Ford Recall July 2011 - Another Big Ford Pick-up Truck Recall, Miami Ford Truck Drivers Take Note

Ford Motor Company just announced another big recall for Ford vehicles. Another one.

Back in March 2011, we posted about the Ford recall of Ford pickup trucks because their tires could blow out and cause accidents.

The very next month, April 2011, Ford Motor Company announced another recall - this time, 1.2 million of Ford's F150 pickup trucks were recalled because of an electrical wiring problem. Seems that the Ford F150 pick-up truck airbags could just pop open on a whim, causing accidents or injuries.

Now, here it is: July 2011, and Ford Motor Company is recalling Ford pick up trucks again. This time, Ford Ranger pickup trucks, Ford Excursion SUVs, and a variety of Ford F-series pickup trucks (F-250, F-350, F-450, and F-550) are being recalled because of a problem with an electrical gizmo that could make the tail lights not work. Which might cause a wreck, say, if no one sees the brakes are on because the truck's brake lights don't work, right?

For details on all these Ford Pick-up Truck Recalls, check out recalls.gov or go to the Ford Motor Company website's recall information page.

And remember: products can cause serious harm or injury, and defective products do kill people. It's wise to respond to a product recall.

If you drive a Ford pick-up truck, then drive by your dealer and get it checked out - you never know what wreck you may be preventing just by doing this one little chore. And, sure, with this record it sounds like you might be dropping by the dealership every month to six weeks ... if Ford's recall track record stays on its monthly schedule.

What if you were in a wreck while driving a Ford pickup truck? The product (here, the truck) might be a contributing factor to your accident and something you need to investigate, discuss with your injury attorney. Product liability claims are possible and are different from filing claims against the negligent driver, etc., in a crash.

By Bryant Esquenazi on July 21, 2011 2:54 PM

Casey Anthony Opening Statements Today - Florida Example of How Trials Really Work, B4 You Get There

Casey Anthony's trial began today and in her attorney's opening statement, revelations were given to us all about how her daughter Caylee Anthony died, including allegations that her father George Anthony was involved in covering-up the drowning death of the toddler.

It's being called the biggest trial since O.J. Simpson and most of the news media, national and local, is covering this story. Nancy Grace has her show dedicated to this trial nightly.

You can watch the live feed of the Casey Anthony trial here.

True enough, this is a criminal trial. Personal injury cases have civil trials. Civil procedure and criminal procedure is different.

What Personal Injury Claimants and Plaintiffs Can Learn By Watching the Casey Anthony Trial

Nevertheless, anyone considering filing a personal injury case can learn a lot by watching this trial about what it means to be a plaintiff in a courtroom, fighting for justice when they or a loved one has been seriously injured or suffered a wrongful death.

In a Florida civil trial, just like a Florida criminal trial like the Casey Anthony trial going on now in Orlando, you will have the following:

The Judge
Sitting in robes above the rest of the participants, and able to see everything that's going on, the judge has the job of making sure that proper trial procedure is followed and that the law is followed: when necessary, the judge will make decisions on points of law.

The Jury
Civil plaintiffs must ask for a jury (and pay a jury fee); in criminal cases, they are mandatory unless the defendant waives the jury (and then the judge decides the case). In major cases, there are 12 jurors. In cases with smaller amounts in controversy, there may be less than twelve.

The judge decides what is legally admitted as evidence. The jury decides the facts based on the law given to them (in jury instructions) and the jury makes the final decision (verdict).

The Parties

In a personal injury case, the one who files the suit is the "plaintiff," and the one who is sued is the "defendant." The defendant learns of the lawsuit in pre-suit negotiations, usually; however, some defendants first learn of the lawsuit when they are served with notice of the complaint being filed.

The Evidence

Witnesses give testimony on the stand or via deposition. Witnesses also "prove up" documents that serve as evidence. This can take days or weeks.

The Record

A court reporter is responsible for keeping track of all that happens in the trial: recording all the words spoken and all the exhibits entered as evidence. The record will be the transcript of what the witnesses said in words and the documents that were admitted into evidence. This is what the appellate court reviews if an appeal is filed: the record that the court reporter has accumulated, sealed, and sent to the appeals court.

The Trial
Jury is selected

1. A panel of potential jurors is pulled from the jury room and they are brought to the courtroom. Attorneys for both sides question them, and the judge will sometimes ask questions, too. The goal is to get 12 unbiased people to serve on the jury, along with a couple of alternates.

2. Opening Statements

Lead attorneys for both sides make opening statements. Here, the lawyers give the jury an outline of what they will prove in the evidence. The Plaintiff's attorney gets to speak first at trial, before the defendant's attorney summarizes their defense.

3. Evidence is Given By Both Sides

Witnesses are called. The lawyer that calls the witness asks questions in "direct examination" and the opposition asks his/hers in "cross examination." Documents are presented as evidence as witnesses testify, unless the parties have argued documentary evidence already with the judge in a pre-trial motion.

4. Case Closes

After both sides are finished (they "rest"), then the attorneys give "closing arguments" to the jury.  Each side analyzes the evidence that has been presented during the trial, and argues how it fulfills his position. The Plaintiff will have the chance to rebut the defense's closing argument (and in a criminal case, the prosecution will offer a rebuttal)
5 Jury Decides

After the closing arguments, the judge will instruct the jury - and they will get written instructions that relate what the judge has said. They jury will then be escorted to the jury room to meet and decide. In some cases, they will be sequestered, and forced to stay in hotel rooms and away from their personal lives until they've reached a verdict.

6. Verdict is Issued

Once the jury decides, then the attorneys are contacted and everyone is asked to return to the courthouse to hear the verdict read to them.

By Bryant Esquenazi on May 24, 2011 1:38 PM

Charlie Sheen v CBS, Warner Bros: Probably No Trial. Why? Sheen Agreed to an Arbitration Clause and Why You Should Know About Arbitration, Miami

Charlie Sheen's lawyers wrote to CBS and Warner Brothers about his claims regarding the TV series Two and a Half Men and this week the letter Charlie Sheen got in response was published online.

You can read it here on TMZ.com. Of particular note, the following language on page 10:

...Warner Bros. has submitted this dispute to arbitration before JAMS, as
required by the Agreement....

What is Arbitration?

Arbitration is a very popular form of "alternative dispute resolution." Which means it's one of the most popular ways of avoiding a trial down at the courthouse. Others are mediation and informal settlements between the parties.

Sometimes, alternative dispute resolution is a good idea. One example that is rising in popularity across the country are collaborative divorces, where courtrooms are avoided as the spouses work out their custody and support and property issues. Another example, two conglomerates are fighting over fees - it's cheaper and faster for their representatives to set down at a table and hammer out a deal that works for both sides than for all that time and money to be spent on a boring money dispute presented to a jury.

However, arbitration is different than other forms of alternative dispute resolution. It's scary because when it's created in a deal made within a contract (like Sheen's employment deal) it means "fair trial" goes out the window.

Why? Where it's part of a contract, a provision that provides that the parties agree that if there is a dispute it's understood in advance that there will be no lawsuits filed down at the courthouse, in the public record -- instead, they all agree at the outset to opt for arbitration to settle the dispute.

This means there won't be the usual rules of evidence used in standard litigation, and there will be a different kind of decision maker. He or she won't be an elected or appointed judge. He or she will be an independent third party arbitrator, and maybe there will be more than one. A panel who decides your fate.

What if you don't like the decision? You may be out of luck. Appeals of arbitration decisions are limited in scope to things like bias. Hard to prove. And to try, you have to do something like move to vacate the arbitrator with the Arbitration Board. Anyone pondering how often they find bias to exist?

How Arbitration Can Impact You Here in Miami

In Florida, the Florida Arbitration Code, Florida Chapter 682, Florida Statutes Sec. 44.104 and Rule 1.830 of the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure work together to control the type of contractually imposed arbitration that the Charlie Sheen - CBS and Warner Brothers situation exemplifies.

Here, it is considered a voluntary and binding arbitration by Florida law and to some extent, the parties are free to arbitrate as they see fit. For example, Florida voluntary binding arbitrations can have one arbitrator or an arbitration panel, as the parties decide. They can adhere to the procedure set out by the American Arbitration Association or they can improvise, creating their own procedure for the arbitration. They can even agree on the evidence: they can limit the evidence to documents and no testimony, or documents and depositions only, etc.

(Court-ordered arbitrations exist in Florida, see Florida Statute 44.104, but they are different than the Sheen scenario: the judge orders them, usually when mediation fails, as a last ditch effort to avoid an expensive trial, and the parties aren't bound by the result.)

Most Floridians have entered into arbitration agreements - waiving their right to a jury trial and the protections of state or federal evidence law - without even being aware of it. Seeing the advantages of arbitration over courtroom trials, companies have adopted consumer arbitration agreements in all sorts of sales agreements. Read your contract with your bank; the deal you made for your phone; the purchase contract for your car or HDTV.

Don't be surprised to see that there's an arbitration agreement in there. Can you get around that clause if you need to do so? That all depends. The power of these big companies to force arbitration down the consumer's throat is an issue that is still being litigated in Florida and across the country.

By Bryant Esquenazi on March 8, 2011 3:59 PM

Distracted Driving Lawsuits: Who Can You Sue for Loved One's Injury or Death in Distracted Driving Car Crash - Is There a Doctor's Duty to Warn?

Distracted driving causes car accidents - crashes where people are seriously injured or killed. Deaths due to distracted driving are still being studied by academics and governmental agencies. All we know for sure is that texting or talking on the phone while driving is causing car accidents and crashes where people are dying - or suffering severe harm.

The American Journal of Public Health reports that "[d]istracted driving is a growing public safety hazard. Specifically, the dramatic rise in texting volume since 2005 [fatalities from distracted driving increased 28% from 2005 - 2008] appeared to be contributing to an alarming rise in distracted driving fatalities."

Laws are being enacted across the country to outlaw texting while driving and (better) using a phone at all while driving. According to the Department of Transportation, 30 states have outlawed texting for all drivers and another 8 states have outlawed drivers from using handheld cell phones while driving - period. (Most of these laws were passed in 2010.)

In Florida, Preemption Law prohibits localities from enacting distracted driving bans.

It's a celebrity issue. Oprah has a campaign against Distracted Driving (you've heard it: the No Phone Zone). Meanwhile, thumb (or surf) through any tabloid and see Kim Kardashian with her phone; Lindsey Lohan with her phone; Justin B. or Justin T. with his phone.

It's cool to text and talk.

It's convenient to do it while driving. And, face it: even if it's illegal, lots of folks are going to be doing it and it is very difficult for law enforcement to stop. Think about it -- it is not that easy to see what someone is doing as they drive along a busy street or freeway. That will be a true eagle eye that can spot the texter and then successfully prove in court that they are guilty of Distracted Driving. (Although the laws are helping some defendants by providing an "illegal acts" defense in any subsequent lawsuit.)

Which makes the recent development so interesting. Doctors have thrown themselves into this fracas.

The New England Journal of Medicine published an article on distracted driving this summer that included an opinion that doctors have a duty to warn their patients about the dangers of distracted driving. That's right: when Kim Kardashian goes to see her doctor, his peers are suggesting that he explain to Kim that driving while using the phone is very, very dangerous.

After this, one doctor-blogger responded to this NEJM report not with criticism that distracted driving might not be within the doctor's responsibilities but instead to point to a Virginia Tech study that suggests that distracted driving might not be all that bad (oh, please) and that heck, he rides his bike anyway. Wow.

Do Doctors Have a Duty to Warn About the Dangers of Distracted Driving?

Maybe so. Doctors are arguably voluntarily taking on the duty -- and therefore, possibly exposing themselves to the liability. Doctors are including distracted driving as a behavior that may lead to injury and therefore, something against which they have a duty to warn their patients.

DOCTORS are arguably defining the duty in of all places, the New England Journal of Medicine and based on the blogging physician, it's not being challenged within the profession itself. It's not legislatures or plaintiffs' lawyers trying to pin it on them here.

By Bryant Esquenazi on October 14, 2010 4:57 PM

Kim Kardashian and Mel Gibson Car Crashes: What We Can All Learn From Mel and Kim's Recent Fender Benders

Kim Kardashian is sorta one of the Miami locals these days, although she was shopping in Beverly Hills when her Bentley convertible got an estimated $25,000 in damages. It's being reported that Kim zipped over a speed bump too fast, crushing the front bumper of the car.

In the same news reports, we're also learning that Mel Gibson banged up the wheel well of his Mazarati on Sunday. TMZ has the photos, of course. Seems Mel had a slight car crash while driving on a Malibu highway on a Sunday afternoon.

Now, sure. These are two famous people - big time celebrities - who bashed their very expensive cars all by themselves while driving around very beautiful havens for their fellow celebrities. Mel Gibson and Kim Kardashian, all alone, did some minor damage to some very expensive wheels. So what?

Well, from a lawyer's perspective, Mel Gibson and Kim Kardashian have given us some great examples of things to remember when any one of us gets into a minor traffic mishap.

Here's just a few:

Get a Police Report. Mel Gibson crashed his Mazarati on a public road, but Kim crimped her Bentley's bumper in a private parking lot. Public road makes a difference here. Might be best to call the police, make a report of what's happened -- even if you think your fender bender isn't a very big deal. (Which Mel did. Good for Mel.) Your state law may even require you to do so.

Photos at the scene are important. Kim Kardashian and Mel Gibson can rely on the paparazzi to document their car damage and the location, weather, time of day, etc. of the incidents. Assuming you don't have celebrity gossip sites following you around, then you better take your own pics - right there, just as it happened. May be a big help in an insurance claim or a personal injury suit for a defective product down the road.

Were there witnesses? No matter how minor your fender bender may seem at the time, if you saw people watching it happen, then take the time to get their names. And addresses. And phone numbers (work is better than home, best to get both).

Why? Maybe this damage to your car (and maybe to you, too) was just one of those things. Maybe not. You won't know at the scene if there was a product failure -- think the Toyota sudden acceleration as a hidden product failure -- and having the events documented (with police reports, pix, and witnesses) may make the difference between victory and defeat in any product defect fight down the road - as well as any fight with the insurance company over your damage claim.

Follow Kim Kardashian on Twitter at @kimkardashian

By Bryant Esquenazi on August 17, 2010 11:11 AM