News & Events

Most Florida employers are required to compensate employees who are accidentally injured while performing their job responsibilities. Employers can either maintain insurance to cover the exposure or provide other acceptable proof of financial responsibility.

The cost of non-health insurance fraud each year is significant. This fraud results in increased premiums for customers and decreased profits for insurance companies. One of the best ways to identify insurance fraud is through surveillance, which can be used to verify or refute injury and loss claims. Investigations of social media platforms can provide valuable information about the legitimacy of a claimant’s assertions.

Cris Casal, partner, and Glenn Gunsten, associate, from the Fort Myers office obtained a defense verdict on behalf of a grading subcontractor in a defense and indemnity jury trial on a construction defect claim in Collier County, Florida. The general contractor filed a third-party claim in which it sued all of the subcontractors whose scope of work was purportedly implicated in the underlying suit with the homeowner. The lawsuit was the culmination of six years of litigation in which all of the named subcontractors settled their claims against the general contractor prior to trial, except for the grading subcontractor. The jury deliberated for slightly more than an hour before returning with a defense verdict in favor of the grading subcontractor. The grading subcontractor will now seek to collect attorney’s fees and costs stemming from a rejected Proposal for Settlement that was served more than four years ago.  

The legal process is not always complete once the trial is over. If a judge made an error during your trial, the losing party, and in some cases, the prevailing party,  has the right to file an appeal.

Aaron B. Zeilberger, an associate in the firm’s Orlando office, recently prevailed on a Motion for Final Summary Judgment in a Premises Liability/Slip and Fall Case on behalf of a hotel. The Defense argued that there was insufficient evidence to prove the existence of a dangerous condition caused by a transitory foreign substance on the floor, and that the plaintiff could not provide enough evidence to demonstrate negligence on the part of the Defendant. The Court agreed and granted Summary Judgment in the Defendant’s favor. The court reserved jurisdiction to consider attorney's fees and costs.