Tracy and Phillip spent their Saturday meeting with individuals in need of legal assistance and offering their skills and training to those who might not otherwise have access to legal advice.

Tracy said, “The annual free legal clinic is the perfect opportunity for paralegals to assist in the effort to provide much needed legal services to low-income people in our community. It is very rewarding to use my skills and experience to make a difference in people’s lives.”

Tracy states that the highlight of her 23 years as a paralegal is when clients express gratitude for a job well done. “The people who come to the clinic for help are always very grateful,” said Tracy, “which makes my time at clinics like this one such a gratifying experience.”

Tracy is a member of the Northwest Florida Paralegal Association. When asked what is one tip she would give to other, or future, paralegals Tracy said, “Always take the time to really listen.”

Taylor, Warren & Weidner is committed to pro bono legal services and making a difference in the lives of the people in the Pensacola Bay Area.  As a firm, no less than 150 hours of pro bono legal services are offered every year through events such as the South Santa Rosa FREE Legal Clinic and others like it.

When asked why they think the courts in Florida are in jeopardy, the students almost immediately responded with the correct answer: lack of money. The event ended with a game show format competition among student teams moderated by Phillip. The game show required the students to correctly answer legal questions that affect young adults, such as fake identification, underage drinking, capacity to sue, age of majority rights, among others.

This year’s theme of “No Courts, No Justice, No Freedom” underscores the importance of the courts and their role in ensuring access to justice for all Americans.

In 1958 President Dwight Eisenhower established Law Day to mark the nation’s commitment to the rule of law. In 1961, Congress issued a joint resolution designating May 1 as the official date celebrating Law Day. Every president since Eisenhower has issued a Law Day proclamation.

Go to http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/images/public_education/2012-lawday-proclamation.pdf to read President Obama’s Law Day proclamation.

To learn more about Law Day and other events, visit www.lawday.org.

“All of us must have and protect our right and our freedom to use courtrooms when we need to. That courtroom must be open to protect families. That courtroom must be open to validate and protect contracts for business. That courtroom must be open to keep the wheels of justice turning. That courtroom must be open to defend our individual rights to prove again and again that we continue to be a free society. All of that takes more money … not less and less money for our courts.”

– American Bar Association President Wm. T. (Bill) Robinson III

At Taylor, Warren & Weidner, P.A., we know exactly what to do when insurance companies place families in insurance claim limbo.  We understand that when a family has lost their home that timely payment of a claim is essential. Floridalaw provides homeowners rights when insurance companies place families in insurance claim limbo.  The insurance company’s failure to timely pay or deny a claim causes a family to incur more losses.   

Taylor, Warren & Weidner, P.A., recently received a call from a family in Pensacola that lost their home in a fire.  This family had been in insurance claim limbo for more than 4 months.  They were frustrated, feeling hopeless, and running out of money for rent to take care of their temporary living arrangement.  Taylor, Warren & Weidner, P.A. immediately moved into action.  The insurance company not only paid the claim in full it paid additional damages.  The insurance company also paid the family’s attorney’s fees, costs, and interest on the claim for the delay.  We are happy to report that the family now has the funds needed to rebuild their home.  They also can afford to put a temporary roof over their head while their new home is being built.  Today, this family is working on choosing paint colors and picking out new furnishings instead of worrying about how they will pay rent or put food on the table.

Florida Governor Rick Scott declared victory over the new changes to Florida’s no-fault car insurance law or Personal Injury Protection (PIP) Insurance.  This law is a significant modification of the current law which has been in place in Florida since 1972.  The original purpose of the PIP law was to ensure that people who were involved in a car accident were able to quickly receive medical care. This law requires every driver in Florida to purchase $10,000 in PIP benefits.  These benefits are not paid directly to accident victims.  They can only be used to pay others for service rendered for medical care, lost wages, or funeral expenses arising from the car accident.

The new law which takes effect July 1, 2012, requires a victim of a car accident to obtain treatment within 14 days of the accident or they will not be able to use their PIP benefits at all.  The new law requires you to pay for the full $10,000.00 worth of  insurance but you will be limited to only 25% of  what you paid for unless a doctor states you have a medical emergency.  Medical emergencies typically mean that unless immediate care is provided, you will likely die from your injuries or you will lose a limb or important bodily function.  

 The most frequent injuries caused by car accidents result in life long limitations that prevent or inhibit every day activities.  However, most of these injuries do not meet the definition of medical emergency.  Statistically speaking, if you are injured in a car accident, you will most likely not sustain a medical emergency–although you will be injured.  The result of this new law is that most people will only be able to use ¼ of the insurance you are required to purchase in order to legally drive in Florida.  However, you will be required to pay for 100% of the benefits.

Pro-insurance company legislators along with Rick Scott, claim that this major overhaul was needed to combat insurance fraud.  These individuals argue that the cost of PIP insurance has sky rocketed due to staged accidents in Miami and Tampa.  They do not identify how many of these staged accidents have occurred or how they know an accident has been staged.  They just claim that it is costing the insurance industry too much money.  

Prior to this major overhaul, the police could already easily arrest someone suspected of staging a car accident.  However, there is no explanation why these alleged Miami and Tampa perpetrators have not been arrested and prosecuted.  Instead, the proponents of this new law argue that all drivers in Florida must have their insurance benefits reduced in order to fight this problem. Despite their claims that staged accidents are rampant and causing a crisis inFlorida, legislators did not think it was rampant enough to actually fund the strike force established to fight the fraud. 

The law makers who voted on this bill state that changes to the law “might” result in reduced premiums forFlorida drivers. Rate reductions are “anticipated and estimated.”  However, there is no guarantee that rates will go down and there is no requirement that the insurance companies reduce their rates.  At worst, the insurance industry will have to explain why rates have not reduced over time without any real enforcement mechanism.  

 However, we do know that most car accidents resulting in injury will only require the insurance company to pay ¼ of the benefits purchased by the victim.  We do know that these changes will make it harder for people with legitimate injuries to obtain medical care.  We do know that this new law will save the insurance companies billons of dollars which “might” result in a reduction in your premiums.  Essentially, the insurance industry was able to get a law passed by “our” elected officials which continues to force you to buy PIP insurance from the insurance industry but allows the insurance companies, for the most part, to only pay out 25% of what you purchased.

Florida regulates how much Citizens Property Insurance Corporation may charge you for insurance.  Several lawsuits allege that Citizens has a sly new way of raising your rates for homeowners insurance while bypassing the regulators.  The amount of money Citizens is allowed to charge you is based on the amount it would cost to replace your home if it were totally destroyed.  The more it costs to replace your home, the more Citizens can collect from you.  This would be fair if the numbers Citizens used to calculate the cost to replace your home were accurate. This may not be the case.

A class action lawsuit claims Citizens is using computer software that has been unfairly manipulated. Homeowners claim that this software unfairly inflates the cost to replace a home so that Citizens can charge more money.  This results in Citizens charging a higher premium and making property insurance more difficult to afford.

In the past, Citizens relied on real estate appraisers or building contractors to determine how much it would cost to replace your home if were lost due to a fire, tornado, or hurricane.  If it were estimated that the cost to replace your home is $50,000.00; you would only be required to carry $50,000.00 worth of insurance coverage. You then would only have to pay for $50,000 worth of coverage.

Citizens is now using its new computer software to determine the cost of replacing a home.   Using the previous example, a homeowner carrying $50,000.00 in Citizens’ insurance coverage may discover that Citizens’ new computer software now thinks the cost to replace the same home is $100,000.00.  This new software just allowed Citizens to double the cost of your homeowner’s insurance.

How is it that the value of our homes is declining in every market except for the insurance market? Insuring your home in Florida is already expensive enough without insurance companies manipulating the system.  It will be interesting to see how the Court considers the practices of other companies such as Universal, Frontline, State Farm, and Liberty Mutual in making a decision about the allegations against Citizens Property Insurance Corporation.  We will keep you updated about how this affects you if you are a Citizens Property Insurance Corporation policy holder.

The Mississippi Supreme Court did not allow Nationwide to use the ACC loop-hole to withhold benefits from this family.  The Court stated that a jury, not Nationwide, gets to decide what damage was caused by wind before the flooding.  More importantly, Nationwide will be required to compensate the family for wind damage like it agreed to do before the storm.  This ruling will finally allow Katrina victims in the State of Mississippi to obtain fair compensation.

Yesterday I met with a client to go over his settlement disbursement.  A settlement disbursement is the client’s opportunity to learn how much compensation he will take home after deductions for fees, legal costs, and related medical bills.  At the end of our meeting, my client said something I hear fairly consistently.  He said that after paying the firm’s fees and costs and all of his medical bills, he was taking home over 10 times (10 x) more money than what the auto insurance company offered him before he hired a lawyer. 

Often, injury victims are told not to hire a lawyer.  They are told hiring a lawyer is not worth it because attorneys are too expensive; or, they are told that if they hire a lawyer, they will end up with less money than what the insurance company would pay without one.  This advice usually comes from the insurance companies themselves. 

In this case, my client was his hit from behind by another car insured by State Farm Auto Insurance.  After State Farm obtained my client’s medical records, a State Farm claims adjuster offered him a nominal amount of money.  This client was so offended by State Farm’s offer; he hired Taylor, Warren & Weidner, P.A. to handle his car accident case for him.  Had State Farm truly acted like a good neighbor, my firm would never have had the pleasure of representing this individual. 

At the end of the day, State Farm agreed to fairly compensate my client.  They agreed to an amount which, after everything was paid, allowed my client to walk away with 10 times what State Farm had initially offered.  By no means was this the largest settlement our firm has every seen.  However, to our client the settlement was just enough to rebalance the scales of justice and fairness  because he was finally  “treated like a good neighbor,” –only after he hired Taylor, Warren & Weidner, P.A.   So the answer to the question is yes, hiring a lawyer to handle your car accident case is worth it.

In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a similar case out of West Virginia and ruled that a judge who would not step down, even though he had received $3 million dollars in campaign donations from the defendant, had created a “probability of actual bias.”  It seems likely that the Illinois Supreme Court will follow this same line of reasoning, and we will continue to follow this case to see how the Illinois Supreme Court deals with the allegations against State Farm.

Taylor, Warren & Weidner, P.A. took Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Company to court for refusing to pay a claim it had promised to do so in the policy it sold to the homeowners.  Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Company refused to pay for a home that burnt down after a fire which left a family of six out on the street.  The jury agreed with the family and ordered Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Company to pay for the damages as it had promised to do when the homeowners purchased the policy of coverage.

The verdict justly compensated the family for the losses.  However, this justice took over eight years of costly litigation.  Based on this delay and the costs of the litigation, which the family needlessly had to endure, Taylor, Warren & Weidner, P.A. asked the Court for additional compensation.  The Court agreed and awarded the family $132,793.07 in attorney’s fees and costs and $73,540.82 as compensation for the delays.  These funds were in addition to the money the family was awarded by the jury to rebuild their house.

This family is a perfect example of how resolve and determination can help level the playing field between a big insurance company and an individual. Some people choose to forego legal representation because they do not believe they can afford a lawyer.  This is not always the case.   In these economic times, you cannot afford not to hire a lawyer.  The best chance you have of receiving full and fair compensation is to consult with a lawyer as soon as possible.  Contact us today to discuss your rights without any obligation, fee, or cost unless you retain us and we make a recovery on your behalf.