Personal Injury

Health officials report the first case of swine flu appears to have happened in Clay County, according to a report. A probable case was identified Sunday and is just one of 15 in Florida that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating.

As a result, an elementary school in Clay County, Oakleaf School K-through-eighth grade, will be closed for a few days, mostly as a precaution while the school cleans the classroom and the bus the student rode on. 1,650 students will be affected. The ill student is recovering.

Two swine flu cases are confirmed in Lee and Broward counties in South Florida, but the other probable cases are found in Orange, Indian River, Okeechobee, Miami-Dade, Alachua, Seminole and Palm Beach counties. Hillsborough County has six probable cases.

One of the confirmed cases struck a girl visiting the Orlando area from Mexico. She is the third confirmed case in the state and is recovering. The other case was an 11-year-old boy from Lee County and a 17-year-old girl from Broward County.

We are glad to report that the cases do not appear to be serious. The Pinellas county patient was not even hospitalized. Everyone with suspected cases in the state range in age from 7 to 75 and four cases are female, five male.

People can find out more by calling the state at 1-800-342-3557. We are very fortunate that this version of the flu does not seem to carry with it a death toll. So far in the U.S., one two –year-old boy, who had recently come to the U.S. from Mexico, died in a hospital in the states.

As personal injury attorneys in Florida, we would like to remind the everyone that whenever you are in public, be sure to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds with warn or hot water. That’s a very good habit to get into. Stay well everyone!!

If there was ever an excuse to drive fast, I can’t think of a better one than driving your wife to the hospital who is in labor. That’s exactly what Kyle Nordman was doing when an officer pulled him over to get his wife, Rachel to the hospital fast. According to a report, she was only 20 weeks into her pregnancy and the doctors told them to get to the emergency room as fast as they could.

A Jacksonville Sheriff’s officer didn’t share the doctors’ concern. Nordman was heading south on Kernan Boulevard, and when the officer approached Nordman who told him what was happening. “At that point he walked back to the car” Nordman says.

Kernan speed limit is 30 mph. Nordman was going 39 mph.

While we should never break the speeding laws in our state for our safety, our passengers, and other drivers on the road, there are such things as emergencies and this surely qualifies. If Nordman’s speeding had caused a car accident in Florida, then that would be another story.

Instead of escorting the couple to the hospital, Nordman says the JSO officer took his time to write the ticket, minutes they just didn’t have. Apparently, the JSO officer apparently missed a chapter in the code book regarding emergencies and pregnant women.

“I would’ve been OK if he gave me the citation at the hospital. I just wanted to get my wife to the hospital quicker,” he says. The officer didn’t even ask why they were going to the hospital.

“I pretty much felt almost like I was being held hostage. There was nothing I could do to help my wife or child” he says.

Nordman is considering filing a complaint against JSO, and who would blame him. Instead of a black eye and some bad publicity, JSO missed an opportunity for law enforcement to show the public they really are on our side. Let’s hope this situation generates some behind-the-scenes discussion of the discretion officers can show the public in extreme emergencies like this case.

If you have reason to believe that you or a family member has suffered injury due to another person’s negligence, you may have a case. Contact the experienced Jacksonville personal injury attorneys at Farah and Farah today for an evaluation or to have any of your questions answered.

If you ever carry a child in a car seat in the back seat of your car you must read this article.

Fatal Distraction, an article published in the Washington Post on March 8, tells us that all kinds of adults have forgotten their child in the car, from rocket scientists, to doctors, to postal workers. If you have forgotten your cell phone at home, you are capable of doing this too.

It’s a tough read but please take the time to do so and pass it on to everyone you know who has a child they carry in the back seat.

Already this year, two little ones have been left to die in the sweltering heat of cars by inattentive adults. In Florida, heat stroke or hyperthermia can happen in a matter of minutes. Please let’s not let any more cases of wrongful death in Florida happen to another child.

Kids and Cars, the advocacy organization says you can prevent this with a few no-cost reminders.

• If you carry a child, put something you’ll need like a handbag, a lunch, an employee badge on the floor board of the back seat. Always open the back door of your vehicle every time you reach your destination – make it a habit. It’s called the Look before you Lock campaign.
• It may sound ridiculous, but put a reminder of the child in the back seat with you. A large stuffed toy that you normally keep in the child seat, replace in the front seat when you drive. It’s a visual reminder that you have a little passenger, sometimes a silent one, in the back seat.
• Another good tip is to arrange to have your day care provider call you if the child does not arrive as scheduled. Many children’s lives could have been saved with a simple phone call.

Always get involved by looking inside cars in a parking lot. Pets can inadvertently be left there too. I challenge you to read this article and not recognize yourself in it. Truly this can happen to anyone who just had their mind elsewhere that day. Pass this important article onto everyone you know who carries children – it could save a life.

If you have any questions regarding child safety or if your child has been invovled in an auto accident, please contact Jacksonville’s top personal injury lawyers at Farah and Farah.

Parental waivers have been standard fare for quite some time and are favored heavily by Florida’s tourism industry – a big industry in Florida that ranges from swimming with the dolphins, horseback riding, or renting a boat.

However, according to a report, a recent state Supreme Court ruling determined that parents do not have the right to release a business from accountability when their children participate in sports, making the waivers basically invalid.

The Florida legislature, with the help of Big Tourism, Disney and SeaWorld, is trying to remedy that.

A controversial bill is making its way through the legislature. It ensures parents that they can sign pre-injury waivers on behalf of their children so they can participate in sports.

Most trial lawyers oppose the bill and for good reason. What if a business is negligent? Don’t you want to be able to hold them accountable if a company has an unseaworthy boat, or has a harness that breaks? Do you want to sign away all of your rights to make them accountable? What happens when accidents occur due to premises liability in Florida?

The proposal is already having an effect.

Imagine – Gatorland has had to raise the age for participating in the “Trainer for a Day” program from 12 to 18. You now have to be 18 to put yourself in harm’s way with a gator.

This highlights just how absurd it is to do away with any incentives that force a business to take the utmost care to make sure that your child is safe in their hands.

If your child has been injured due to the negligence of another person or company, it is crucial for you to seek quality legal representation from Farah & Farah. Our experienced Florida personal injury attorneys understand that personal injuries may include all kinds of physical, emotional, or financial hardships endured as a result of the fault of another group or person. Call us today for a free evaluation.

St. Johns County has launched a new campaign to stop underage drinking.

Just on the edge of spring break, “The Party’s Over” was announced by St. Johns County, south and west of Jacksonville by Sheriff David Shoar. Teens will be able to text in anonymously to report anyone who is drinking and under the age of 21. The campaign will be plastered on billboards, along with the numbers.

Underage drinking has gotten out of hand, Shoar says, and for some reason the rates are higher in St. Johns than Duval County where Jacksonville is located.

The death of two teens in Orangedale in January is blamed on an open house party where alcohol was served. A 14-year-old came within losing her life at a house party after she drank too much. Luckily some other kids saw her condition and got her to a hospital.

In a 2008 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, 43.3 percent of high school students in the area said they had used alcohol in the last 30 days. A similar survey of Duval County teens, where Jacksonville is located found 34.4 percent.

Let’s be clear – this campaign is also intended to scare parents who think that they can safely supervise teens drinking in their home. They cannot, but they can lose their home if a teen is harmed or killed. That’s quite a price to pay for being the “cool” parent. Zero Tolerance is the message loud and clear to parents. Period.

As skilled Jacksonville personal injury attorneys at Farah and Farah, we would expect to see some lawsuits result from incidents similar to the ones mentioned above. However, the goal is not to arrest underage kids for alcohol possession or sue someone for a bunch of money; instead, we must counsel underage kids about the dangers of alcohol and addiction.

“We’re not giving up on our kids. It just can’t happen. We have to do everything that we can to send the right message,” says Shoar.

Somehow when kids know we are watching, they get the message.

California is the latest state to notice wallboards that are emitting a noxious sulfur or rotten egg smell from this defective product. It’s a problem that originated in Florida, where high humidity is causing people to move out, their electronics and appliances to corrode, and people coughing and concerned about their health.

There may be 65,000 homes nationwide that were built with substandard wallboard during the building boom. A German manufacturer, Knauf, apparently used contractors in China to create the wallboard. No one has established that the smell is hazardous to your health, but it sure is consistently corroding wiring across the country.

A number of lawsuits are underway in Florida, the most recent filed in Miami claiming that a rotten egg small is corroding wiring in homes and electronics. A Florida product liability class-action has been filed on behalf of residents here. Plaintiffs want to repair the homes or replace them, and to receive relocation costs, as well as to be reimbursed their personal property and for medical monitoring.

Medical monitoring is the only way to know whether we have more than a massive inconvenience here.

The wallboard in question reportedly reacts in high humidity and isn’t that what Florida is known for?  The builders in question Lennar Corp, a major builder in Florida appears to be cooperating to the best of its ability, but it’s a terrible problem for all around. If you have any questions regarding this faulty drywall or any other defective or failing products, please contact the experienced Florida personal injury attorneys at Farah and Farah.

It happened in early February. Middle school students from Ribault in Jacksonville were misbehaving by setting off an alarm on the emergency exit. This made it unsafe to continue to drive the bus. Instead of pulling over and transferring students to another bus, or calling police, the school bus driver instructed them to get off the bus at Rutledge Pearson Elementary School and find their own way home. Thankfully, no students were injured to due any Jacksonville pedestrian accidents that could have resulted from the kids being off the bus.

This is an unacceptable reaction by an employee of First Student, the bus company. There are rules and regulations in Duval County for bus drivers. Students are supposed to conduct themselves in a respectful way to keep everyone safe. If not, they can be suspended from school and parents have the responsibility to make sure that their children understand that.

But a bus driver also has a huge responsibility, delivering those children safety to and from school. For a child to find their way home from a different school, meant many walked to a bus stop or called their parents. Many parents understandably were angry. First Student says it is conducting an investigation. Cameras on the bus will help tell the story, but even with misbehaving children, this is not the proper response, but a response of pure frustration. The liability of the school district if something had happened is not something they want to hear about.

Fortunately no children were injured due to the bus driver’s negligence. If you have any questions regarding the safety of your child in relation to bus-driving laws, please contact the skilled Florida personal injury attorneys at Farah and Farah by calling 1-800-533-3555.

You certainly have been passed by fast driving teens on the road. A teenage driver with less that one year experience can be the most reckless driver on the road. Speeding up to your tail, passing on the right side of your car, tailing you, aggressive driving and speeding are just some of the problems. I’ve often said I wish their parents could see them driving so they could provide a consequence – like taking away the car and keeping all of us safer from being in an auto accident.

Technology has heard your concerns and has responded. A GPS tracking system will tell you exactly what your child is doing behind the wheel of your car.

A number of these items are able to monitor speed, location, time, where they went, and how long they stayed. Fitting inside your car discretely, the GPS device works by receiving signals from 24 satellites orbiting the earth. Every second you get a reading and are able to access the tracking data.

GPS Teen Tracking has one for $229 and you can order online.

Now you can get one to monitor your teen’s speed and location. LandAirSea has a GPS device that allows you to monitor your teens speed and location at a cost of about $600. Learn more about it on their Web site.

Almost four thousand teens are killed every year in traffic accidents and hundreds of thousands of teens are injured, some critically and permanently. Add other teen passengers, traveling at night, and distractions such as cell phones, CDs, texting AND the youth and inexperience of the driver, one of these devices might just deliver a little piece of mind.

With auto accidents as the number one cause of teen deaths, this small investment and a slight invasion of privacy should be weighed against the cost of doing nothing. Farah and Farah is always there when you do need someone to help you through the maze of tragedy following a Florida auto accident. Call our Jacksonville offices if you need to talk to someone who is on your side.

Buying a used car is almost as much fun as going to the dentist.

Everyone has dealt with used car salesmen at some point in their life and we are not out to attack the used car industry; however, a warning about avoiding the pitfalls when it comes to purchasing a used car.

The used car industry can be very tricky. Vehicles that have been totaled, flooded, fire-damaged, sold and re-sold several times over, and even stolen have been salvaged, repaired and sold to innocent buyers across the nation. Unfortunately, there is little to no regulation or protection in place from fraudulent resale of potentially dangerous used vehicles.

In 1992, Congress tried to remedy this by passing a law calling for a nationwide database that would give people shopping for cars and trucks information about used vehicles.

The National Motor Vehicle Title Information System is a good idea. In September, a call went out to consumers concerning the Proposed Rules. And we all have until November 21, 2008 to submit written comments. Please do so. This is a case where your government has let you down.

Unfortunately, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Justice have failed to implement the database, putting consumers in danger of compromised unsafe vehicles and safety features such as airbags that don’t work.

The database would allow consumers to instantly check the validity of a vehicle’s title, mileage, and history of theft or damage. The data would have to be reported by insurance companies and junk and salvage yards. Failing to do so, Public Citizen the consumer group, has gone to court to find the federal government in violation of the 1992 law.

It would help consumers who have purchased cars that were under water during Hurricane Katrina, or split in two after hitting a tree, or burned up in a fire, then passed on by unscrupulous people. Read the rest »

You know the Vytorin commercials – comparing eating fettucini alfredo with your Uncle Alfredo – both are sources of high cholesterol, the ads said. Food and family are both to blame.

Now the lawsuits against the drug are piling up higher and Merck & Co and partner, Schering-Plough Corp have to answer questions to the Justice Department about whether the promotion of Vytorin made false claims. Read the rest »