South Florida Personal Injury Blog

Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyer Andrew Alitowski provides legal representation for people who suffer injuries due to another person’s actions. In particular, he represents a number of clients who were injured in automobile accidents. In those cases, the driver of the other vehicle was usually negligent in his driving and caused an accident that seriously injured another person. The most tragic of these cases are wrongful death suits, in which the family or estate of a person killed in a car accident sues the driver.

Although a car accident lawsuit cannot relieve your pain or bring back a deceased family member, monetary damages can improve your quality of life. For instance, you may be able to cover medical bills or support yourself if you can no longer work. The monetary damages won in a wrongful death suit will go toward the support of family left behind, such as a widowed spouse or children. It may also be put toward the medical costs incurred after the car accident, but prior to the death of the family member.

As a Broward car accident attorney, Andrew Alitowski also assists families who seek to sue government entities and businesses for the negligent driving of their employees. If the negligent driver was working during the accident, the business or government agency for whom he works may be financially responsible for the damages he caused.

For example, the city of Fort Lauderdale settled a wrongful death suit related to an automobile accident late last month. In March 2007, Fort Lauderdale police detective Christopher Young-Tem was driving on Sistrunk Boulevard when he hit pedestrian Donald Perry, who was 49. Young-Tem was driving to Lincoln Park to investigate a report of gunshots in the area at the time of the accident. Perry died at the scene due to his grievous injuries. The incident angered Perry’s local community, although the police department determined that Detective Young-Tem did not act wrongly in the events leading to Perry’s death. Detective Young-Tem had been involved in a similar pedestrian auto accident only a month prior to the car accident that killed Perry. In that case, he struck a woman who was crossing I-595 with his police car. She survived the accident and the detective was also cleared of wrongdoing in that accident. The Fort Lauderdale detective did not face criminal charges in either case.

The Fort Lauderdale city commissioners voted to settle the lawsuit with the victim’s family for $65,000 and to avoid a civil trial on the matter. The victim’s family or estate administrator would have agreed to that sum after negotiations with the city.