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Articles Posted in Trip and Fall

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In an exciting win for Florida personal injury plaintiffs and their physicians, the state’s Supreme Court issued a recent landmark decision in the case of Worley v. Central Florida Young Men’s Christian Ass’n, Inc. The main issues in Worley were the permissibility of discovery as to who referred a plaintiff to her treating physicians and the financial relationship between those treating physicians and the plaintiff’s attorney. These hotly contested issues permeate many personal injury cases. In a very cogent opinion, the Supreme Court resolved these long-standing conflicts in favor of Florida personal injury plaintiffs by fully restoring the attorney-client privilege and making treating physician financial discovery off-limits.

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shutterstock_119719069If you have been injured in a fall accident due to a dangerous condition, taking photographs of the accident scene is a very useful step in your pursuit of justice. Due to the chaotic nature of slip and falls, the details surrounding the accident may not be immediately apparent to an injured party. Sometimes the incident happens so quickly and it is so unexpected that the person may not be certain as to what caused them to fall. A recent decision from a Florida appeals court reinforces that even if an injured party cannot testify with certainty as to what caused them to fall, pictures of the accident scene that show a dangerous condition will get the case to a jury that can produce a prevailing outcome.

In Christakis v. Tivoli Terrace, LLC, Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal addressed the issue of directing a verdict in a premises liability personal injury case wherein the injured Plaintiff was not certain as to what exactly caused her fall but had strong photographic evidence. In Christakis, the Plaintiff alleged that she fell and injured herself to a dangerous condition – the Defendant’s steps. The photographic evidence in this case showed that the Defendant’s steps were damaged and in disrepair; the Plaintiff also called an expert to testify that the steps were dangerous. Despite a jury verdict in favor of the Plaintiff, the trial court entered a judgment notwithstanding the verdict in favor of the Defendant due to the fact that the Plaintiff did not testify with certainty that the damaged step caused her to fall.

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