other hand, if you are still uncertain about your injuries, and the at-fault party has $250K in coverage, why settle for $5K when they have plenty of coverage to take care of you until your injuries are healed? Remember, once you sign and settle you are done FOREVER.
Settling without any attorney is not without risk, just like flying without an experienced pilot is not without risk. However, if your case is small and you are determined to settle solo, please remember these tips for a safe and successful flight. Naturally, if you want to speak an attorney about your case at no obligation at all then I am only an e-mail or a phone call away. Just contacting me does not mean I’m your attorney. It doesn’t mean I’m going to “move in” on your case. I provide quality legal advice in the area of personal injury cases as a community service all the time and I’d be glad to help you too. Until next time, Safe Flying!
Did you know that insurance companies have yet another weapon in their arsenal to act without consequences for their actions?
Florida law grants insurance companies this right under a statute commonly known as the non-joinder statute, § 627.4136. This statute is being interpreted to prohibit suits against insurance companies directly when their insured has injured someone or caused a loss, even if there is a basis for a breach of contract against the insurer.
Assume the insurance adjuster meets with you and promises to pay you $5,000 to resolve your claim. (Meeting with injured parties is something they do hundreds and thousands of times per day and trying to resolve claims is their JOB).
You agree to settle for $5,000 and tell them to send the check. They never do. You call to inquire and they say they never said that, no deal. The insurance company cannot be sued directly for their breach of contract with you in this case under the non-joinder statute. This means they act with immunity for their actions in this case.
The insurance company can promise the injury victim, whose interest is completely OPPOSITE of the insurance company, anything they want and use those promises to gather whatever information they want on the promise of a resolution of the case. Then they can do an about face with absolutely no legal liablity at all.
This is one more reason why talking to the insurance company without an attorney who is representing your best interest can be dangerous to your legal health. See Hazen v. Allstate Ins. Co., 952 So. 2d 531 (Fla. 2d DCA 2007).
Imagine this: you loan John Smith $1,000 and he gives you a written statement promising to repay the money (plus interest at 10%) in one year. At the end of one year he would owe you $1,100. The year ends and he refuse to repay you. The list of excuses is endless – he already paid you because he helped you when your car was broken down; he paid you in cash and you forgot; he lost his job and can’t pay you; he has been sick and can’t pay you – the list is endless.
When you reach the point that you cannot take it anymore and go to court to recover your money, the process of going to court is called litigation. In today’s world, litigation is very time consuming and costly. Much of today’s legal world involves something known as “pre-trial practice”. This means massive amounts of information including documents, sworn statements, documents from other sources and experts are consulted on an almost endless number of issues. At the end of the day after all the “pre-trial practice” is completed a judge or jury hears the case. At the conclusion, the Judge enters a “Final Judgment” in favor of one party or the other.
On the example we started with, if the judge found you were owed the money, you would receive a “Final Judgment” saying John Smith owes you $1,100. The power of the Final Judgment is that now you can use the government’s resources to help you collect your debt from John. You may be able to garnish John’s bank account (assuming he has one), garnish John’s paycheck, have a lien on John’s property, and ultimately use the Court and Sheriff to help you take John’s property to recover your $1,100. Notice, the Final Judgment is the document saying you are officially owed the money, not a guarantee of payment. The bigger question is my mind is not “can my client prevail in litigation and receive a Final Judgment,” the bigger question is “assuming my client prevails, will they be able to collect on their Final Judgment?”
After a car accident (crash), people often worry about filing on their automobile insuranace for fear their rates will be raised. In Florida, the good news is that is illegal. The link to the Florida Statute is below for you, but summarized the insurance company should not raise your rates if your accident involves any of the following situations:
If you believe your case falls into one of these situations and you would like help on this or any other matter involving a car or motorcycle accident, then please feel free to contact us today at 850-785-3400.
