South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

When picking up her granddaughter at Coronado Beach Elementary School recently, Karen Clark saw something that drew her ire — youngsters on bicycles pedaling away from campus without helmets.

“I don’t want to see these kids hurt,” the Edgewater resident said. “I know how quickly an accident can happen to a child.”

Clark said when she brought the matter to school officials, she was rebuffed and her contacts with local law enforcement were just as unsatisfactory.

“The school district needs to step up to the plate (and make riders wear them),” she said.

Coronado Elementary Principal Jeri Murphy said while she shares Clark’s concerns, the school district has no authority to enforce the state law requiring anyone younger than 16 to wear a helmet when they ride a bike.

“This is a law-enforcement issue and a parental issue,” she said.

That doesn’t mean the problem is ignored. Murphy said her school not only offers free helmets when they are available but puts on a bike-safety program at the beginning of the school year.

“We are here to educate, not enforce,” she said.

Murphy said less than 10 percent of her 265 students ride bikes to and from campus, and most obey the rules.

Crossing guard Katherine Hancock agreed, despite seeing two cycling students without helmets Tuesday morning.

“They are definitely encouraged to do so,” she said.

The crossing guards and school-resource deputies are supervised by the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Program commander Lt. Bobby Lambert said his people try to work as a team with school officials and parents to remind youngsters to wear their helmets.

He said some schools go so far as to tell students without a helmet they cannot ride their bikes to campus. But, he stressed, the most important people in this equation are the parents.

Most Volusia County elementary schools teach bike safety as an optional part of their physical-education curriculum, district spokeswoman Nancy Wait said.

“This is definitely an ongoing concern,” she said. “But it is a community concern (including) parents, law enforcement and the schools.”

New Smyrna Beach police officials say they enforce the law, which calls for a $49.50 fine for a child younger than 14 who rides without a helmet. That increases to $101 for those between 14 and 16 years old.

“If we see a violation, we will stop (the child),” said Sgt. John Kosorok, who supervises the department’s traffic unit. Even then, officers are more likely to issue warnings than citations, unless the rider is a repeat offender.

However, priorities prevent him from putting an officer outside every school just to catch helmetless riders.

That didn’t sit well with Clark.

“It would only take 10 minutes for officers to tell kids to walk their bikes or get their helmets on,” she said. “That is all that would have to be done.”

Coronado parent Kristin Moats said she would like police to focus on another problem — people speeding through the school zones.

“I can see letting the helmet laws slide,” she said. But not people driving 35 to 40 mph through a 15-mph school zone, something she said she sees daily while walking her kindergartner to and from campus.

The labels on the pill bottles in her dead son’s apartment drove Laurie Serra from grief to anger. Now, she’s pushing to change Florida law.

Matthew Serra died of a prescription drug overdose at 28: Loratab, oxycodone and other painkillers. The former college swimming star, who started taking the drugs for a sports injury, never had a problem finding doctors near his Pinellas County home to write his prescriptions or pharmacies to fill them.

Florida is the largest of 12 states without a system to track prescription narcotics, and experts say this and the state’s abundance of storefront pain management clinics draws addicts and pill suppliers from throughout the country. Legislators hope to change that this year by creating a prescription database for doctors, pharmacists and law enforcement, partly in response to criticism from other state governments that are tired of having their residents die of prescription overdoses with painkillers bought in Florida.

The bill would also require pain clinics to register with the state and submit to annual inspections. One loophole, however, is that owners and key employees would not have to undergo background checks, which is required for workers at many other types of clinics.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, passed the state Senate 39-0 last week and the House will likely consider it this week — although similar bills have died the last seven years because of privacy and cost concerns. Serra believes a tracking system might have warned legitimate doctors and pharmacists who unwittingly fueled her son’s addiction and flagged other doctors for law enforcement.

The bill’s advocates said it is incredibly easy to get painkillers in Florida, particularly South Florida. Its numerous strip mall medical clinics, where patients can drop in and get prescriptions for any type of pain, have given the region the nickname of the nation’s “pill mill.” In 2008 there were 60 pain management clinics in South Florida, according to a study by the Miami Herald. This month, the newspaper found 150 pain management clinics in the region.

“Matthew learned what doctors he could call to get the prescriptions readily,” she said. “He could go to three different pharmacies and there is no way of the Publix checking to see what CVS has filled on the same patient and the doctors cannot check to see what other doctors have prescribed for a patient.”

Experts say about nine Floridans die of prescription drug overdoses each day, which is more than die from illegal drugs.

“If we had nine or 10 manatees washing up on our shores every day we would be outraged and yet we have nine to 10 people a day dying of prescription drug overdoses,” said Rep. Kurt Kelly, R-Ocala.

The region’s leading alternative newspaper typically has more than a dozen pain clinic ads each week. All promise drug dispensing onsite and some even offer discounts off the doctor’s exam. According to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, Broward County doctors wrote prescriptions for more than 6.5 million Oxycodone pills from June to December 2008, making the county the nation’s top supplier of the powerful narcotic. Calls to several pain clinics seeking comment were not returned.

“The epicenter of the epidemic is in Broward County. We are the pill mill for the rest of the country. We are killing people not only in our own state but in Kentucky, Tennessee and in Ohio. We have done such a poor job of regulating this industry that we are creating addicts,” said Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton and a supporter of prescription tracking.

Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway supports the Florida legislation and has closely followed it, said spokeswoman Shelley Johnson.

“The drug pipeline that exists between Kentucky and Florida must be stopped. I applaud any effort by Florida legislators to slow the illegal diversion of prescription drugs for trafficking,” Conway said in a statement.

Despite the bill’s previous failure, Fasano’s chief legislative assistant said the proposal has drawn widespread support this time. Cost is no longer a factor as the state plans to fund a new Office of Drug Control partially through grant money from pharmaceutical companies, Greg Giordana said.

The bill’s passage cannot come early enough for law enforcement officers like Lt. Eddie Barnard, who works nights as a narcotics office for the Escambia County Sheriff’s office in the Panhandle. Often messages from families of drug addicts are waiting for him when he begins his shift.

“You find out a lot when you have a relative or someone who overdoses and you start looking at their pill bottles,” he said.

The relatives want Barnard to know which clinic or doctor’s office is filling the prescriptions and how easy is for their drug-addicted loved one to obtain the drugs.

The sheriff’s office works with the DEA to investigate the complaints. But the veteran narcotics officer said it’s difficult for authorities to put the clinics out of business.

“It’s not like a street corner drug operation where you have someone driving up and buying a rock of crack at a crack house. These people are hiding behind a profession,” he said.

And it’s difficult for authorities to tell the legitimate clinics from the ones catering to addicts until they start receiving complaints.

Barnard said the prescription tracking system could become a useful tool for law enforcement.

“It’s a good start because something has to be done,” he said.

The massive wildfire that has burned more than 27,000 acres in the Everglades won’t be causing any more major delays on Alligator Alley.

Still, the Florida Highway Patrol wants drivers to be careful using the major highway connecting Broward and Collier counties. The road had been closed off-and-on for the past week due to the fire burning in the Big Cypress National Preserve. The fire is 60 percent contained.

State Road 29 remains closed in parts of Collier County since fire crews are using it as an access point.

The fire most likely as a result of a lightning strike.

Authorities say a shirtless man on LSD was stunned with a Taser several times after trying to enter SeaWorld Orlando without paying.

An Orange County deputy reports seeing 23-year-old Nicholas Casanova trying to enter the park Tuesday afternoon. When the deputy approached, Casanova left, but then he came back about five minutes later. Casanova and the deputy began struggling, and the deputy shot Casanova with a Taser multiple times.

A report shows that Casanova swung a trash can lid at the deputy and tried to jump in a water feature before he was finally restrained.

A blood test performed later showed he had LSD in his system.

Casanova faces multiple charges, including battery on a law-enforcement officer.

Better Buckle up, Florida drivers.

The Legislature on Wednesday sent a bill to Governor Charlie Crist that would allow police officers to pull over drivers for not wearing a seat belt. The governor said he would sign the measure into law.

The law would apply to the driver and front-seat passenger but not back-seat passengers.

Until now, drivers could only be given a seat-belt citation if they were pulled over for another traffic infraction, such as speeding

“Before you ever turn the key in the ignition, the belt should be buckled,” said Rep. Kevin Ambler, R- Tampa, who said his life was saved by his seat belt in a 2004 car crash.

The House voted to approve the seat-belt law 90-25, with former Rep. Irv Slosberg of Boca Raton looking on from the gallery. The bill is named after Slosberg’s daughter, Dori, who was killed in a 1996 car crash.

“The time has come,” said Slosberg, who pushed the issue until he left the Legislature in 2006. Each year, Republicans killed the measure, citing concerns about government intruding too much into people’s lives.

In the Senate, where the seat-belt law had stalled in prior years, the measure was approved Tuesday.

Aside from safety, there’s another reason the seat-belt law gained traction this year: The bill makes cash-strapped Florida eligible for a one-time, $35.5 million traffic-safety grant from the federal government. This is the last year to qualify.

In Florida, 82 percent of drivers wear their seat belts, according to state statistics, a sharp rise during the past decade but still below the 87 percent average in the 26 states that already had seat-belt laws like the one the Legislature passed.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates the law would save 124 lives and prevent 1,733 serious injuries every year in Florida.

Florida’s state seat-belt fine is $30, but counties can add additional fines and court fees. All told, seat-belt tickets could range from $93 to $119 by county, according to a House staff analysis. Last year, the state issued 254,000 seat-belt citations. How much additional revenue the law will generate is unknown.

The seat-belt law drew broad, bipartisan support in both chambers, but some supported it reluctantly.

“The seat-beat bill is, in my opinion, not the best policy,” said Sen. Carey Baker, R-Eustis, who had refused to hear the measure in his committee in past years. “But we know that wearing seat belts saves lives, and we’ll have primary seat-belt enforcement as the law of the land. I can’t imagine we’ll have a lot of law-enforcement officers spending a lot of time pulling people over for not wearing their seat belts.”

A spokesman said Wednesday that Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood plans a full departmental review of the nation’s motor coach safety.

The news came a day after five people were killed when a bus carrying French tourists crashed in Soledad, Calif. The driver, John Egnew, 69, was among those killed.

Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, says the review was prompted by an April 21 hearing into a crash in January 2008 that killed nine people in Utah.

TheCalifornia Highway Patrol said Egnew lost control of the bus and smashed into a guard rail. The crash sent Egnew and at least two other people plummeting 60 to 70 feet.

On July 7, 2006, at approximately 10:30 p.m., plaintiff Justin Meyers, 18, a recent high school graduate, was riding as a passenger in a pickup truck on Climax Road in Amador County. The vehicle went over a 27-foot-high cut slope located below Climax and adjacent to California State Highway 88, and landed on its roof on Highway 88’s shoulder.

The driver and another passenger — both of whom were the plaintiff’s friends — were killed in the accident. Meyers was rendered paraplegic.

The three young men were going to a granite quarry to attend an informal memorial service for a fellow student who had been killed in an automobile accident a few days before. The toxicology testing of the pickup’s driver was negative for drugs and alcohol.

The state of California created the 27-foot-high cut slope as part of its 1933 project to build Highway 88. At the time, the state made the cut slope immediately beneath the sharp curve in the county-operated road and also installed a wooden guardrail at the sharp curve. The state contended that it then gave the guardrail to the county of Amador, but the county contended that the guardrail was never properly relinquished to it. During the 1960s and 1970s, part of the guardrail was observed hanging in mid air as the part of the cut slope beneath it eroded away; the guardrail was also observed to rot away, eventually disappearing altogether. The guardrail was never upgraded or replaced by either the county or the state.

Meyers sued the county and California Department of Transportation, alleging dangerous condition of public property pursuant to Government Code ? 830, et. seq.

Meyers alleged that the compound-reducing radius curve in Climax Road was a dangerous condition of public property because it: required constant steering correction while driving through the curve; was no longer protected by a guardrail; was improperly identified and signed; did not have a proper shoulder or “recovery area” because of erosion; lacked proper delineation markers; and had a 2-inch drop off from pavement to the shoulder, making recovery back onto the pavement difficult.

Meyers alleged that Climax and the adjacent 27-foot cliff that Caltrans created were dangerous conditions of public property.

Meyers also alleged that the curve where the accident occurred had a substantial history of similar accidents — involving automobiles and logging trucks — and that the county and Caltrans had attempted to destroy evidence of prior accidents there.

Plaintiff experts opined that the “20 mph, Curves Ahead” sign posted three turns before the curve where the accident occurred was an ineffective warning to drivers. They criticized the fact that the sign was posted more than 700 feet before the curve where the accident occurred, and then followed by two gentle curves before the curve where the accident occurred; they believed that this gave drivers, especially at night, a false sense that reducing their speed from the legal speed limit of 55 mph to 20 mph was unnecessary. The experts agreed that the accident vehicle was traveling between 35 mph and 43 mph at the time it lost control.

The defendants argued that Climax was not in a dangerous condition when used with due care.

Caltrans argued that Meyers was not a “user” of the 27-foot cliff and therefore could not sue Caltrans pursuant to Government Code ? 830.

Both defendants filed motions for summary judgment, which were denied.

Meyers sustained an L5-6 burst fracture and was rendered paraplegic, and alleged residual moderate cognitive disabilities. Meyers was airlifted to Sutter Roseville Medical Center, where he was admitted until July 24, 2006. To undergo rehabilitation, he was then transferred to a Santa Clara facility, where he remained until Sep. 7.

Meyers underwent the following surgeries and procedures at Sutter Roseville: the creation of a burr hole through his skull to place an ICP (intracranial pressure) monitor in the front of his head, to monitor the pressure in his skull; the hole was closed with staples during the same procedure; a thoracostomy, which is the creation of an artificial opening through the chest wall for the drainage of fluid and release of an abnormal accumulation of air; a fiberoptic bronchoscopy (visual exam of the breathing passages of the lungs) revealed dried blood and several small pieces of glass in the endotracheal tube; left sternoclavicular dislocation, which usually results from a fall onto the shoulder; the doctor tried to pop it back into the joint but was unsuccessful; it was determined that the plan would be nonoperative treatment, which involved observation, periodic X-rays, and observing return to function of shoulder; flexible bronchoscopy, which involved the insertion of a bronchoscope into the right lung to clear the lungs due to respiratory failure; placement of a feeding tube; and stabilization of the spinal segment with screws and rods to prevent delayed deformity as well as to hasten his entrance into spinal cord injury rehabilitation.

Meyers underwent extensive rehabilitation in Santa Clara. He learned the most basic care needs, and underwent occupational therapy, physical therapy, psychology sessions, speech pathology, respiratory therapy, group physical therapy and therapeutic recreation.

An initial CT scan revealed that Meyers sustained a brain injury which included frontal contusions bilaterally and left subarachnoid hemorrhage and mild edema. He underwent cognitive rehabilitation at the Santa Clara hospital. A comprehensive neuropsychological and clinical psychological examination revealed the following: diminished verbal fluency; loss of initiative and processing speed; deficits regarding focusing and continual attention; auditory verbal memory difficulty; loss of visual memory, visual proficiency or visual comprehension; decline in processing speed compared to his predicted processing speed based on his age, race, and demographics; and symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

He was a high school football standout who received recruitment interest from many colleges. He intended to begin Modesto Junior College in the fall and play football there, while improving his grades so that he could transfer to a four-year university. His neuropsychologist determined that his cognitive impairment was moderate, and that he would have considerable difficulty holding steady employment throughout his life.

Plaintiff experts opined that, because of his brain injury, he would be at high risk for dementia and at some point in the future would require an around-the-clock attendant.

Meyers sought $800,000 in billed past medical, $76,000 in past out-of-pocket, $16.4 million for a life care plan, $1 million in future brain treatment, $3.9 million for lost earnings and $15 million general damages, according to defense counsel.

The defense expert neuropsychologist opined that the plaintiff’s cognitive impairment was less severe than claimed, and that he would be able to hold some type of menial job throughout his lifetime.

About one month before trial was set to begin, Meyers settled with the county for $4 million.

Three days before trial, Meyers settled with Caltrans for $2 million.

Plaintiff attorney Michael Louis Kelly commented that the two most powerful pieces of evidence for Meyers in this case were a county employee’s description of how, when he was a teenager, he saw the guardrail at the accident curve rotting and hanging in midair where the shoulder beneath it eroded away over a period of 10-to-15 years; and testimony by a Caltrans employee, who recalled cleaning up wreckage from three-to-four vehicles that had gone off the cliff in a 10-to-15-year period, and creating records of the accidents that Caltrans could not produce during discovery.

Luggage and bodies were left strewn around a central California highway after a bus carrying French tourists overturned on an overpass, killing at least five and injuring dozens.

Investigators were still trying to determine the cause of the crash Tuesday afternoon that shut down U.S. 101 for hours, but said the tour bus appeared to be the only vehicle involved.

The maroon Orion Pacific bus lay on its side after crashing into the guard rail on the two-lane southbound overpass in Soledad, about 100 miles southeast of San Francisco.

The crash ejected four passengers from the vehicle, sending one over the side of the road and onto railroad tracks 60 to 70 feet below, said California Highway Patrol spokesman Brian Wiest.

“It’s a tragedy,” Wiest said. “It’s certainly one of worst I’ve seen in a long time.”

The passenger that fell to the railroad tracks and two others died at the scene, said Maia Carroll, a spokeswoman for the Monterey County Office of Emergency Services. Two more passengers died at hospitals.

A total of 36 people had been on board, including 34 French tourists, one Canadian tour guide and an American driver, Wiest said.

Four of those injured were under the age of 18, including a 13-year-old girl who was one of seven patients airlifted to hospitals in Fresno and the San Francisco Bay Area. The driver was among those who survived the crash, according to the CHP.

Jacques de Noray, a spokesman for the French consulate in San Francisco, said authorities had notified his office that the crash involved French citizens, but said he had no further details. Officials from the consulate reached the scene of the crash late Tuesday.

The tour, which started in San Francisco, was en route to Southern California, where the tourists were due to fly out of Los Angeles back to France, Wiest said. The group had been in the U.S. since April 19 and made stops Tuesday in Monterey and Carmel before the crash, authorities said.

A person who answered the phone at Orion Pacific, which describes itself as a family owned, luxury charter coach company based in Orange, said no one was available for comment. It was not immediately clear who had chartered the bus that crashed in Soledad.

The highway was temporarily shut down in both directions; northbound lanes reopened a couple hours later, and it was unclear when southbound lanes would reopen.

Adrienne Laurent, a spokeswoman for the Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, said the facility had received three patients from the crash. She said one of those patients, a 52-year-old man, was declared dead there.

Patients also were being treated at eight other hospitals.

The Red Cross was helping coordinate housing and other services Tuesday night for three families who survived the crash and were released from hospitals, said Paula Herrera, executive director of the Monterey-San Benito chapter.

CHP spokeswoman Fran Clader in Sacramento could not comment on Orion Pacific’s safety record pending the accident investigation. The company has been operating since 1985, according to its Web site.

The family of one of two British businessmen killed in a Fort Lauderdale hit-and-run crash filed a lawsuit Monday against the owner of the car involved in that accident and a friend of the car’s owner.
A Porsche 911 Turbo owned by Ryan LeVin, 34, struck Craig Elford, 39, and Kenneth Watkinson, 48, on Feb. 13 as they walked along State Road A1A to their hotel on Fort Lauderdale beach.

Police are investigating to determine who was behind the wheel at the time of the accident.

Though the lawsuit filed by Elford’s family does not mention who was driving the Porsche, it accuses LeVin and his friend Derek Cook, 37, who police say drove the sports car at some point that night, of reckless driving.

“These men represent the ultimate not just in negligence but in cowardice for fleeing the scene,” said Seth Miles, one of the attorneys representing Elford’s family. “His family is demolished.”

Among the accusations in the lawsuit are two the Fort Lauderdale Police Department have not verified: that both men were driving drunk and that one of them was involved in a drag race moments before the crash.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from both men.

“I’m not surprised they filed the lawsuit. That’s what people do when they lose relatives,” said David Bogenschutz, one of LeVin’s attorneys.

LeVin is behind bars in Illinois for violating the terms of his probation for a 2006 car chase in Chicago.

Police declined Tuesday evening to comment on Cook’s whereabouts or the status of the case.