Worker’s Compensation Immunity
Under Florida’s Worker’s Compensation Act, an employer who secures worker’s compensation coverage for his or her employees receives extensive immunity from suit by injured workers. As a matter of public policy, Florida desires to have employees protected through worker’s compensation insurance. Unlike a conventional personal injury claim, benefits are not dependent upon fault. Thus, an employee may receive benefits even though the employer did nothing to cause the employee’s...
Read MoreThe Law Protects Jury Duty
Florida law prohibits an employer from dismissing an employee from employment because the employee has been summoned to serve on any grand or petit jury in Florida. Threats of dismissal by the employer are also prohibited and an employee who has been terminated or threatened with termination may file suit against the employer for compensatory damages such as lost wages, punitive damages and the reasonable attorneys’ fees spent in bringing the lawsuit. A 1990 state court decision held that...
Read MoreBP Oil Spill Claims
If you were in business in Pinellas, Pasco or Hernando counties and suffered a loss of revenue in 2010, you probably have a BP Oil Spill Claim. Download a free evaluation form. I may be able to help you collect that lost revenue. You have nothing to lose, although the evaluation form will take a few minutes to complete. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be in the fishing or seafood industries to collect; although those industries do get favored treatment. Accountants,...
Read MoreLitigious Divorces Can Be Expensive
This recent case was called to my attention by Arnelle Strand, a New Port Richey family law attorney. On June 15th of this year, a panel of three justices from the Second District Court of Appeals in an opinion scathing of two local attorneys (neither of them Ms. Strand) made clear the difference between the marital assets of the parties, in this case the corporate shares of their family owned business, and the assets of the business itself. In a contentious divorce, the trial judge entered...
Read MoreBank Must have Standing to Sue
In an opinion issued just a few days ago, on October 17th, an appellate court in a case out of Indian River County confirmed again that a plaintiff lender must have standing to sue at the time the foreclosure suit is filed. Standing means that the plaintiff has the legal right to enforce the note and mortgage; most often as the owner and holder of the note. However, standing can be acquired through an assignment of the mortgage executed prior to the filing of the foreclosure action, through...
Read MoreHalloween
With Halloween just around the corner, I just felt compelled to comment on the legal aspects of the holiday as it seems there are legal challenges to all forms of holidays and celebrations, be it Thanksgiving, Christmas or any other holiday. Halloween seems to have originated from a celebration of the end of the harvest season. The Celts, for example, celebrated a feast of the dead which the Romans incorporated as their own when they conquered the Celts. Christians made November 1st “All...
Read MoreSexual Harrasment
An employer may be liable for money damages to a woman employee if the employee can prove that she was subjected to sexual harassment. In order to succeed on the claim, however, the employee must prove that she was intentionally subjected to unwelcome sexual harassment; that the harassment was based upon her gender and that the harassment was sufficiently severe and pervasive to interfere with her work performance or create a hostile work environment. Sexual harassment can, but need not, take...
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