Wrongful Death Blog

In the case of Jennifer Ripple v. CBS Corporation, Case Number 4D20-1939 (Fla. 4th DCA March 30, 2022), Florida’s Fourth DCA held that a plaintiff who married the decedent after exposure to asbestos was barred from damages as the surviving spouse and certified a conflict with...

In the case of Auto Club Insurance Company of Florida v. Estate of Normal Lewis and Billie Jarrard, Case Number 5D18-3439 (December 13, 2019), Florida’s Fifth DCA held that the per person bodily injury liability limit of a Florida automobile policy only applied to the...

In the case of Florida Power & Light Company v. Tricia Dominguez, as PR for the Estate of Justin Dominguez, Case Number 2D18-2363 (Fla. 2d DCA October 25, 2019), Florida’s Second DCA held that direct corporate liability for punitive damages requires willful or wanton...

In the case of Dominos Pizza, LLC v. Wiederhold, 5D16-2794 (Fla. 5th DCA 2018), an injured person got married after becoming injured but before his death.  After his death, his surviving spouse sued the driver (and Dominos Pizza for vicarious liability) for causing the accident...

What happens when one of the survivors in a wrongful death case bears some degree of fault and there was a settlement? The answer to this question can be found in Hess v. Hess, 758 So. 2d 1203 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000) in that the probate judge should determine comparative fault among the...

State Trooper William Trampass Bishop died when he was hit by a car on I-75 while responding to a traffic accident on June 17, 2017 near mile marker 403 in High Springs, Florida.  Bishop was a 30-year veteran of the HIghway Patrol.  He was outside of his patrol vehicle...

Steven Higgins died on April 17, 2017 after being struck as a pedestrian on the sidewalk of Beacon Road in Lakeland, Florida.  The accident happened at approximately 4:44 p.m. when a 2001 Nissan Sentra driven by Steven Statterfield lost control of his vehicle and struck a street...

Rachel Nicole Tew, 23-years-old, died on March 27, 2017 after an accident on Deeson Road in Lakeland, Florida.  Tew was a passenger in a 1999 Ford F-250 pickup truck driven by Haley Carnley.  The accident happened at approximately 9:15 pm. as Carnley attempted to stop for...

Jessica McCausland filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of her stepmother, Betty Monroe, suing the Hooters restaurant on US98 in North Lakeland.  David Joseph McCausland died in a car accident on November 6, 2015 when a Corvette driven by Timothy Alan Lundy struck...

Terry Joe Young died of injuries sustained in a pedestrian accident on Massachusetts Avenue in Lakeland, Florida on January 31, 2017.  The accident happened at approximately 6:07 a.m. when Young was hit by Margaret Bowman going southbound on Massachusetts Ave.  Bowman was...

A crossover car accident in Lake Alfred, Florida on January 23, 2017 at approximately 1:15 a.m. took the life of Joseph Senatus.  Senatus was 49 years old and died after another driver, Mario Alejandro Rodriguez, crossed over the center line of CR557 striking Senatus’s...

Travis Coats was intoxicated and driving the wrong way on I-4 in Polk County on January 14, 2017 when he caused a fatal crash.  Coats has been charged with DUI manslaughter, DUI with property damage, and DUI and driving in the wrong direction.  The accident caused the death...

John Robert Lynn was hit as a pedestrian while crossing the street at the 2100 block of Lakeland Hills Boulevard on January 12, 2017.  Mr. Lynn died as a result of injuries sustained in the accident.  He was 63 years old.  The accident happened at approximately 6:15...

Glenn Gillenwater was a pedestrian on the sidewalk on the west side of Harden Boulevard in Lakeland, Florida when he was struck by a pickup truck that had swerved and lost control.  Gillenwater was 63 years old.  The accident happened at approximately 2:45 p.m. when Michael...

Joseph P. Riley died after being getting out of his car after an accident and then being struck by another vehicle traveling on I-4 in Polk County, Florida on January 8, 2017.  This incident began with an accident between two women resulting in one woman’s vehicle stopped...

The innocent driver in a DUI accident on SR 60 at Falkenburg Road on January 4, 2017 died as a result of injuries sustained in the accident.  This accident happened when Johnathan Honza was headed westbound on SR60 and ran a red light.  The accident happened at...

Six-year-old, Camari Dennison, was on a bicycle and died as a result of an accident on New Year’s Day 2017 on 10th Street in Apopka, Florida.  The accident happened at approximately 3:30 p.m. when Soraya Youngblood struck Camari on his bicycle after he rode from a driveway...

An unidentified or “phantom” driver is reported to have caused April Gallon to take an evasive maneuver resulting in an accident that killed both of her daughters, aged 10 and 12, on December 28, 2016.  Kayla Johnson (age 10) and Jasmin Johnson (age 12) died of...

Robert McNeely was crossing Broadway Street as a pedestrian near the intersection of Lakewood Court when he was struck and killed by an SUV on December 18, 2016.  McNeely was only 22 years old at the time of this death.  The accident happened at approximately 11:20 p.m....

A lawsuit against Walgreens alleges that a customer, Fernando Elizarraras, was forced by store employees to clean a soiled bathroom after using it at an store in Orlando, Florida.  The original lawsuit (Case Number 2016-CA-009159, filed in the Ninth Judicial Circuit for Orange...