Florida Injury Attorneys Blog

The investigation into the boat crash that killed 17-year-old Paige Davison in St. Petersburg has resulted in misdemeanor criminal charges being filed against the teenage driver of the boat. David L. West was investigated for DUI as he was drinking on the night of the accident but no charges were filed related to his consumption of alcohol. He has been charged with careless operation of a vessel resulting in a boating accident.

West was not the only one charged. A St. Pete convenience store manager has been charged for selling alcohol to the minors and an unidentified youth has been charged for supplying rum to the teenagers. While the criminal case moves forward, there are still three civil cases related to the crash pending as lawsuits have been filed.

A St. Petersburg boy riding his bike near Walt Disney World’s Fort Wilderness died after a Disney bus hit the nine-year-old. The boy, whose family was on vacation at Disney World, was riding his bike with a friend when he veered off the sidewalk and onto the road. At that point he was hit by the bus and run over by the rear wheels.

Eyewitnesses say the saw the boy riding beside the bus and then heard two thumps. Disney said the bus driver who was driving had over 30 years experience in the Disney transportation system. Disney employs 1,200 bus drivers who have a commercial drivers license and they also undergo drug testing. A traffic homicide investigation is ongoing. This is the third bus-related accident at Disney in the last six months.

The mother of a Bradenton teenager is suing the Manatee County School Board for injuries her daughter suffered when she was tripped by another student on purpose in what the mother claims was an incident of bullying. Rica Ben-Shushan is claiming negligence, vicarious liability and battery in the lawsuit filed by her Florida Personal Injury attorney.

The lawsuit stems from an incident at Sugg Middle School. Ben-Shushan’s daughter was tripped during gym class in 2008 causing her to fall on her face on a school tennis court. She injured her nose, suffered facial injuries and chipped her teeth. The lawyer filing the suit claimed the family only wanted the school’s insurance company to cover the injuries but they denied liability.

The Florida Highway Patrol has issued a traffic citation for careless driving to Disney World bus driver Jean Valentin. The Florida traffic ticket is the result of a crash that injured eight people when Valentin rear-ended an empty tourist bus that was stopped in the right-hand lane on Epcot Center Drive.

Valentin had to be cut from the wreckage by firefighters. He was taken to an Orlando hospital with serious injuries. Seven tourists were also taken to local Orlando hospitals following the crash. Troopers did not issue a traffic citation to the driver of the parked bus even though they determined it was improperly stopped.

Five Jacksonville Sheriff’s Officers combined to fire 42 rounds into a car in which a suspected armed bank robber forced himself into in an attempt to escape. Deputies shot and killed the suspect who never fired his weapon at police but they also hit a 2-year-old twice according to the Associated Press.

The toddler is in critical condition after being shot in the arm and the upper torso. There was also a 7-year-old girl in the car who thankfully was not shot as well. The young child who was shot was identified as Daniel Crichton. The child’s mother was also shot once in the foot.

After the State Supreme Court threw out a $145 billion class-action award for all Florida smokers, 8,000 or so individual lawsuits were filed. In the past few weeks two juries have awarded nearly $45 million in two of these Florida personal injury lawsuits.

The first verdict came March 12 when a Gainesville jury ruled against R.J. Reynolds to the tune of $12.5 million in punitive damages and another $5 million in compensatory damages to the widow of a smoker who died in 1995. Less than two weeks later a jury in Fort Lauderdale awarded a total of $26.6 million to Robin Cohen the widow of a long time smoker who died of lung cancer. This verdict came against Robert Morris and R.J. Reynolds.

Yesterday it was the baby sling that was recalled because of three infant deaths. Today comes news that Evenflo Top-of-Stair Plus baby gates are being recalled. Over 180,000 gates have been recalled in North America because of a possible danger to small children and infants.

According to an Associated Press story there have been three reports of children who got past the gates and onto staircases. There have also been more than 140 reports of detached and broken slats. The gates are manufactured in Mexico and sold nationwide by stores like Toys R Us, Kmart and Burlington Baby Depot.

A recall is in effect for one million baby slings after they were linked to three infant deaths. The product safety recall involves baby slings made by the company Infantino. The product models that were recalled were “SlingRIder” and “Wendy Bellissimo”. Parents have been urged to immediately stop using the slings for babies under four months due to the risk of suffocation.

Consumer Reports raised concerns about the slings back in 2008 due to the position babies can fall into while inside the sling. The baby sling recall affects slings sold by Infantino from 2003 to 2010 at many big-name retailers including Target, Babies R Us and Burlington Coat Factory.

SkyDive City is an internationally known destination for sky divers. It is located by the Zephyrhills Municipal Airport and last week it was the scene of a deadly accident. According to TBO.com it was the second skydiving fatality this year at SkyDive City and as many as the 12th death in the center’s 20 years.

The skydiving accident happened Friday around 1:00 p.m. Paul C. Luter was 68-years-old and according to reports an experienced skydiver. He was participating in a jump with about a dozen people when he began to drift away from the group. Pasco County Fire Rescue happened to be on the scene at the time of the fatality. Eyewitness reports say the man was circling uncontrollably before hitting the ground.

An incident at a Sports Authority on Fowler Avenue in 2006 has led to a Tampa personal injury lawsuit against the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office. According to the lawsuit and a story on TampaBay.com, 16-year-old Dorian Niebch had his left arm broken in a scuffle with Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputies after there was a report the teenager approached a young girl in the store.

Niebch has autism, a fact the deputies didn’t know when they responded to the call. The teenager was approached by deputies in the store and then took off running. That is when he was taken down by the deputies. Neibch’s mother ran over after hearing the commotion and yelled to the officer’s that her son was autistic but by the time the situation had calmed the damage to the teen’s arm had already been done. The teen was never charged in the incident but his mother did face battery charges for assaulting the deputies with her purse.

A Tallahassee bus driver who was involved in a fatal bus crash that killed a 17-year-old received a Leon County speeding ticket a few weeks prior to the accident. His failure to report that Florida traffic ticket was enough to start a suspension for Timothy Kelly who is still in Tallahassee Memorial Hospital after being critically injured in the bus crash.

According to the Tallahassee Democrat Kelly was cited for driving 18 M.P.H. over the posted speed limit of 55 by the Florida Highway Patrol on March 1. He never reported the ticket as he is required. The Leon County school officials will be holding a meeting with parents of the children on the bus to discuss what injuries are covered by insurance.

There are some questions surfacing over the bus driver’s health that may open the door for personal injury lawsuits. At one point the driver told the county that he was an insulin-dependent diabetic. That would have disqualified the man from driving a school bus but he later had a doctor write a note saying that he did not require insulin. Another issue could revolve around the video surveillance system which was so out-dated that the VHS tape was completely blank leaving investigators with no video evidence of what proceeded the accident.

Florida-based Publix supermarkets issued a product recall on four seasoning mix packets for fear that they may contain salmonella. Publix cited its commitment to food safety as a reason for the food recall. Publix believes the vegetable protein contained in the packets may have been contaminated with salmonella.

According to a story in the Orlando Business Journal, the possibly contaminated protein was supplied by a Las Vegas company, Basic Food Flavors. Salmonella can be a deadly bacteria and has caused fatal infections in people with weak immune systems especially children and the elderly.