We represented the mother of a 20 year old young man who lived at home with Mother and little brothers. He was employed as tire mechanic helper at Tire Kingdom. Defendants included a 70 year old insurance sales person who was in course and scope of employment with Life Insurance Company collecting premiums in the neighborhood. The defendant driver stopped at a stop sign and then inexplicably pulled out directly into the path of our client on his motorcycle. The collision was horrific and killed our client immediately. The defendant driver claimed he never saw the motorcycle. Our motorcycle was travelling appx 60mph in 45mph zone. A video surveillance camera at a residence directly in front of the intersection caught the entire crash on video.  Our engineering experts used Photogrammetry to calculate the precise location of the motorcycle when the defendant driver began his left turn. We proved the motorcycle was too close to avoid the fatal collision, even if he were traveling at the speed limit. Under Florida law, his Mother was the only statutory survivor who was allowed to recover and she recovered $1,125,000 in damages. 

In 2013 we tried a Motorcycle vs. Bus case in Duval County. The client was a concrete finisher and father of four young children. While riding home from estimating a job one evening, our client hit a City Bus that turned left in front of him at a traffic light. The collision was captured by three cameras on the bus. The client suffered major life threatening injuries including a torn aorta, broken legs, multiple facial fractures and a Traumatic Brain Injury. He was not wearing a helmet. The Bus company claimed our client was speeding and that trees in the median blocked him from the view of the bus driver as she began her turn on a green light. The bus company blamed our client, the City of Jax, and the Florida Dept of Transportation. We used expert accident reconstruction engineers, video experts and medical experts to prove the fault was mostly on the Bus driver (61%).The jury awarded $2,635,741 in damages for the client, his wife and their children. The jury found our client partially at fault (39%) and found no fault on the City or State as the defense claimed. This case had every complex engineering and medical issue and witness imaginable. There were over 70 witness depositions taken in the case which  lasted over two years.

Our 26-year-old, single client employed at bicycle shop in St. Augustine, Fl. was driving south on I-95 in Duval County, Fl. at 11pm in right outside lane. Defendant trucking company was hauling concrete from temporary concrete batching site off Old St Augustine Road to the pour site on the new construction of SR 9-B/south of I-295. The dump truck hauling the concrete had electrical/mechanical failure and lost all power and lighting coming to a stop in the middle of the right lane. Our client hit the stalled concrete dump truck fully loaded from the rear at 68mph without ever braking. We know this from immediately downloading the onboard computers from both vehicles.  The trucking company was a sub-contractor for large highway construction company. Litigation revealed the horrific condition of dump truck electrical system, no maintenance, no training, no inspections, totally non-DOT compliant.  We learned in deposition testimony that the Construction company was using I-95 as short cut to the pour site when regulations and DOT contract required they use a specific internal construction route keeping trucks off the public roadway. Defense contended truck driver was independent contractor who owned and operated truck independent of their business. They blamed our client for failing to see the disabled dump truck in the roadway. We recovered  $725k for the young man’s father in New York.

 A young single mother of five children traveling in a pickup truck on I-95 south in St. Johns County lost control of her truck, swerved across the traffic lanes and slammed into an unguarded bridge abutment causing the car to flip over landing on the other roadway beneath the overpass killing her. As a single car collision with no witnesses, a deceased driver and two children with no recollection of the collision, Mr. Dunlap was faced with the difficult task of reconstructing the accident to determine what had happened. Accident reconstruction experts along with Florida Highway Patrol Homicide Trooper assisted Mr. Dunlap with computer animated reconstruction from photographs taken at the scene, crush damage to the vehicles and other physical evidence. The investigation revealed the defendant construction company was adding a lane of travel to the area and had removed the metal guard rail approaching the concrete bridge abutment at the overpass of State Road 206 on I-95 south. When the truck went out of control, it should have hit the guard rail and been redirected back onto the roadway. Without the guardrail the fatal collision occurred. Mr. Dunlap filed suit against Ranger Construction Company, a highway contracting agency, alleging negligent removal of the metal guardrail creating an exposed hazard to the motorist and by computer assisted reconstruction was able to prove that had the guardrail remained in place the truck would have bounced off and come to rest in the designated clear zone resulting in no injury or much less injury. After years of litigation the case was settled on a structured settlement basis for each of the five children so that each child receives significant payments several years after reaching age 18. Even though the deceased mother was found at fault for the accident by the State Troopers and no other vehicles were involved, Mr. Dunlap’s experience with highway construction litigation allowed him to evaluate the crash scene, identify the construction defects and be successful in this litigation by obtaining a $530,000 settlement from the highway construction company.