Florida attorney

What are Compensatory Damages?

Published on: May 15, 2024 | Anthony Quackenbush, Esq.

When you have been injured by someone else’s negligence, you may choose to file a personal injury lawsuit in order to seek compensation for your losses. Compensatory damages compensate you for losses you would not have suffered if you had not been injured. These losses may be tangible, such as financial expenses or property damage, or they may be intangible, such as the pain and suffering you endure.

There is no cap to compensatory damages in Florida. When I take on a personal injury case, I treat my client the way I would a family member or friend, uncovering every possible loss, expense, or complication to ensure that my client receives maximum compensation for his or her injuries.

Possible losses include:

Attorney-Client Privilege and Confidentiality in Florida

Published on: May 5, 2024 | Anthony Quackenbush, Esq.

If you are involved in a legal case in Florida, your communication with your attorney is covered under attorney-client privilege, as defined by the Florida Evidence Code. In addition, the Florida Bar’s Rules of Professional Conduct further outline attorney-client confidentiality. These two standards overlap in some areas but they are not the same and neither is absolute.

Attorney-Client Privilege

The attorney-client privilege applies when a client (or potential client) divulges information to an attorney for the purpose of legal advice. The intention of this privilege is to permit the client to confidently and honestly share information with his or her legal counsel in order to receive the best legal representation.

How Social Media Affects Your Florida Personal Injury Case

Published on: March 5, 2024 | Anthony Quackenbush, Esq.

If you have been in an accident or have been injured by someone else’s negligence, it is imperative that you not share anything about the incident or your case on social media. Ask friends and family to also refrain from commenting on your case, or anything about you, because it could be used against you in court or during negotiations.

If you are the plaintiff in a personal injury case (that is, the one who has been injured) the defendant will do whatever he can to prove he is not guilty or to shed doubt on the truthfulness of your claims or the degree of your injuries. On social media, we usually post the best pictures of ourselves – smiling, having fun, and doing interesting things. If you post anything like this, the defendant will argue that you are not as injured as you claim.

For instance, say you post a picture of yourself out to dinner with friends, smiling. You may, in fact, be in terrible pain and are getting out of the house for the first time in a month. However, the defendant could argue that this is evidence that you are not being truthful about the degree of your injuries.

Should You Represent Yourself in a Personal Injury Case?

Published on: February 15, 2024 | Anthony Quackenbush, Esq.

Representing yourself in court is called “pro se” – Latin for “for yourself.” If you are a personal injury attorney, you may be able to successfully represent yourself in a personal injury case. Short of that, the advantages of having an expert lawyer on your side far outweigh any perceived benefits of going on your own.

Why people may want to go pro se

Why do people sometimes want to represent themselves? Sometimes they perceive that hiring an attorney will be expensive. This is not true, since most attorneys, including our law office, work on contingency fees, meaning there is no upfront payment.

What Is a Catastrophic Injury?

Published on: February 5, 2024 | Anthony Quackenbush, Esq.

If you have experienced an injury in Florida due to another person’s negligence, you may be entitled to compensation for your losses, medical bills, pain, and suffering. Catastrophic injuries can lead to significant financial awards because of the extreme impact that such injuries can have on a person’s life. But you need to engage the services of an expert personal injury attorney who knows how to demonstrate the full breadth of damage to receive just compensation.

Definition of a catastrophic injury

What constitutes a catastrophic injury? Generally, “catastrophic” refers to an injury that causes significant damage that dramatically impacts your life and is expected to persist over an extended period of time, perhaps permanently.

Hit by a Car While Walking in Florida?

Published on: November 12, 2023 | Anthony Quackenbush, Esq.

A pedestrian is in danger when walking near any moving vehicles – cars, trucks, motorcycles, mopeds, and even bicycles and skateboards. Anything that’s moving faster than you are has a risk of hurting you if you collide, and the faster and bigger the object, the greater damage that it can inflict.

Unfortunately, Florida ranks as the second most dangerous state for pedestrians, with 3.32 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 people as of 2023. The most dangerous city for pedestrians is also in Florida – Fort Lauderdale, with an incredible rate of 8.1 annual pedestrian deaths per 100,000 residents. These numbers do not take into account the many thousands of pedestrians seriously injured every year.

Interestingly, in Florida, pedestrians include not only walkers and runners, but also bicyclists, skateboarders, roller skaters, and Segway riders. So if you are injured in a collision with someone traveling in this manner, the accident would be considered between two pedestrians. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be seriously injured. And if a bicyclist is hit by a car, according to Florida law, the automobile driver hit a pedestrian.

When Doctors Don’t Listen: Medical Gaslighting

Published on: August 15, 2023 | Anthony Quackenbush, Esq.

Medical gaslighting can be the cause of medical malpractice when it causes harm to a patient. The term “gaslight” is based on the 1944 film noir of the same name. In Gaslight, a husband with sights on his wife’s fortune began to convince her that she was going crazy by turning down the gaslight (among other things) and denying it had happened. “Gaslighting” came to refer to the deliberate attempt to influence another’s perception of reality, deny the person’s experiences, and convince the victim that everything is the victim’s own fault or all in his or her head.

The use of the term has since broadened to refer to unintentional, dismissive, or arrogant behavior that has the same effect, leaving the victim confused, distressed, and filled with self-doubt. In the case of medical gaslighting, it can also leave the victim with a serious medical condition that worsens because of being dismissed by a medical professional.

Most of us defer to the perceived superior knowledge of a healthcare professional and can easily be convinced that what we feel is normal, or that we are exaggerating our symptoms. The doctor doesn’t necessarily have to say this; a careless attitude when the patient explains his symptoms can cause the patient to think it’s not really a big deal, even though it really feels like a big deal to the patient.