Miami Personal Injury Attorney Blog
In a Miami-Dade jury trial, the jury will very likely want to know the answer to the following question: “Does this defendant have insurance and if so, how much?” The answer is that most defendants in personal injury trials have insurance. But that will never be disclosed in trial because of Florida law. Now, is that entirely fair? We don’t think so. And the law used to be different. But it changed as we discuss below.
In products liability cases, defendants usually include retailers and manufacturers. Those defendants usually have insurance. In medical malpractice cases, the defendant doctors and hospital either have insurance or are self-insured. In premises liability cases, the defendant property owner is almost always have some type of insurance. But the law does not allow for the insurance company to be mentioned in trial.
There is an even more practical reason why it is safe to assume that the defendant in a personal injury trial has insurance. Personal injury attorneys work on a contingency fee meaning they do not get paid a fee unless their client recovers. There can be no recovery unless the defendant has insurance or assets. Most people do not have assets and those who do often hide or transfer those assets so that they are “judgment proof” in the event the jury decides against them. So as a practical matter, it is safe to assume that an overwhelming number of defendants in personal injury trials do in fact have insurance.
You just got your summons for jury duty and your first thought might be “How do I get out of jury duty in Miami?” But if you really think about it, is that the right thing to do? What if you had a personal injury case that needed to be tried before a jury and no one showed up? What if you were the victim of a crime and were relying upon good intelligent jurors to weigh the evidence in your case against the Defendant? Or, even worse, what if you were a wrongly accused Defendant and you were innocent and needed smart jurors to see that?
