South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

Police said a shooting in west Miami-Dade County Tuesday evening might have stemmed from road rage.

The shooting occurred near the Mall of the Americas at 79th Avenue and Flagler Street.

Chopper 6 got footage from above shooting at about 5 p.m.

The victim, a man, was heading westbound on Flagler Street with his baby in the back seat of his Nissan when someone opened fire from another vehicle.

Police said the baby was just a few inches from the bullet’s trajectory.

The man crashed into a hedge near the entrance of a McDonald’s.

A Farm Store clerk said she ran for the store’s freezer when she heard the shooting. She said she looked through the window and saw a man holding his shoulder.

“He crouched down behind his car,” Vilma Aragon said through a translator. “He was hurt, bleeding. He called someone on his cell phone. I think he was calling police.”

Witness Kenny Alvarez said he heard the crash.

“I just saw the car, and I saw someone inside hurt,” Alvarez said.

He said he couldn’t believe there was a baby in the car during the shooting.

“It’s a horrible thing, but what’re you going to do?” Alvarez said.

The victim was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he was in stable condition. Police called the mother of the baby, who arrived at the scene shortly after.

Detectives shut down a portion of Flagler Street and were speaking with eyewitnesses. Police said they’re not sure if the shooting was a result of road rage or if the driver was targeted.

Police did not release a description of the shooter. Anyone with information should call Miami-Dade County Crimestoppers at 305-471-TIPS.

On June 21, 2002, plaintiff decedents Lori Schrempp, 41, a nurse Phil Herring, 43, a pilot, and Patrick Scollard, 40, a paramedic were on helicopter manufactured by Eurocopter of France. The helicopter had just left a Norfolk, Neb., hospital when it crashed.

The estates of Schrempp, Herring and Scollard sued Eurocopter S.A.S and five other defendants, claiming the maintenance and design of the helicopter caused the crash.

Plaintiffs’ counsel argued that the helicopter crashed because a rubber bladder inside a key component developed a hole, allowing hydraulic fluid to leak. The escaping gas was felt by the pilot at the controls. When following the procedures for dealing with such a problem, Herring deactivated all hydraulics for the aircraft and the tail rotor became uncontrollable.

Defense counsel noted that since the settlement Eurocopter has revamped its maintenance manual. This included more frequent inspections of the tail rotor system. Defense counsel also stated that the defendants expressed plans to redesign the tail rotator system.

A National Transportation Safety Board ruling stated that a faulty tail rotor, winds and pilot inexperience were the causes of the crash.

Plaintiffs’ counsel presented expert opinion from a U.S. Air Force physician. The three deceased, knew for between 30 and 45 seconds that they will die in the crash. Nebraska law allows for conscious apprehension of death to be included in damages claims.

Plaintiffs’ counsel sought damages for loss of earnings, companionship and enjoyment of life.

The parties reached an $18.4 million settlement. The bulk of the settlement will be paid by Eurocopter. Five other companies also paid into the settlement. According to plaintiffs’ counsel, this settlement is the largest personal injury settlement in the history of Nebraska.

Authorities say it appears no one was injured when a small section of a four-story parking deck in Charlotte, N.C., collapsed.

Fire Capt. Rob Brisley says firefighters are still searching the rubble under a collapsed section that was about the size of a basketball court. It collapsed Tuesday morning about 8:30 a.m.

Brisley says few, if any, cars were damaged.

It’s the second time in six months a parking deck in Charlotte collapsed. A woman was killed in December when her car crashed into a support wall at a parking deck nearby.

In that case, a small part of the three-tier deck collapsed and the driver fell through the opening.

A New York City man is suing JetBlue Airways Corp. for more than $2 million because he says a pilot made him give up his seat to a flight attendant and sit on the toilet for more than three hours on a flight from California.

Gokhan Mutlu, of Manhattan’s Inwood section, says in court papers the pilot told him to “go ‘hang out’ in the bathroom” about 90 minutes into the San Diego to New York flight because the flight attendant complained that the “jump seat” she was assigned was uncomfortable, the lawsuit said.

Mutlu was traveling on a a “buddy pass,” a standby travel voucher that JetBlue employees give to friends, from New York to San Diego on Feb. 16, and returned to New York on Feb. 23, the lawsuit said.

Initially, Mutlu was told a flight attendant had taken the last seat on the plane, but then he was advised she would sit in the employee “jump seat,” meaning he could have the last seat, the lawsuit said.

The pilot told him 1 1/2 hours into the five-hour flight that he would have to relinquish the seat to the flight attendant, court papers say. But the pilot said that Mutlu could not sit in the jump seat because only JetBlue employees were permitted to sit there, the lawsuit said.

When Mutlu expressed reluctance to go sit in the bathroom, the pilot, who was not named in the lawsuit, told him that “he was the pilot, that this was his plane, under his command that (Mutlu) should be grateful for being on board,” the lawsuit said.

When the aircraft hit turbulence and passengers were directed to return to their seats, but “the plaintiff had no seat to return to, sitting on a toilet stool with no seat belts,” court papers say.

Some time later, a male flight attendant knocked on the restroom door and told Mutlu he could return to his original seat, court papers say.

Mutlu’s lawsuit, filed Friday in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court, says JetBlue negligently endangered him by not providing him with a seat with a safety belt or harness, in violation of federal law.

A JetBlue spokesman declined comment on the lawsuit Monday.

Charles Buckman, a chief mechanic for Dale Coyne Racing, remained in Methodist Hospital for a third day after a pit-lane accident involving Danica Patrick left him with a fractured skull and brain hemorrhaging.

Buckman, who was set to be released Sunday but remained in the hospital for further observation, was hit by the front wing of Patrick’s Dallara-Honda as it entered the pits during practice Friday.

Patrick hasn’t talked about the incident with the exception of a brief statement in which she said her thoughts were with Buckman. But Andretti Green Racing teammate Tony Kanaan said Patrick cried while she was consoled.

“I said, ‘Let it go. — It wasn’t your fault,’ ” Kanaan said.

Brian Barnhart, the IRL’s president of competition, also absolved Patrick of blame (”There isn’t anything differently that Danica could have done”) while discussing the incident Sunday:

Would you consider limiting access?

“I don’t know if limiting access would make any difference because it involved crewmembers. It’s not like it was the result of how many fans and/or sponsors have pit road access; it’s guys who are supposed to be aware of their environment and participating in the event. –

“What it does point out is it’s a 60 mph speed limit on pit lane, and it’s like playing in the Interstate. You’ve really got to be focused.”

What about mandating helmets?

“We do on race day. It is a different environment on practice days vs. race days. — I don’t know that anything comes out of it that we need to change — as far as policies.”

Of course, there was a pit lane incident in the Kansas race, too.

“It’s highly dangerous, and that’s why it’s a restricted area and why people out there are supposed to be professional and know what the risks are. — There’s a lot of exposed personnel on pit road. I tell them every driver’s meeting, they’ve got to take care of each other, and everybody’s got to pay attention.”

On Sept. 20, 2006, plaintiff Talmadge Waldrip, 73, was helping his daughter, plaintiff Ann Boyd, move after her divorce. Boyd had rented a 26-foot U-Haul “Jumbo Hauler” truck from Jot-’Em Down, a store in Mesquite.

Boyd did not know how to drive a standard transmission, but her father did. He took some of Boyd’s belongings to a warehouse he owned in Forney. There, he stepped out of the truck cab on an uphill road and fell, and the truck rolled backward over him.

Waldrip, his wife, and their two adult daughters sued U-Haul International Inc., operating as U-Haul and U-Haul Co. of Arizona; U-Haul Co. of Texas; and East Fork Enterprises Inc., operating as Jot-’Em Down, for failing to maintain the truck. They further alleged that East Fork was an agent of the U-Haul defendants and U-Haul Co. of Texas was an agent of U-Haul International. Against the U-Haul defendants, the plaintiffs also alleged gross negligence.

According to Waldrip, he turned off the engine, put the stickshift into first gear, and set the parking brake. He then stepped out of the truck. He said that it started to roll backward, knocked him down, and rolled over him.

The plaintiffs claimed that the parking brake shoe had worn away completely and putting the gear stick in first had the same effect as putting it in neutral.

According to the plaintiffs, the U-Haul defendants ignored safety issues and had conflicting and poorly managed inspection policies and inadequate fleet replacement and repair practices.

The truck was 18 years old and had about 234,000 miles. Plaintiffs’ counsel argued that the U-Haul defendants were aware of the truck’s parking-brake problem; that the truck’s state inspection sticker was expired; and that, although the truck had a July 2006 U-Haul safety-check sticker, this check was performed inadequately, if at all. According to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, the person who purportedly performed it lacked basic knowledge.

The truck had about 14 renters since that inspection date. According to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, the parking brake failed for half of them.

The plaintiffs also argued that U-Haul trucks in Canada had safety problems that were exposed in 2005 and 2006, and that U-Haul shipped unsafe trucks, including this one, from there to the U.S. and kept renting them.

The defense denied that its trucks in the U.S. or Canada were unsafe or that it shipped unsafe trucks from Canada to the U.S. The U-Haul defendants’ CEO testified that their trucks’ safety is a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10.

According to defense counsel, only two renters since the July 2006 safety check testified that the parking brake failed for them, and none of the renters since the safety check reported any truck problem to U-Haul or the dealer.

The defense argued that some renter had likely left the parking brake on and worn down the brake shoe, but that it would be difficult to detect when it occurred without checking after every single rental, and that there was no evidence that U-Haul was–or reasonably should have been–aware of a parking brake problem before the accident.

Pretrial, the defense filed motions asserting spoliation of evidence and improper influence of nonparty witnesses, but these motions were denied.

Waldrip fell with his legs to either side of the front left tire, which then rolled over his groin, crushing his pelvis and part of his lumbar spine, rupturing his bladder, and degloving his right leg. He was allegedly dragged about 40 feet. He underwent emergency surgery to prevent bleeding to death and underwent debridement and skin grafts to his leg. He developed gangrene and decubitus ulcers, which also required surgery. He underwent a colostomy and has a permanent colostomy tube and feeding tube. He also underwent removal of 75 percent of the L4-5 disc. He underwent 14 operations total.

He cannot walk and undergoes rehabilitation therapy for his legs three times a week. Every six months, he sees his family doctor and undergoes urology treatments. He requires round-the-clock care; he must be turned approximately every hour, so that decubitus ulcers do not recur. He has no bowel control or bladder control.

Before the accident, according to his family doctor of 12 years, Waldrip’s health for his age was in the top 1 percent of the general population. He has several grandchildren he would take fishing. He had retired from the antique business, but testified that he had planned to go back into it and open his own store.

Waldrip claimed past medical bills of $1,321,065.85; future medical bills; and past and future loss of earning capacity, pain and suffering, physical impairment, and disfigurement. His wife and daughters–Bernice Waldrip, Boyd and Dinah Simington–claimed past and future loss of spousal and parental consortium. From the U-Haul defendants, Waldrip also sought punitive damages.

During voir dire, the plaintiffs’ attorneys talked about $100 million in total damages, and during closing argument, they asked for $60 million.

The defense reported that there was no paralysis, and that Waldrip’s inability to walk stemmed from pelvic injuries and leg atrophy.

The jury found that only the defendants’ negligence proximately caused the occurrence and assigned liability as follows: U-Haul International, 50 percent; U-Haul Co. of Texas, 49 percent; and East Fork Enterprises, 1 percent.

The jury also found that East Fork’s negligence was in furtherance of a mission for and subject to control by U-Haul Co. of Texas; that U-Haul Co. of Texas’s negligence was in furtherance of a mission for and subject to control by U-Haul International; and that U-Haul International authorized or ratified U-Haul Co. of Texas’s delegation of its mission to East Fork.

The jury also found that the U-Haul defendants were grossly negligent.

The plaintiffs’ actual damages were $18,505,000 for Waldrip, $2.6 million for his wife, and $160,000 for each daughter, the jury found. The jury also assessed punitives of $21 million against U-Haul Co. of Texas and $42 million against U-Haul International in favor of Waldrip, bringing the total award to $84,425,000.

The deliberations took place on two days.

Ann Boyd

$100,000 Personal Injury: Past Loss Of Consortium

$60,000 Personal Injury: Future Loss Of Consortium

Dinah Simington

$100,000 Personal Injury: Past Loss Of Consortium

$60,000 Personal Injury: Future Loss Of Consortium

Bernice Waldrip

$1,000,000 Personal Injury: Past Loss Of Consortium

$1,600,000 Personal Injury: Future Loss Of Consortium

Talmadge Waldrip

$1,400,000 Personal Injury: Past Medical Cost

$3,000,000 Personal Injury: Future Medical Cost

$2,500,000 Personal Injury: Past Physical Impairment

$5,000,000 Personal Injury: Future Physical Impairment

$170,000 Personal Injury: Past Lost Earnings Capability

$935,000 Personal Injury: FutureLostEarningsCapability

$1,000,000 Personal Injury: Past Pain And Suffering

$1,500,000 Personal Injury: Future Pain And Suffering

$2,500,000 Personal Injury: Past Disfigurement

$500,000 Personal Injury: Future Disfigurement

$21,000,000 Personal Injury: punitive damages against U-Haul Co. of Texas

$42,000,000 Personal Injury: punitive damages against U-Haul International

Brush fires forced residents to flee more than 500 homes in central Florida on Sunday and closed a major interstate, authorities said.

A fire in Volusia County has burned between 500 and 600 acres and caused road closures and home evacuations, state Division of Forestry spokesman Timber Weller said.

About 400 homes in the neighborhood near Daytona Beach were under a mandatory evacuation order and 200 more homes were under a voluntary order.

Weller said windy, dry conditions were challenging the fire crews.

“Control is extremely difficult, and there’s basically several small subdivisions in the area and fires burning, in some cases, very close to the homes,” Weller said.

A fire near Cocoa had burned more than 100 acres and forced evacuations of about 100 to 200 homes, Brevard County Fire and Rescue spokesman Orlando Dominguez said.

Heavy smoke from another fire in the Brevard community of Malabar forced authorities to close part of Interstate 95, the major East Coast corridor.

The Environmental Protection Agency was preparing to conduct air and soil tests to check for high lead levels Monday after a deadly tornado blew through Picher, a town so polluted with lead-filled mining waste that it’s a Superfund site.

Miles Tolbert, the Oklahoma secretary of the environment, said he did not think there was an immediate public health hazard to the town’s 800 residents, but said more testing is needed.

Long-term exposure to lead dust poses a health risk, particularly to young children.

On Saturday, a tornado with the second-strongest rating killed six people, destroyed a 20-block area and blew dust off mountains of mining waste, or chat piles.

“You can look at the chat piles and see that a lot of the material has blown off,” said John Sparkman, head of the Picher housing authority. “We went up on a chat pile an hour and a half after the tornado hit, and you could see dust blowing fine material all over the place from that vantage point.”

In all, 22 people were killed in the tornado outbreak in Oklahoma, Missouri and Georgia.

Meanwhile, law enforcement officers and the Oklahoma National Guard patrolled the Picher overnight into Monday to prevent looting, said Michelann Ooten, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

National Weather Service assessment teams determined the twister that hit Picher had an EF-4 rating, the second highest rating, and was 1 mile wide at its widest point, meteorologist Mike Teague said Monday.

The tornado’s winds were estimated at 165 to 175 mph, and the damage track stretched 74 miles - 29 in Oklahoma and another 45 in Missouri, where 15 people were killed.

“These storms are fairly rare to be that strong. The devastation was nearly complete in a few areas,” Teague said. “Albeit isolated, there were some sections of neighborhoods where houses were just completely taken off the foundation. Gone.”

The tornado could be the ultimate incentive for those 800 or so residents who have been reluctant to leave, now that most of their homes have been ruined, Sparkman said.

One of those residents, Sue Sigle, had been hoping the government would offer more money for her home before she moves away from this pollution-scarred town. Then the tornado came.

As she began the task of salvage Sunday, Sigle kept a smile on her face, noting that she was fortunate to be visiting family in Missouri when the massive twister hit.

“I’m OK with everything,” Sigle said. “The Lord is going to take care of anything. … I was going to move anyway. I guess I’ll just have to move sooner.”

That sense of inevitability appeared to grip residents as they picked through the remnants of their homes. The lead and zinc mines that made Picher a booming town of about 20,000 in the mid-20th century closed decades ago; leftover waste has turned the area into an environmental disaster.

Gov. Brad Henry, who toured the area by air and on foot Sunday, said the buyout program won’t stop just because homes were leveled. He went so far as to say he would “guarantee” that those awaiting buyouts who lost their homes would be treated fairly.

“We will make sure the people get the assistance that they need,” Henry said.

Because of Picher’s Superfund status, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is unlikely to grant assistance to homeowners to rebuild in the town, said Oklahoma Emergency Management Director Albert Ashwood. But he echoed Henry’s assurances about the federal buyout program, which is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency.

One of the homes those crews likely will examine will be that of Jeff Reeves, 43, who has followed his grandfather and father as Picher’s fire chief. He has lived in Picher all his life and has watched it slowly decline.

“With everything else that’s going on here, I’m not sure there is a recovery,” he said.

A mother and son were found unconscious after a fire broke out in their apartment on Monday.

The Coral Springs Fire Department was investigating a fire that broke out in an apartment complex located in the 5700 block of Riverside Drive in Coral Springs.

The fire started just before 8 p.m. in one unit and damaged a second unit.

Sherryl Thomas, a neighboring resident at the Grand Oasis apartment complex, said she heard the fire alarm go off and her window break, so she ran out of her home.

“There was smoke billowing from her apartment and we just grabbed our stuff, and we just ran,” Thomas said.

Firefighters broke down the door and found a mother and her infant son unconscious inside the apartment. Both were taken to a local hospital.

Mike Moser of the Coral Springs Fire Department said the mother, possibly in her 30s, was in critical condition. He said the woman’s son, less than a year old, was in serious condition.

The cause of the fire was under investigation by the state fire marshal.

Red Cross was at the scene assisting two families that were displaced.

Officials in Tennessee have halted admissions at two nursing homes after finding various violations involving administration and patient security, among other things, a state press release said.

Hillcrest West in Knoxville

One of the facilities cited by the state is Hillcrest West in Knoxville. The facility was fined $1,500 for “violations of resident protection, administration, records and reporting, and nursing services standards.”

Hillcrest, which houses 131 residents, faces an additional penalty of $4,750 a day until the facility is brought up to code.

Claiborne County Nursing Home

The second facility, Claiborne County Nursing Home in Tazewell, was fined $1,500 for violations of administration and resident protection and faces a $3,550 per day penalty. The violations were discovered during a complaint investigation.

Claiborne is a 100-bed facility. Suspensions at both facilities were effective May 8 th.