Fort Lauderdale wrongful death lawyer

Caps on non-economic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits – set at $250,000 per incident under Gov. Jeb Bush – are unconstitutional. The Florida Supreme Court decided this soundly – first in the 2015 case of Estate of McCall v. U.S. (medical malpractice wrongful death cases) and again in 2017 with its ruling in North Broward Hospital District v. Kalitan (medical malpractice personal injury cases).

But hospitals in Florida have found a loophole to this in the form of arbitration agreements. This was recently underscored in a case decided by Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal. In Plantation General Hospital v. Belzi, the appellate panel reversed a $4 million damage award and remanded to the lower court for a recalculation of damages – specifically to be in accordance with the provisions of F.S. 766.207, which still allows the $250,000 non-economic damage cap in cases handled by “voluntary arbitration.”

The Belzi case involved the death of a 24-year-old wife and mother who lost so much oxygen during childbirth, she was left in a vegetative state and died three months later. Her family filed a wrongful death medical malpractice lawsuit against the doctor and the hospital alleging their medical negligence resulted in the young woman’s death. Her child, delivered via emergency c-section, survived. Continue reading →

In any injury lawsuit against the government, there are a number of legal protections afforded those entities that can make these cases challenging.

One of the strongest legal defenses for emergency responders is the public duty doctrine. It’s a principle of personal injury law that holds government owes its duty of care to the public at-large, not individuals. So individuals could only prevail in these injury cases if they could show some special relationship existed, and not simply that the agency had breached a duty to the general public (i.e., “a duty to all is a duty to no one”).

Florida has not recognized the public duty doctrine since 2001, following the passage of F.S. 768.28, which spells out the waiver of sovereign immunity in tort actions. Now, Illinois joins the growing number of states to abolish the public duty doctrine, after a divided decision in Coleman v. E. Joliet Fire Prot. Dist. Continue reading →

Articles Tagged with Fort Lauderdale wrongful death lawyer

Otherwise “Unconstitutional” Caps in Med-Mal Lawsuit Damages Alive & Well – Thanks to Arbitration

Coleman v. E. Joliet Fire Prot. Dist. – Illinois Abolishes Public Duty Doctrine