Florida Insurance Legal Questions

Any civil trial or insurance litigaiton lawyer can. No one will handle such cases on a contingent fee typically because of the value of the damages and they took away the obligation for the insurance company to pay for the legal fees if they lose. If you're prepared to pay "out of pocket" to hire a lawyer you will have a better chance to retain one. ... Read More

Unfortunately, that simply isn't how retaining a lawyer works. Even if it were permissible for a lawyer to take 80% of the damages, that presumes that a mount would equal the value of the legal services, which is questionable given the cost of most garage door projects. To be candid, in many instances, its actually less expensive for the consumer to hire a lawyer on paid retainer or fee than it is to have the lawyer take the common 40% + costs for litigation, if the cost of the project was substantial, $20,000.00+. Bear in mind that lawyers do not litigate from a position of anger or frusration with the contractor, so they typically have little interesting in prosecuting  claims with an emotional motivator or where the client's motivation is to "go after" someone.. Your best bet is to retain a local construction or consumer lawyer and have them review the situation and your contract for options. ... Read More

Possibly. Its either and insurance claim or a small claims lawsuit against the property owner. With the rebar claimed to be 2 inches over the stop - you might find some difficulty if the property owner claims YOU were negligent by pulling your car over the stop - so insurance claim is likely your best bet. ... Read More

No idea what you mean by simply saying you deserve "the max" and therefore its impossible to properly address your question. That said, you should have a personal injury lawyer handle such a case for a variety of reasons starting with answering your questions and extending to helping identify any issues like liens you might have on your settlement for health insurance, medicare, medicaid, public assistance payments, etc or trying to find the other driver.  This sounds like your insurance carrier is tendering its limits and then intends to drop you as an insured. ... Read More

This is one the primary reasons to retain lawyers in business litigation cases. Too many people think that they can handle the legal decision making only to find that what seems like the right decision at the time is later revealed to be the opposite. In many commerical litigation cases such as described here, the litigant failed to realize that all a judgment effectively is - is a court blessed IOU - with the added benefit of being able to TRY to collect the funds using legal process such as garnishment, levy and liens. I emphasize the word TRY as for most small businesses, if the judgment is significant, they will typically simply fold the business or file bankruptcy, or make exhaustive efforts to hide assets, leaving the judgment creditor is a less than optimal position. In some cases is as simple as the judgement debtor abandoning the existing business and then simply starting a different one that is not affected by the judgment. If you truly expect to enforce a judgment you REALLY need to consider retaining a collection law firm to handle that for you as they can help you maximize the ability to actually collect the debt. To your question, you would have to go through the contempt process with the court to have the court compel a response to the "Fact Information Sheet." This is a very technical process that can be very frustrating as many judges have no interest in becoming a collection agency for commerical judgment creditors that refuse to hire thier own lawyers. ... Read More

Possible? Sure, if they claim that you were negligent and somehow caused the company a loss of revenue due to the employees injury. That seems far fetched from the facts you are describing. I would report this to your homeowners insurer and see if they will cover it or at least provide a defense lawyer to to respond. Otherwise, you will likely need to spend some money on a civil trial lawyer to address this issue directly. There seems to be something missing here that a contractor is just randomly demanding $15,000.00 + medical bills for an "employee" that doesn't seem to have done much damage wise.... Read More

Legally? Sure, you can try. Practically? Not unless you can prove they owed you a legal duty to protect your car. The big mistake here is not insuring the car. You will need to spend money out of pocket, most likely, to retain a lawyer to review this and see what if anything can be done. ... Read More

They are most likely after the homeowner insurance policy. However, if all of you are insured under the same policy thete is no cross liability and insurance won't cover the claim. However, if the injury was caused by your son to a third party non resident , then the insurance will cover the claim. Call counsel here in Florida for more specific advice. ... Read More

YOu will simply need to spend the money out of pocket  on a defense lawyer to address the injury lawsuit regardless of whether you find it valid or legitimate. Obviously some doctors and lawyers involved disagree and that means a jury or judge might also to whatever financial risk exists.... Read More

Unfortunately, this question involves issues relating to the specific terms of the contract for representation that you have with your attorney's office.  In very general terms, it is very typical for attorneys representing clients with insurance claims to have provisions that provide that the check for the settlment proceeds to be sent to the attorneys trust account so that appropriate reconciliation of costs, fees, and allocation of distritrubutions can be made.  Typically this process  requires the funds to have cleared trust before any distribution can be made and for bookkeeper or other staff to update the disbursements for costs, billing records (if not pure continegency), and for a reconciliation to be prepared.  These "back of house" administrative tasks may require input from several different firm staff members and no attorney here on AVVO can do anything more than guess at what is going on, but it could certainly be some benign admistrative hiccup or holdup.  At this juncture, it would be appropriate for you to follow up directly with attorneys office as to the status of the matter.  ... Read More

If the van was titled in your name and you knew your son had it and did nothing to get it back, YES, you are most likely legally liable for what he does with the van. You should have addressed this 4 years ago, and likely reported it stolen, hired a repo agent to recover it, or at least cancelled the tags on the vehicle so it could not have been driven without law enforcement stopping him and seizing the vehicle. You will need to contact the tow yard to address payment of any balance and recvoery of the van or surrendering it to them to pay for the balance. Otherwise, they might sell it and if there is more you owe the could try to have your DL suspended here in Florida for non-payment by statute. ... Read More

Very little other than the leverage of simply refusing to pay and saying "sue me." While there is no inherent obligation for you to settle any claim there is equally no obligation on the part of the other party not to sue for whatever damages were caused. THIS is why its critical to hire a lawyer to negotiate with the other party, even though it might cost more than the difference between the estimates. ... Read More