You can go into your social security disability hearing and say that you cannot work, and show medical records. But how does the government disprove this? In other words, what evidence will the government use, to show that in fact there are jobs available that you are physically or mentally qualified and capable to do?

Enter the Vocational Expert

The answer is through the use of what is known as a vocational expert.

Vocational experts are professionals who are trained in the national job market. They are experts in what each kind of job is, what it does, and what the requirements of a given job may be. They are trained in matching someone’s particular skills, with given available jobs.

At your disability hearing, the government will use the testimony of one of these experts. The expert will, having reviewed your medical records, testify as to whether or not there are any jobs you can do–and because they are the government’s experts, and because they are paid by the government to come to court, they will almost always say yes, there are a number of jobs that you are physically and mentally able to perform.

If the judge believes the expert, your disability claim will fail.

Challenging the Expert

Winning your disability hearing, requires refuting what these experts may say in your hearing.

Many vocational experts use dated or even obsolete information. For example, an expert may say that you could be a security video monitor–someone who sits and watches the video picked up by surveillance cameras.

But nowadays, much of this monitoring might be done by AI. Many companies don’t even use these on-scene monitors–they monitor their surveillance cameras remotely.

In fact, if the government does use a vocational expert at your disability hearing, don’t be surprised to hear that expert say that you could do jobs that you’ve never even heard of; strange jobs that you didn’t think existed.

Experts will say that people can work, for example, as letter openers or silverware preparers, or other jobs which may have long been replaced by technology.

Vocational experts are notorious for using data that may be 10 or more years old–a lifetime when it comes to the evolution of jobs.

Vocational experts are not medical experts–because of that, they often don’t take into account all of your disabilities. They might, for example, say you could do a job where you sit because you have a bad back, but not take into account the effect that your pain medications have on your ability to do that job.

There is no secret to refuting their testimony. It comes down to having a social security disability attorney that understands the job market, and the flaws in these experts’ reasoning and research.

Thinking about applying for social security disability? Call us about your case. Schedule a consultation with our Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian today.

Source:

ssa.gov/appeals/ve.html

And they do that–sometimes. Because at other times, they may do something that you don’t expect:

They may actually admit that they did something wrong, or that yes, they acted carelessly.

Why They Admit Fault

Why on earth should they do that? It seems like that would be very much against their own interests.

The reason is that by admitting fault–that they did do something wrong to cause the accident–they are making evidence that might be damaging to them potentially irrelevant, and thus, shielding that information from the jury.

Take, for example, a typical DUI case, where a DUI driver causes an accident. That DUI driver does not want the jury to hear that they were driving drunk–that could have a very negative impact on a jury, and a jury might potentially be angry at that driver (as they should be).

But if the Defendant were to admit that they drove drunk, then there is (to them), no reason to use, admit, or have the jury consider, evidence that the driver was drunk. That evidence then becomes superfluous, or unnecessary, or prejudicial, or irrelevant–the argument is that DUI driving is evidence of who is at fault, and they have already admitted they are at fault, so why does the jury ever need to hear that evidence?

If they are correct–and it’s up to a judge whether that evidence gets in–then admitting liability, while at first seeming like a good thing in your injury case–actually is not such a good thing, if in fact, the DUI evidence is excluded.

Defendants often admit liability in simple, rear end car accident cases. They don’t want the jury hearing that their driver didn’t pay attention, and hit you from behind. So, they just admit that the driver rear-ended you.

What You Still Need to Prove

By admitting fault, it doesn’t mean you automatically win or they automatically lose. The Defendant can defend their case, by saying that the accident didn’t cause your injuries, or that you aren’t as injured as you say that are.

In fact, in car accident cases, where you have to show that you have a permanent or substantial injury, they may simply deny that you have an injury that meets that definition. The case then becomes mainly about the nature, extent, and severity of your injuries.

That does save you the step of having to prove liability. But it can, in certain cases, prevent the jury from hearing damaging evidence that you, as the victim, would want the jury to hear.

Schedule a consultation with our Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian today to discuss it after your accident or injury so you are prepared for whatever strategy the defendant in your case will use.

Source:

advocatemagazine.com/article/2014-may/trying-the-admitted-liability-auto-case-the-art-of-villainizing

But we often don’t think much about the safety of these centers. They are charged with a very serious duty – not just keeping our kids busy, but keeping them safe. And yet, there are just all too many ways that kids can get injured in child care.

How Many Adult Supervisors?

It would be great if we could just say that a day care must have a certain number of adults, to watch over a given number of children. But that’s not really how it works, because of the different types of child care that there can be.

After school care at a school will have different requirements than a privately run day care facility, which will be different from what is required from, say, a religious organization like a church, that provides child care services.

But if your child is injured in day care you don’t have to worry about the legal “adult to child” ratio. While the law is important, a day care can act negligently, thus injuring a child, even if it is technically within the legally required adult to child ratio.

Poor Supervision

But simply having too few adults, for too many kids, is one way that child care centers or after school care centers can be liable for injuries to children.

On the surface, injuries to children that happen in day care are often just dismissed as “kids being kids.” Kids roughhouse, and can be careless, and can hurt themselves.

But that isn’t really true, when injuries happen in day care. That’s because there are adults there, presumably there with the obligation to watch over, and supervise, the children. Many child care centers are understaffed; they don’t have the adults needed to watch the children. Or, the adults there don’t have sufficient and proper training.

When a child falls out of a tree and injures himself, some adult should have seen, and stopped it from happening. When one child hits the other over the head with a toy, some adult in the facility should have seen, and stopped it, from happening. When a child is injured in or around a pool, or a roadway, some adult with the day care should have seen it, prevented it, or stopped that child from being in an environment of danger.

The Facilities

In other cases, the facility itself may be dangerous–it may have toys that are not age-appropriate, or playground equipment that is poorly maintained, or objects with sharp edges on it, all of which can injure the children in the facility’s care.

Was your child injured while in day care or after school care? Schedule a consultation with our Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian today to discuss your child’s injury after an accident.

Source:

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/348255

What is Road Rage?

Road rage is a broad term, for what can be a wide variety of actions.

Road rage can entail another driver getting out of his vehicle to personally and physically confront someone else. But it can also involve drivers remaining inside their cars, and simply driving aggressively. Imagine a driver, angered, who purposely tries to run your car off the road, or who purposely tails you very closely from behind.

Sometimes, someone may just be so angry that they in fact do, accidentally, cause an accident. Imagine a driver who is so desperately trying to catch up to you to yell at you (or worse), and that driver ends up losing control of his vehicle.

Inside the Vehicle

Road rage accidents that happen when the other driver is inside the vehicle, such as purposefully running into another car, have a better chance of being covered by the other driver’s insurance company.

Many insurance companies don’t cover intentional criminal acts, like road rage, but most people who cause accidents because of road rage, won’t admit to acting purposefully–some will claim that it was “just an accident,” and as such, they are unknowingly allowing you to access their insurance coverage,  which does cover accidents.

This is one reason why you should get an attorney to help you in road rage accidents, before saying anything. If you claim that the other driver in fact acted purposefully and out of anger, even if he or she did so, you may be allowing the other driver’s insurance company to deny coverage.

And really, there is a very subtle difference between aggressive driving (which is normally covered under car insurance) and road rage (which generally is not covered), so you should wait until you speak to an injury attorney who can help you, before claiming that any driver acted intentionally or not.

The Jury May Not be Happy

Insurance companies, in road rage cases, are in a difficult position, because they also know that if a jury does suspect anger, or hostility, or an aggressive act, the jury will not take kindly to that kind of behavior. In fact, in many cases, Defendants will admit to liability, in order to try to avoid the jury from ever hearing that the driver was enraged.

Outside of the Vehicle

Accidents that happen outside of vehicles, such as when someone steps out of a car and attacks another driver, create different problems, because that is often blatant evidence of intentional behavior that is normally excluded from insurance policies.

Still, there may be situations, such as when the enraged driver was working at the time of the road rage, where there may be someone or an entity that can compensate you for your injuries.

Schedule a consultation with our Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian today to see if you can be compensated if you have been injured in any kind of road rage accident.

If you are from out of state, and then find yourself having to bring a lawsuit here in Florida, you may have one of a number of concerns. The good news is, many of these concerns aren’t as bad or difficult, as they may at first seem to be.

Travel, Attendance and Cost

Many people are worried about the travel involved in a lawsuit, and having to attend court-related events in Florida–whether because of work or expenses or kids or all of these, they simply cannot go back and forth between their home state, and Florida, to handle the demands of a lawsuit.

But today, many of the hearings or depositions where your attendance may be required, can be done remotely from where you are. And many injury lawsuits even settle, long before any such event or activity that would require your personal attendance, even happens.

Using a Local Attorney

Many people are also concerned that they can’t use their own local hometown lawyer to handle their case, if that lawyer isn’t licensed here in Florida.

While that is true, your hometown lawyer can get temporarily licensed here in Florida, and work with a Florida personal injury attorney, to co-counsel on your case. This allows you the benefit of the lawyer you’re comfortable with at home, as well as an experienced local attorney here in Florida, who knows Florida law, and the court system.

Strategic Benefits

In some ways, suing in Florida might benefit you more strategically, than suing a negligent Defendant in your own state. Florida jurors understand how people in Florida get injured. For example, jurors in Florida are more likely to understand injuries caused by, in, or around, pools or beaches, than a jury from, say, Montana or Vermont might.

Trying to Discourage You

Many Defendants, when they realize that you have a Florida accident, but you live in another state, will purposefully try to “lowball” you with a settlement offer that is far less than the value or worth of the injury, or less than the compensation that you need.

They often assume that you, because you’re from another state, won’t bother to get a local attorney, or that you will see suing in Florida as being “too difficult.” They are trying to make it sound and seem more difficult, to deter you from moving forward with your claim or lawsuit.

Don’t let them do that–get a local attorney here in Florida, that’s used to working with out of state victims, that can help you in your case.

Schedule a consultation with our Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian today to see if you can be compensated if you were injured in Florida, but live in another state.

Source:

floridabar.org/rules/upl/upl002/

That’s why, in an injury lawsuit, to some extent, we have to project into the future–not just estimating what your future medical expenses or needs may be, but also, calculating how much or to what extent, you will lose wages in the future.

Making Predictions

Future lost wages can be tough to calculate, because we have to predict the future. We need to ask and answer question such as

• Will the effect of injuries prevent you from working until a normal retirement age, and if so, how many years will you lose?
• Will the effect of your injuries prevent you from advancing in your career, and if so, what will the financial effects of that loss be?
• Will you need to be out of work for periods of time for medical treatment and if so, how much wages or money will you potentially lose?

These can often be unknowable questions–even without any injuries, most of us have no idea whether we’ll get promotions or how long we’ll be working or how much we’ll be making, 10, 20, or 30 years into the future.

It gets even more difficult, when we’re combining these predictions with medicine–specifically, what the medical effects of your injuries will be during those time periods.

Nature of Your Work

Of course, the nature of your specific line of work can affect the analysis as well.

Someone in a more physically demanding job, like construction, may be more at risk for future lost wages after an accident, than a more sedentary job. Some jobs, like teaching, may be more physically demanding than you might think. Of course, that’s with physical injuries–if you have a brain or cognitive injury, it may not matter what work you are in, as mental and cognitive injuries affect anybody in any job about the same.

Basis for Calculations

A jury can’t just speculate on what your future lost wages are or may be. There needs to be some concrete formula or evidence, which the jury can base its verdict on.

You also need to take into account opportunistic disease or illness–these are breakdowns in your body that are indirectly caused by the injuries sustained in your accident, but which may not show until years later. For example, if you need future surgeries, surgeries come at the risk of infections. Many other injuries carry an increased risk of early onset of arthritis.

Getting Experts

All of this means  that you may need to get not just medical, but also vocational experts, to testify what someone in your field can expect to make or what promotions may be available to you and at what salary, and then calculate the losses you can expect to have.

Questions about compensation for your injuries after an accident? Schedule a consultation today to discuss it with our Tampa personal injury attorneys at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian.

That’s a major reason to have liability insurance–not just to compensate victims that might be injured, but also, to provide you with an attorney in the event that you are sued.

Denying the Loss is Covered

But often, insurance denies that they have any obligation to insure their insured client (the person or entity that you are suing for compensation for your injuries). That often happens because of exclusions–items in an insurance policy that are specifically excluded from coverage.

If the insurance company doesn’t provide coverage for a loss, then they also would have no obligation to provide an attorney to represent their insured, being sued for an accident that, according to them, isn’t covered under the policy anyway.

Reservation of Rights

Sometimes, the insurance will still provide an attorney to represent their client or insured in court, under what is known as a reservation of rights. A reservation of rights says “we don’t think we cover or insure this loss, but in case we do, we are providing an attorney for our insured anyway.”

Legally, so long as the complaint against the insured party states a claim that would be covered by the policy, the insurance company must provide an attorney to their insured–that’s called the duty to defend.

While the injury case is going on, under the reservation of rights, the insurance company is doing two things that are seemingly opposite: representing their insured against you, the victim, as if there is insurance coverage, but also (often in a separate lawsuit), fighting against their own insured, arguing that the loss or damages are not covered damages under the insurance policy.

What About Actually Paying?

Even if the injury victim wins in court, that doesn’t mean that the insurer for the Defendant has to pay–if they continue to feel that the loss is not covered under the policy, they can wait to pay until there is a determination in court that there is insurance coverage for the loss.

In other words–just because the insurance company hires a lawyer and defends the insured doesn’t mean that any judgment or settlement that is reached will be paid.

Why This Matters to Victims

You may wonder why you should care about any of this, if you are the injured party suing–it’s the Defendant that needs its insurance company to defend and pay, not you, right?

Well, in practice, an insurance company that covers a loss means that if you do win or settle your case, you can be pretty certain that you will be paid. Without it, you may be left to chase people or businesses without assets, to collect on your judgement or settlement.

Questions about the role of insurance in your case? Schedule a consultation with our Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian today to discuss it after your accident or injury.

How Much Does the Jury Compensate You?

So, the question is, if your medical bills are, let’s say for example, $50,000, and insurance has paid $25,000, how much are you owed by the Defendant, assuming the jury finds the Defendant negligent, for those medical expenses?

Do they pay you the full $50,000, regardless of how much any collateral source has paid towards those bills, or do they just owe you the $25,000 that the collateral sources such as insurance, did not pay?

The Old and New Law

It used to be that the jury had to give you the entirety of your medical bills–in this case, the full $50,000–and the jury was prohibited from ever hearing of or finding out that you were paid any amount by insurance. The jury simply had to consider your entire medical bill, without considering how much insurance paid, and how much was still outstanding.

But under the guise of “tort reform” passed by the state in 2023, this rule has changed. Now the jury can hear, and consider, the amount of your medical bills and expenses when considering how much to award you for past medical expenses.

This ends up reducing the total amount of your recovery–if the jury reduces what insurance paid on your behalf for medical bills, the jury award as a whole will be reduced.

Rights of Subrogation

But it isn’t even that simple, because if any collateral source has a subrogation right–that is, they are entitled to be paid back from your verdict the amount they paid towards your medical bills and expenses–then the jury can award you the amount of your medical bills that insurance is going to ask to be paid back.

Same Case Different Verdicts

And the problem is that every source that pays medical bills on your behalf–say, private health insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, or car insurance–has different rules and laws on how much they can ask to be paid back. That practically means that two injury victims with the exact same medical expenses, may be awarded different amounts, depending on what source they used.

If Victim #1 used sources that all can legally ask to be paid back, the jury would award that victim 100% of his or her medical expenses. But if Victim #2 used sources that have no right to ask for repayment, Victim #2’s verdict will be reduced by the amount those sources have paid.

This means that after your trial is over there still may be a lot of hearings, to determine how much of the verdict will be reduced by the collateral source payments.

Your injury trial isn’t over until every issue has been resolved. We can help. Schedule a consultation with our Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian today to discuss your injury case.

Source:

flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2011/0768.76

If it’s the insurance company or the other side, representing the negligent party that caused the accident and your injuries, you might already have some idea that they aren’t on your side.

But when you speak to them (specifically, the insurance adjuster, who represents the insurance company which represents the negligent party), they seem really nice. Helpful. Almost like….they’re on your side. But are they?

Being Friendly

The insurance company is never going to come out and say that it “opposes” you or that it is “the other side.” They may be nice people personally, but their friendliness to you has a goal: to get you either to settle your case, quickly and cheaply, or to discourage you from moving further with your lawsuit at all.

How do you know this? What warning signs will you get that the insurance company is not exactly on your side?

Using Legal Defenses Against You

Insurance companies have lawyers that work with them, and they are trained in legal defenses to injury law. Insurance companies will often tell you about all the rock solid defenses that they have, and how “difficult it will be for you to win,” because of what, on the surface, sound like really good reasons why your case is terrible.

They know you’re not an attorney, and that you don’t have an attorney (yet), and so they are banking on you being intimidated into settling or even dropping your claim after you hear their legal “knowledge.”

Asking for Too Many Medical Records

It is reasonable for insurance companies to ask for your medical records related to the accident. It is, perhaps, reasonable to ask for records from a few years prior to your accident.

But many insurance companies will ask for records from ten years before your accident–or worse, they will ask for a “blanket” medical authorization, allowing them to get any medical record from any medical provider that you saw for any reason, literally, for as far back as they want.

All they are doing is fishing through your medical records, hoping to find something in there to give them a basis to say that your injuries pre-existed the accident.

Quick Settlement Offers

When insurance companies make offers to settle, many victims are happy about that. It sounds like they’re being fair, and offering money to help.

But what they are really doing is trying to get you to “quickly settle” your case. They know you might be in a desperate financial state post-accident, and will use that desperation to dangle money offers to you, hoping you’ll take it.

For example they may say that they will pay for your emergency room bill. What they are not saying is that if you agree to that, the emergency bill will be 100% of everything you ever receive from the negligent driver–you’ve settled your case for just your emergency room bills, and can never go back for additional compensation for your other injuries.

Don’t fall victim to insurance company tactics. Get your own help who is on your side. Schedule a consultation with our Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian today to discuss your injury case.

Source:

investopedia.com/terms/a/adjuster.asp

Aside from a waiting period allowing for the parties to investigate, Florida law also requires that the victim seeking to sue for malpractice hand over information and records, and provide an affidavit from a medical expert that a victim’s claims have merit. The parties also have to attempt to settle the case before it is filed.

A Challenge in Delaware

Florida’s requirements are much like those of many other states, including the state of Delaware, where a challenge to these kinds of medical malpractice presuit requirements was brought up.

These presuit laws and requirements are state laws. But in the Delaware case, the case was filed in federal court. The victim did not do the state required presuit requirements, and the Defendant sought to have the case dismissed on that basis.

The victim, however, made the novel argument that all of these state law requirements did not apply, because their case was filed in federal court, not state court, and only federal courts and federal law could say what was required as a prerequisite to filing a case in federal court–not state law.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Requirements

The case made it all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, which agreed with the victim–in federal court, these kinds of procedural presuit requirements mandated by state laws, don’t apply when a case is filed in federal court, unless or until a requirement is mandated by federal law or the federal courts.

Should You File in Federal Court?

Before you go running to federal court for your malpractice case to try to avoid the presuit requirements, be aware that not every case gets to go to federal court, and you don’t just get to choose whether your case is filed in state or federal court.

To file a case in federal court, the amount in controversy must be over $75,000, which is usually the case in medical malpractice cases, but also, both parties must reside in, or have headquarters in different states. That’s called diversity jurisdiction.

So if you’re just suing your doctor for malpractice, there may not be diversity jurisdiction. But if you’re suing a hospital with offices, facilities, and staff, in multiple states, there may in fact be diversity jurisdiction, allowing you to file your case in federal court.

Of course, federal court has some good things and some bad things, as compared to state court–pros and cons you should discuss with your lawyer. Federal court can require more work and more time. Just avoiding presuit medical malpractice requirements may not make it worth filing a medical malpractice case in federal court.

Have a possible medical malpractice case? Schedule a consultation with our Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian today to discuss it with our malpractice attorneys.

Sources:

fjc.gov/history/work-courts/jurisdiction-federal-courts

scotusblog.com/2026/01/justices-reject-state-limits-on-malpractice-actions-for-cases-in-federal-court/