Brooksville is a small but exciting community. Local shops, eateries, and special events keep residents engaged and entertained. The town’s festivals, art events, scavenger hunts, and Mermaid Trail keep visitors returning. As with any active community, accidents and injuries sometimes disrupt your day. If you sustained an injury due to a property owner’s negligence, our Brooksville premises liability lawyers could determine if they owe you compensation.
A premises liability accident can be as simple as a slip-and-fall on a poorly aligned sidewalk. It can also involve a complex scenario, such as a near-drowning in an unsafe pool or an electrical injury on a construction site. Some injured victims sustain minimal injuries. Others require emergency treatment and long-term care. They pay costly medical bills and lose income because they can’t work.
If you’re struggling to recover from an injury sustained on a property you don’t own, Holliday Karatinos Law Firm can protect your legal rights.
We Protect Your Legal Rights
Never try to handle your case when you’re hurt and recovering. You need a seasoned legal team working on your behalf. At the Holliday Karatinos Law Firm, our Brookville premises liability lawyers assess relevant liability issues and protect our client’s legal rights. When appropriate, we place negligent property owners on notice and fight to recover compensation on their behalf.
Why Choose Our Law Firm?
At Holliday Karatinos Law Firm, we treat each client with respect, trust, and compassion. When you establish a working relationship with our firm, our legal team works hard to protect your interests. We have handled premises liability cases for injured people in Brooksville and the coastal region. We rely on our firm’s 65 years of collective legal experience in protecting our clients. Our firm has extensive resources that support our efforts.
We Prepare Our Cases Early
When handling our client’s cases, we take immediate steps to understand the accident circumstances, the injuries, and the liability issues. Our initial preparation comes together more efficiently when we handle your case before the witnesses become unavailable or physical evidence fades away.
We recommend that you consult with us as soon as possible following your accident so we can conduct a thorough investigation.
- Conduct an independent investigation
- Review and evaluate the evidence
- Analyze any legal complications
- Obtain medical records
- Evaluate our client’s injuries
We Meet Our Clients’ Critical Deadlines
When you sustain a premises liability injury in Florida, you claim negligence against the responsible parties. In most cases, you must settle your claim or file a lawsuit within four years of your accident. You lose your right to file a claim if you don’t meet this statute of limitations deadline. While four years seems like plenty of time to settle an injury claim, time seems to pass quickly when you recover from serious injuries. Sometimes, unexpected legal issues arise, and we must resolve them.
We protect our clients by acting on their behalf before their statute of limitation runs. Once we file a lawsuit, we ensure we meet critical filing, deposition, settlement conference, and court deadlines.
Our Case Negotiation Strategy
When we resolve our client’s cases, we implement a settlement strategy that works best for their circumstances. We have negotiated premises liability cases with insurance companies, self-insured entities, and their legal representatives. We have settled our clients’ claims during mediation, arbitration, and other Alternative Dispute Resolution processes.
When necessary, we initiated litigation, conducted discovery, and moved our cases to trial. Instead of giving in to low settlement offers, we have presented our clients’ evidence in court and let a judge or jury decide.
Our Clients Appreciate Our Results
Our law firm has produced consistent results because we made each client’s recovery our personal commitment. We have recovered over $145,000,000 in compensation for our injured clients. We keep our settlement details confidential, but we invite you to visit our review page to read our client feedback.
We Offer Free Consultations
Holliday Karatinos Law Firm represents local clients outside our Brooksville, Florida office. We also handle cases in Lutz and Inverness and locations throughout the coastal area. When you need to talk about your accident, you can contact us 24/7 by clicking on one of our site’s chat boxes. If you leave a message on our contact page, a legal team member will reach out to you within 24 hours.
Premises Liability Incidents in Brooksville, Florida
Premises liability incidents don’t always cause serious or catastrophic injuries; they sometimes lead to tragic outcomes.
Injuries on someone else’s property usually involve negligent safety, security, or maintenance issues.
- Poorly maintained stairs, railings, and landings
- Poorly maintained or defective amusement park rides
- Inadequate pool safety, security, and warnings
- Poorly maintained elevators and escalators
- Hazardous merchandise displays
- Improperly grounded electrical equipment
- Improperly maintained or deteriorating parking lots, landscapes, and walkways
- Unrestrained dogs
- Inadequately cleaned or maintained floors
- Inadequate electrical grounding
- Fires due to defective or malfunctioning products
- Unsafe or improperly monitored construction sites
Determining a Property Owner’s Legal Liability
In determining a property owner’s liability, insurers, attorneys, and sometimes judges and juries evaluate the available evidence.
While incidents often involve complicated legal issues, claim decision-makers rely on a simple negligence formula to assess fault.
- Duty owed: Did the property owner have a duty to maintain, repair, or inspect the conditions on their premises?
- Duty breached: Did the owner (or their subcontractors) not meet that duty?
- Proximate cause: Was the breach of duty cause the injured victim’s accident?
- Damages: Did the victim sustain injuries due to the property owner’s breach of duty?
In Florida, a property owner’s legal liability also depends on the injured victim’s status on the property when an incident occurred.
- An invitee: When a property owner invites someone to enter their premises, they owe them reasonable care. The owner must also warn of any hazards on the property.
- A licensee: When a person has permission to enter a property but doesn’t have a specific invitation, the property owner must keep them from harm and hazards.
- A trespasser: When a person has no legal right to enter a property, the owner owes only the duty not to set traps.
Injuries Due to Dog Attacks
Dog bite injuries involve different legal issues. Under Florida Statutes, Title XLV, Torts, §767 “Damage by Dogs, in most situations, a property owner is legally liable if their dog attacks someone, even if the dog has no history of prior attacks.
You can hold the owner liable if:
- The dog attacks you in a public place.
- You entered the property lawfully, such as a mailperson.
- You entered the property a guest with the owner’s permission.
The statute considers certain persons or entities as a dog’s owner if they harbor the dog for a person younger than 18. When an injured victim’s actions contribute to their injuries, insurers and courts reduce settlements or judgments by their negligence percentage.
Product Liability Incidents
The legal guidelines differ slightly when a malfunctioning or defective product hurts or kills someone. Defective products cause premises injuries due to fires, chemical exposures, or other incidents. An injured victim has a potential claim if a product has an inherent design, manufacturing, or marketing defect or an inadequate warning.
Plaintiffs usually seek compensation based on these causes of action.
- Negligence
- Strict liability
- Breach of warranty
- Implied warranty
Florida’s four-year statute of limitation product liability cases includes product liability exceptions. Plaintiffs have a two-year limit for filing a wrongful death lawsuit. Product liability cases also have a statute of repose. An injured person can make a claim for up to two years past a product’s useful life: a maximum of up to 12 years.
Premises Liability Injuries
Premises liability injuries involve so many different circumstances the injuries vary widely. Older adults and children often sustain more severe injuries due to their frailty. According to Florida emergency assessments, older adults frequently sustain serious or fatal injuries when falling.
Based on annual data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 24 percent of Florida adults over age 65 fell during the most recently documented annual period. Nationally, 37 percent of older adults who fell required medical treatment or activity restrictions.
As many circumstances cause premises accidents, the potential injuries vary widely. Seriously injured victims often recover but deal with temporary disabilities or lifelong impairments.
Depending on the type of accident, injuries include:
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Anoxic brain damage due to construction accidents and near-drowning
- Spinal cord injuries
- Soft tissue injuries
- Fractures, hips, skull, multiple breaks
- Internal organ damage
- Burns due to fires, chemicals, cooking mishaps, and defective appliances
- Dog bites, lacerations, puncture wounds, and infections
- Fatal Injuries
Herndon County Injury Statistics
The Florida Health CHARTS system maintains a Health Dashboard with ongoing health statistics by county. The site also publishes annual Injury and Non-Fatal Hospitalization Profiles.
The data in these two resources isn’t all-inclusive for injuries, but it provides a snapshot of potential premises liability incidents in thee Brooksville area.
- Total emergency department visits: 16,336
- Total deaths due to unintentional injury: 247
- Unintentional falls: ER visits, 5,925; hospitalizations, 1,037; fatalities, 74
- Unintentional drowning: ED visits, 7; fatalities, 8
- Unintentional fires: ED visits, 31; fatalities, 2
- Unintentional brain injuries: ED visits, 519; injuries, 50
- Possible exposure to rabies (pet attacks): 118
Recoverable Compensation for Premises Liability Claims
When negotiating premises liability injury settlement, we recover Economic Damages, General Damages, and sometimes Punitive Damages.
Economic Damages
The economic damage portion of a claim includes the total out-of-pocket expenses incurred during treatment and recovery.
Sometimes economic damages include current and future costs.
- Lost income
- Doctor and Hospital expenses
- Mobility structures, devices, and fixtures
- Prosthetics
- Physical and psychological therapy
- Medications
- Medical transportation
- Replacement services
- Funeral and burial expenses
General damages
This compensation element depends on the injured victim’s emotional and psychological injuries and their subjective feelings.
General damages often include:
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Changes in marital and family relationships
- Functional losses
- Scarring and disfigurement
- Temporary and permanent disabilities
Punitive Damages
Florida Statutes 768.72 allows juries to award punitive damages to an injured plaintiff. As a plaintiff’s attorney, we must produce clear and convincing evidence that a defendant’s intentional misconduct or gross negligence caused our client’s injuries. Evidence rarely meets this standard.
Often, Insurance Companies Defend Premises Cases
A Property owner usually sets the tone for what happens with a premises liability claim. If they don’t believe they’re responsible for someone’s injuries, sometimes they don’t turn in a claim. They often take action only after a victim’s attorney sends a formal representation letter. Unless an insured property owner has first-hand knowledge about an incident, they often report claims as “no liability” or questionable. The insurer takes it from there.
Liability insurers don’t need much motivation to proceed as though their insured isn’t responsible. They often consider premises cases questionable, especially slip and falls and product liability injuries. They usually proceed cautiously as they conduct an initial investigation. Even if an insurer sets a high dollar reserve, saving claim dollars remains their ultimate goal. It’s often the same with self-insured companies that pay claims out of their company’s resources.
Insurers and self-insured entities often rely on several defense strategies to accomplish this goal.
- Deny liability: Insurers sometimes investigate claims and deny liability. Sometimes the injured person simply walks away.
- Negotiate unfairly: Insurers sometimes make low offers anticipating that an injured victim might accept whatever they can get. After enduring a long recovery, some injured people want to settle their claims and move on. Often they need the money, and they feel they have no choice.
- Force injured victims into litigation: Insurers realize that some injured people don’t want to file a lawsuit. Claim handlers use this against them by negotiating unfairly or making no offers. Eventually, the injured person must file a suit, conduct discovery, and go to trial or accept whatever the insurer offers.
- Defend lawsuits: Some insurers would rather spend their money on defense costs than pay what they decide is a questionable liability claim. They take a chance that a judge or jury will return a verdict in their favor or at least award less than the injured person demands.
At Holliday Karatinos Law Firm, our attorneys have endured decades of frivolous insurance company defense strategies. Our Brooksville premises liability lawyers have handled them by investigating our clients’ cases, reviewing the evidence, and preparing our cases to win.
What Should You Do After A Premises Liability Accident?
When you work with a premises liability attorney, they investigate your accident, research relevant legal and damage issues, and deal with liability insurers. In the meantime, you must do your part, and your post-accident activities may either help or harm your case.
Do what your doctor says
Following a doctor’s orders isn’t always easy, but their injury assessments usually provide the foundation for evaluating your case.
If you refuse to follow orders, your doctor’s medical reports will reflect this, and it could jeopardize your case.
- Keep your appointments: follow-up visits, tests, rehabilitation, and physical therapy.
- Fill your prescriptions
- Talk to your doctor if you feel your treatment isn’t working.
- Don’t work until your doctor says you’re ready.
Keep an injury journal
It might take months or even years before you’re well and ready to settle your claim, sit for a deposition, or testify at a trial. By then, you may not remember the excruciating pain, the inconvenience, or the anxiety you felt after your injury. To ensure you can explain your case to anyone who asks, keep a daily journal of your difficulties and pain. Record anything your attorney needs to know when evaluating your case for settlement.
Consider that someone might be watching you
Sometimes people do watch you when you have a pending injury claim. Insurance companies send investigators to check up on seriously injured victims. They do this to confirm that the person’s injury and its severity.
Sometimes they don’t believe the person is as seriously injured as they say, and to prove it.
- Investigators sit outside of your home and wait to capture you on video.
- They talk to your neighbors.
- They conduct social media investigations to see if you’re dancing on TikTok or sharing your weekend exploits on Instagram.
- They do credit checks to see if you’re financially strapped and need cash.
Preserve your evidence
Before you lose track of the little details, share your version of the accident with one of our lawyers. If your incident involved a fall, preserve your shoes and clothing. Take a photo of your shoes, bottoms, and tops. If someone questions you about your shoes someday, you will have the answers and the evidence.
Consult With the Holliday Karatinos Law Firm
Our Brooksville premises liability lawyers understand what they must do to present your case. You shouldn’t try to figure it out on your own. Legal and damage issues often become complicated. Attorneys have the resources and the knowledge to research the issues and present your case in the most advantageous way possible.
Brooksville Premises Liability Lawyers
If you sustained injuries on someone else’s property, you need a premises liability lawyer working for you as soon as possible. At Holliday Karatinos Law Firm, our attorneys handle cases for injured clients in Brooksville and the surrounding Florida communities. When you reach out to us, we will arrange a complimentary consultation. Our legal professional discusses your accident and determines if we can help you. Our personal injury law firm in Florida, we handle injury cases on a contingency basis, so we don’t charge legal fees until we resolve your case.
If you want to learn more about your legal rights, talk to us 24/7 by clicking any chat box on our site. You may also leave a confidential message on our contact page or call us at (352) 597-0009.
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