South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

On Feb. 19, 2005, plaintiff Jennifer Truitt, 37, a cable-television provider’s director of marketing, visited the Ski Plattekill skiing resort, in Roxbury. While Truitt was tubing on one of the resort’s snow courses, she collided with a person. Truitt sustained an injury of her back.

Truitt sued the resort’s operator, Ski Plattekill Inc. She alleged that the tubing course was defectively designed.

Truitt claimed that she collided with a person who had been tubing on another one of the tubing courses. She contended that the tubing area’s exit crossed the course that she was following.

Truitt’s accident-analysis expert opined that the tubing area should have been designed to prevent pedestrians from entering courses that were in use. He also opined that the courses were not sufficiently staffed or supervised. Truitt’s counsel argued that Ski Plattekill violated New York state regulations that governed the operation of tubing courses.

Defense counsel contended that tubes cannot be controlled during tubing runs, and he claimed that participants often collide with snow barriers that flank the courses. He argued that Truitt assumed the risk of such incidents, and he also contended that Truitt collided with a person who was not standing on a tubing course but on a barrier that separated tubing lanes. Defense counsel reported that this contention was corroborated by the person who was involved in the collision with Truitt.

The resort’s president and operations manager agreed that the tubing course was reasonably safe.

The trial was bifurcated, so damages were not before the court.

Truitt sustained a compression fracture of her T12 vertebra. She also sustained assorted bruises, and she endured residual swollenness. She was hospitalized, and she underwent extensive physical therapy.

Truitt claimed that her injuries prevented her performance of about three months of work. She contended that she suffers residual pain that stems from her back. She claimed that the pain prevents her pursuit of physical recreation. She still undergoes treatment.

Truitt sought recovery of about $11,000 for her past medical expenses, about $21,000 for her past lost earnings, and damages for her past and future pain and suffering.

 The jury rendered a defense verdict.

 Judge Eugene Peckham denied plaintiff’s counsel’s oral motion to set aside the verdict.

Two people are dead after a car plowed into the back of a school bus in Clay County Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.

About 20 students from Middleburg Elementary were on the bus and four were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Lt. Bill Leeper of the Florida Highway Patrol said the crash occurred shortly after 3 p.m. It happened at Hall Boree Road and Blanding Boulevard in Middleburg. He said the driver of a Pontiac sedan failed to stop as the bus was turning.

There were three people in the sedan, Leeper said. The driver, 19-year-old Interlachen resident Elisabeth Brantley, and front-seat passenger, 48-year-old Paul Bruchesky, of Melrose, were pronounced dead at the scene. They were wearing seat belts.

The car burst into flames after the crash. The rear passenger, Samantha Brantley, also of Interlachen, was taken to Shands Jacksonville with non life-threatening injuries. She was wearing a seat belt.

Leeper said a man in a white Dodge pickup truck stopped to move the flaming car away from the bus but left the scene before authorities arrived.

A crew was cleaning up an old gas station in Miami Tuesday morning when an explosion happened, severing a worker’s leg, according to Miami fire officials.

Ignatius Carroll of Miami Fire Rescue said the crew removed gas tanks from a former gas station in the 300 block of Northwest 79th Street on Monday.

Two workers returned on Tuesday to clean out residue and prepare the rest of the materials for removal and recycling.

Carroll said that when one of the men began to saw materials, there was a reaction and an explosion. The man was severely injured, his leg severed, Carroll said.

The victim was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital.

The fire department secured the area.

A 16-year-old student had to be cut out of a Lake County Schools bus after it was involved in an accident this morning in Clermont, an official said.

About four students were on the bus at the time of the wreck. No one was hurt; nor was the driver, said Ervin Olsheske, a route manager for Lake County Schools.

The accident involved a Lake County Schools bus with special-needs children headed to Princeton House in Orlando.

The bus driver was headed east on Hartwood Marsh Road just east of the Hancock Road intersection.

That’s when a car heading westbound on Hartwood Marsh went over the center line and hit the bus, Olsheske said.

“It was not a pretty picture,” he said, noting the 16-year-old had to be cut from his vehicle.

The bus sustained serious damage to its driver’s side. It was seen alongside Hancock getting towed not far from the accident scene.

The bus driver was checked out by emergency officials, released and given the afternoon off. “She’ll be back on the bus tomorrow morning,” the route manager said.

The students aboard the bus were transported to school by another district bus.

An illegal street race in suburban Riviera Beach went awry when one of the cars struck and killed 39-year-old Bradley Lanorris Kelly, authorities said.

Now the driver has been charged with fleeing the scene of a fatal crash.

Richard Cleveland Glinton, now 55, was arrested Monday morning in the April incident.

Kelly’s son told Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies he believed Glinton’s Mustang was traveling at up to 120 mph when its right front end struck his father.

Glinton, a concrete worker from West Palm Beach, is being held at the Palm Beach County Jail in lieu of $25,000 bail.

“I know he’s very sorry for what happened. Other than that, I really can’t say anything,” wife Diane Glinton said this afternoon.

Investigators waited until now to charge Glinton in the hopes that at least one of the 50 to 60 people at the race would come forward, but none has, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Detective Denise Hyde said today.

She again urged anyone who saw the crash to contact investigators.

According to a sheriff’s report, Bradley Kelly Jr. told deputies he and his father, a car detailer, went to the area of Garden Road and Prospect Avenue about 9 p.m. Sunday, April 12, to watch a Mustang race a pickup.

That part of Garden Road is a straightaway just north of Blue Heron Boulevard and east of Interstate 95.

According to the son, the pickup never left the starting line, but the Mustang raced south on Garden Road.

As it approached the crowd, about 10 people stepped into the street to wave off a car that had unknowingly come north on Garden Road.

The son said he saw the Mustang pass him and continue south a short distance, then strike what he thought was a fire hydrant.

He said spectators began running in that direction, and he found his father lying in the road.

By then, he said, everyone else had scattered and it took him about 15 minutes to flag down a driver for help.

Paramedics said Kelly Sr. was dead at the scene.

Kelly Jr. said two or three of those who’d stepped into the road had to leap out of the way of the Mustang, and that after it struck his father, it never stopped or turned around.

Authorities found pieces of the car, including a bumper, in the road, the report said.

Friends of the dead man later passed Glinton’s name on to authorities, who found he owned a red 2004 Ford Mustang.

The next day, Glinton denied being in a race but admitted to being the driver in the crash.

He told investigators he wasn’t going faster than 80 mph and that his windshield had shattered and he believed someone had thrown a brick at it.

He said he stopped, but heard someone mention a gun and became frightened and left.

He also said he later realized he’d struck someone, but panicked and so did not contact authorities.

Glinton took investigators to the car, where they saw front end damage and blood on the exterior, the report said.

Court records show Glinton received nine traffic tickets since 1988; none were for racing, Detective Hyde said.

On Jan. 18, 2003, plaintiff’s decedent pilot Gary Prokop, 47, an entrepreneur, and plaintiff’s decedent passenger James Kosak, 51, who works in management, took flight from an airport in Grand Rapids at 6:30 a.m. during cloudy conditions. They were headed for St. Cloud to attend their sons’ hockey tournament. At about eight minutes into the flight, Prokop’s new Cirrus SR22 plane crashed outside of Hill City. They both died instantly.

Prokop was a VFR (visual flight rules), single engine-licensed pilot who had over 200 hours of flight experience — mostly in a Cessna 172 — and was studying for his IFR (instrument flight rule) license. An IFR-rated pilot, as opposed to a solely VFR-rated pilot, can use the plane’s instrumentation to assist in flying through visually impaired weather. Prokop had scheduled to take his IFR test prior to the crash. He purchased the plane about a month before the crash and underwent 3.5 days of training (not required by the Federal Aviation Administration) through the North Dakota Aerospace Foundation in Grand Forks. By the time he piloted the plane on the day of the crash, Prokop had about six hours of solo time in an SR22. Plane manufacturer Cirrus Design Corp. created the training program for the SR22 planes and it hired the University of North Dakota Aerospace foundation to train the pilots who purchased those planes.

The two families, in separate suits, sued the University of North Dakota Aerospace Foundation and Cirrus Design Corp. for negligently training Prokop. The families claimed that a key flight lesson in the Cirrus transition training program — VFR into IMC (instrument meteorological condition) — had not been completed.

Kosak’s flight reconstruction expert said that the transition training program was unreasonable and did not meet industry standards because it was not scenario-based; did not include personal risk assessment training specific to the SR22; and lacked appropriate oversight.

The Kosak family also sued Prokop’s estate, alleging that he was to blame for taking off in marginal VFR conditions that were marked by strong wind gusts and low visibility due to darkness and a cloud ceiling of 14 feet above ground. Although the FAA permitted flying at that time, a weather briefing warned that planes may enter IFR conditions; given that Prokop was not IFR-rated and had only a few hours of flight experience in an SR22, he should not have flown at that time, the Kosak family argued.

The defendants denied the allegations. Cirrus argued that an instructor did conduct the key flight lesson in the Cirrus transition training program (VFR into IMC).

Cirrus and the aerospace foundation argued that Prokop was completely at fault for taking off into marginal VFR conditions. If Prokop did not feel comfortable with any of the instrumentation of the SR22 or did not feel he was adequately trained, then it was his responsibility not to fly the plane, since the FAA requires that a pilot in command is responsible for the safe operation of the aircraft. Further, any discomfort that Prokop had was contrary to his signing of the SR22 certification, which denoted that he knew how to fly the plane. Counsel for the aerospace foundation maintained that it provided the decedent with training of the autopilot command, which Prokop said he was able to access.

Kosak and Prokop were killed instantly. Kosak’s family sought approximately $1.5 million in economic losses and damages for loss of counsel, guidance, aid, advice, comfort, assistance, protection and companionship.

The parties stipulated to Prokop’s economic damages in the amount of $6 million, in addition to noneconomic damages.

The families testified that they were both active in the same Catholic church; Prokop was also active in economic development in Grand Rapids, and Kosak served on the United Way and YMCA boards.

The jury found that Cirrus was negligent and its negligence was a direct cause of the plane crash. The jury also found that the University of North Dakota Aerospace Foundation negligently trained Prokop and its negligence was a direct cause of the crash. The foundation was also found to be acting as agent for Cirrus at the time of Prokop’s training, and the foundation and Cirrus were acting in a joint enterprise. The jury also found that Prokop was negligent and his negligence was a direct cause of the crash. Cirrus and University of North Dakota were each found 37.5 percent negligent and Prokop was found 25 percent negligent. The jury awarded $19.4 million. The Prokop family’s portion of the award was reduced by 25 percent for his negligence, which brings the total recovery for the plaintiffs to $16.4 million.

 Estate of Gary Prokop

$6,000,000 Wrongful Death: loss of counsel, guidance, aid, advice, comfort, assistance, protection and companionship

$6,000,000 Wrongful Death: economic losses (stipulated)

Estate of James Kosak

$6,000,000 Wrongful Death: loss of counsel, guidance, aid, advice, comfort, assistance, protection and companionship

$1,400,000 Wrongful Death: economic losses

Police in St. Augustine didn’t have to look far to find a suspect in a downtown crash that took out a power pole and cut electric service to 175 homes and at least a portion of Flagler College early this morning.

He was not far away in a truck involved in a second crash, police said.

“They couldn’t even get five blocks without crashing,” said Cmdr. Barry Fox, who said the driver of the truck who hit the power pole jumped into another truck whose driver careened into an air-conditioning unit blocks away.

Jonathan Cook, 22, of Fort Pierce and Sean Gronquist, 23, of St. Augustine were both charged with driving under the influence in the wrecks that caused nearly $20,000 in damage, Fox said.

He said both had blood-alcohol levels more than twice the amount to be considered impaired.

Though it is unclear to police where Cook and Gronquist were before they got into their vehicles, they were headed in the same direction afterward, Fox said. At about 1:45 a.m. Cook was turning from King Street onto M.L. King Avenue when his 2007 Toyota truck hit a power pole hard enough that it snapped off at its base.

A witness told police the driver abandoned the vehicle and got into a truck that was following, which took off.

At 2:05 a.m. police found a 2006 Toyota truck crashed into an air conditioning unit blocks away at Weeden and Bridge streets. Cook and Gronquist were inside the truck, according to a news release from the St. Augustine Police Department.

The two were not hurt in the accident. Cook was charged with DUI and leaving the scene of an accident and is jailed in lieu of $750 bail. Gronquist was charge with DUI and careless driving and is being held in lieu of $500 bail.

Both were in the St. Johns County jail this afternoon.

Police say they are questioning a man accused of driving away after he hit a boy crossing the street to get on a school bus this morning.

The 14-year-old boy, a ninth-grader at South Broward High School, suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries after being struck at the intersection of 56th Avenue and Taft Street about 6:30 a.m., police said.

He was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital.

The driver of a Rav4 drove by a halted school bus with its stop sign out on Taft Street and struck the boy, police Lt. Scott Pardon said.

The motorist stopped for a few seconds, then continued northbound. A police officer stopped him a without incident a short time later at State Road 7 and Sheridan Street, Pardon said.

Pardon said the driver appears to have mental problems. No charges have been filed at this time.

A 16-year-old girl suffered serious injuries after she was hit by a school bus this morning in Oakland Park, authorities said.

The call came in just before 6 a.m. and the accident was at Northwest 21st Avenue and Northwest 39th Street. Fire-Rescue crews who responded found the girl unconscious and with serious injuries to her lower body. She was taken to a Fort Lauderdale hospital.

A Broward County school bus struck the student, but officials were not able to confirm whether anyone was on the bus other than the driver.

The intersection remains closed.

No other information is available at this time.