Recent Personal Injury Cases
Mobile, Alabama & Pensacola, Florida
Woman scalded in apartment shower: Failure to maintain water heater: Permanent disfigurement: Settlement.
Moorer v. JRS Management, Inc., Al., Mobile Co. Cir., No. CV 2008-900060, June 16, 2009.
Moorer, 23, was a tenant in an apartment complex managed by defendant. Moorer suffers from epileptic seizures. She had a seizure while taking a shower at her apartment, lost consciousness, and was severely burned by scalding water. The hot-water heater supplying her shower with water was set at a temperature of approximately 137°, when a maximum of 120° is the recommended safety standard. The extensive burns left Moorer permanently disfigured. She incurred approximately $130,400 in medical expenses, which were paid by Medicaid. She made no claim for lost earnings.
Moorer sued JRS, alleging that it had failed to maintain her apartment in a reasonably safe condition. JRS moved for summary judgment, contending that it had not breached any duty it owed to Moorer under Alabama landlord-tenant law. The trial court agreed, and granted summary judgment.
Moorer moved to vacate the summary judgment. She argued that JRS had adopted a company policy of maintaining the apartment complex’s hot water heaters at a safe temperature, and thereby voluntarily assumed a duty of reasonable care which took the case outside the narrow duties owed by a landlord to a tenant under Alabama law. Moorer argued that JRS owed her a duty of reasonable care that was governed by traditional negligence principles. The trial court agreed, vacated the summary judgment, and set the case for trial. JRS then contended that Moorer was contributorily negligent.
The parties settled at mediation for $750,000.
Plaintiff’s experts were Arnold Luterman, burn surgeon, Mobile, Al.; Gerald Sobczak, property management standard of care, Fond du Lac, Wi; and Jeffery Hautanen, forensic engineer, Kingwood, Tx.
Plaintiff’s Counsel
Richard H. Taylor, Mobile, Al.
W. Lloyd Copeland, Mobile, Al.
PENSACOLA FL- Only a few short years ago.... he owned one of the top mortgage brokerage firms in Pensacola.
But when the real estate market crashed.... so did Erik Adams's world.
He now owes people millions of dollars and is the subject of a state and federal fraud investigation.
When Hurricane Ivan ravaged the Pensacola area in September of 2004.... it left a lot of destruction in its wake.
But it also created opportunity.
"It's going to be a better beach here in the near future....."
This was Erik Adams just three weeks after Ivan.... talking to Channel Three News about the future of beach real estate.
It's clear he believed what he was saying.
Over the next few years, Adams bought condominiums up and down Perdido Key.
Some of them are directly in his name.
There are other units that are in 3rd party names, where he was a guarantor.
Adams guaranteed those loans through his company, Pensacola Guarantee Mortgage.
He purchased or guaranteed loans for four units at the Indigo Towers on Perdido Key Drive.
Two of the units.... were top floor penthouses.... that cost over a million dollars.
I think at the top of the market, everybody was a genius... they were contracting on pre-sale contracts... flipping them before they had to close, making quick money.
But when the market crashed.... and no one was buying... Adams was left with millions of dollars in loans, he couldn't pay.
He's now facing foreclosures on more than a dozen condominiums... And left a number of condominium owners.... out in the cold.
Charles Liberis represents the owners association at Indigo.... and says Adams has already failed to pay close to 100 thousand dollars in association fees.
Any time a unit owner doesn't make his assessment, his share of the assessment falls back on the remaining unit owners so.... if you've got a 100 unit condominium project, and there are 20 units that aren't paying... the other 80 unit members have to pick up an additional 20 percent.
But attorney Joe Zarzaur says foreclosures and unpaid assessments are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Erik Adams.
It probably started off as a legitimate situation, and then it slowly eroded... sort of like the Madoff thing, where he was robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Zarzaur represents Norman and Harriet Winger... Who accuse Adams of defrauding them and others, through a company he created called Quinn Holding.
They would pay an upfront chunk, usually between 200 and 400 thousand dollars.... he would guarantee through his company as an income stream... for a period of years.... 2 to 5 years... and then at the end of the 2 to 5 year period... he would return in full, the money that was paid to him.
Adams claimed the investments were safe, because the money was going into his numerous development projects.
In fact, in their lawsuit... The Wingers' claim Adams told them.... "there is no risk with this investment. My own mother is invested in the project. Why have your money sit in a bank making 2 percent, when it can make a guaranteed 10 to 12 percent with me?"
Now the unique position that Mr. Adams was in, was... he was privy to people's financial condition.... because he was doing their mortgage for their residential transactions.
The Wingers invested 200 thousand dollars... Of the equity in their Orange Beach condominium... Which was most of their life savings.
They lost it all.
The Wingers will likely never see that money, but they may get to see Erik Adams behind bars.
Channel Three News has confirmed that Adams is the subject of a multi-million dollar mortgage fraud investigation by the Florida Office of Financial Regulation and the Secret Service.
But it's clear Adams knows he's under investigation.
He's hired a Miami criminal defense attorney, who specializes in federal and international law.
That attorney's name is Frank Rubino. Mr. Rubino represented Manuel Noriega, and a bunch of other high-profile white collar criminal defendants in the past.
Several people I talked to for this story say the Secret Service has told them they're close to issuing an indictment.
If that's true.... Erik Adams will have no choice but to answer for his actions... Soon.
On top of all of that, the Internal Revenue Service has also filed two federal tax liens against Erik Adams, one for 2005 and another for 2006.
They total more than one-point-seven million dollars.
Toomey family files lawsuit against General Motors, City of Prichard and Mobile County.
One year after a Satsuma teenager was paralyzed in a car crash, his family has filed a $10 million lawsuit. The suit blames General Motors, Mobile County and the City of Prichard for the accident that seriously injured Joseph Toomey.
Toomey, who was 16 at the time, was driving to
pick up his sister from gymnastics when he crashed on Kushla McLeod Road
in November 2007. The teen's attorney, Richard Taylor, says an upside sign
in the curve of the road contributed to the accident.
Neighbors tell News Five the sign has been broken since Hurricane Katrina,
and despite numerous complaints the sign has never been fixed. "I've told
them probably 25 times," says Charles Williams who lives on Kushla McLeod
Road. "They keep saying they'll fix it."
News Five contacted Mayor Ron Davis' office about the sign Tuesday, and city crews fixed it within hours, but a spokesperson for city denied any fault in the accident. LaToya Veal says Prichard officials offer condolences to the family but believe speed caused the crash. Toomey's attorneys say the teen was not speeding. The lawsuit also points a finger at General Motors, the manufacturer who built Toomey's 1999 GMC Jimmy. The suit claims the seatbelt and roof of the vehicle were not designed to withstand a roll over crash. Taylor says the $10 million price tag on the lawsuit is intended to cover the cost of a life-long care plan for the teenager.
General Motors acknowledged receiving the lawsuit, but a spokesperson for the company tells News Five they are not prepared to comment. Mobile County Commissioner Steve Nodine also declined to comment, saying the county does not discuss pending litigation.
Smoke Alarm Lawsuit in Alabama, Florida & Mississippi
(MOBILE, Ala.) Aug. 14 -- The family of a little boy
killed in a house fire says their landlord and the smoke
detector company are to blame. The family of Duke
Williams, 11, filed a civil lawsuit Thursday. Duke died
this past May in his family's Chickasaw home. The
family says known problems with wiring and a bad
smoke detector caused Duke's death.
The last words Kennard Williams ever heard from his son are hard to live with: "Daddy, can you please help me? Daddy help me. Help me!"
But the flames were too intense, Kennard couldn't save Duke.
The family says months leading up to the fire, they noticed electrical problems with house.
"In the living room where I'd turn the light on, it'd spark fire. Every time I'd turn it on it'd spark fire," Kennard Williams said.
An inspection report from the Prichard Housing Authority shows known electrical hazards in virtually every room of the house. In the report obtained by NBC 15 News, it states those hazards were supposed to be fixed by the property management company, Keith Realty.
"They said they were going to send someone, send someone, send someone. It'd been three or four months, they never sent no one," Williams said.
"There were just exposed electrical wires inside the walls, which is a blatant electrical code violation," Attorney Richard Taylor said.
The family's attorney says if these issues had been fixed, and if a proper smoke detector had been installed, then Duke would still be alive. He says by filing a lawsuit and forcing companies to make change, hopefully no other father will have to live a son's painful final words.
"I just don't want this to happen with another family," Williams said.
The family's attorney says they just had a basic ionization technology smoke alarm installed, which is slower at detecting smoldering fires. The attorney says they should have also had a photoelectric sensor.
Mobile Fire-Rescue says there has been a long debate about which type of technology is better. Mobile Fire-Rescue says what's really more important is that you have a newer alarm and change the batteries twice a year. We contacted all of the companies named in the suit. No one returned our calls.
If you have been injured, or a loved one was killed, in an accident that resulted from a defective product or the negligence, recklessness, or violence of another, contact an Alabama personal injury lawyer at Taylor Martino Zarzaur for a free initial consultation to review your case.
Taylor Martino Zarzaur serves clients along the entire Gulf Coast, including Mobile, Pensacola, Montgomery, Orange Beach, Gulf Shores and Baldwin County, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.
