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An appellate court in Florida recently issued a written opinion in favor of the defendant in a fatal Florida accident case which took the life of the plaintiff’s wife who was pregnant. The major bone of contention was whether the accident was reasonably foreseeable and the defendant hotel should have erected structures to prevent such a terrible accident.

The court concluded that the hotel had no duty to prevent that type of accident as it had never happened before and the accident was not foreseeable given the facts that the hotel is a whole 15 feet away and there are a 3-inch curb, sidewalk, wall of bushes, a palm tree and a utility pole in between the road and the cabana of the hotel in which the plaintiff’s wife was killed. So the case was dismissed.

Prior to the unfortunate occurrence, the plaintiff and his pregnant wife were sitting under the hotel’s cabana while staying in the hotel. An obviously drunk driver lost control of her vehicle, jumped the curb and sidewalk and crashed into the cabana where the plaintiff and his wife were sitting. The plaintiff was lucky to have sustained only a minor injury while his wife lost her life.

The plaintiff later filed a personal injury lawsuit against both the driver of the driver and the hotel through his Florida personal injury attorney. His argument was that since vehicles traveling along the road get to face the cabana at some point along the road, the accident was foreseeable and the hotel should have made extra effort to prevent that kind of accident.

He also had to hire an engineer to testify in the case. However, naturally, the defendants will not fold their arms, they also defend themselves. Although they put up a good defensive argument that such accidents have never occurred prior to that one and so, it was not reasonable foreseeable, the court found them 15 percent guilty and the drunk driver was also found 85 percent guilty. So, the hotel was asked to pay an amount that is more than $3.5 million. The hotel filed an appeal and it paid off.

Despite the plaintiff’s Florida injury attorney’s efforts, the appellate court concluded that the accident was not foreseeable and the hotel had no duty to erect more structures to prevent it. So, the case was struck out. This underscores the importance of a car accident lawyer in such a case.

Even though the auto accident lawyer was able to get the plaintiff some compensation in the first case, it is possible that a more experienced car accident lawyer would have gotten another victory in the appellate court. If you or someone close to you has been injured in a Florida car accident, you need an experienced Florida auto accident lawyer for you to get appropriate financial compensation.