Miami Personal Injury Attorney

As a personal injury attorney helping seriously injured victims of crime in apartment complexes and business locations, so-called negligent security cases, Joseph Lipsky knows too well the affect a business owners’ ignorance of a rising crime rate can have the level of security they should have to protect their paying customers and tenants. Now, after a multi-year drop in violent crime, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is reporting that violent crime rose nearly four percent over the last year. The FBI is also reporting a nearly eleven percent rise in the murder rate. This disconcerting rise in crime should be on the forefront of all business and apartment complex owners and operators’ minds.

In Florida, the law requires business and apartment owners and operators to take precautions to protect their business invitees, that is, their paying customers, from crime which is foreseeable. Basically this means, businesses must keep abreast of crime on and around their property; and, depending upon that level of crime over the past couple of years, take reasonable measures to deter and prevent future crime from occurring. One of the most valuable tools for business owners is the FBI crime report, which is based upon actual police reports from every police department across the United States. Also, in Miami and the surrounding communities of Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines and Hollywood, most local police departments have readily accessible on-line instant crime data.

While a responsible business owner will regularly monitor the crime reports, so as to change the level of protection they provide for their customers, too many businesses bury their head in the sand and purposefully ignore the crime report and their customers’ safety. By reviewing nearby crime, a business owner who is concerned about the customers may justifiably install additional lighting, add video surveillance cameras, locked gates, fencing and armed guards. Florida law does not require every business to enact all of the various types of crime prevention techniques, but only those which are reasonable for their property based upon the history of crime on and around their premises. Also, the law does not require a small mom and pop type business to have the same level of crime prevention as a large apartment complex, such as a government subsidized section 8 type property, or a large gas station. Larger businesses generally have more resources to provide a higher level of crime deterrence than small less profitable ones.

As a parent of young children, Miami Personal Injury Attorney Joseph Lipsky knows too well that for too many children, play time on school and park playgrounds don’t always end with smiling faces. Unfortunately, personal injuries, mainly head injuries, from playground falls are rapidly increasing across the United States.

While many schools and parks have taken necessary steps to reduce so-called accidental traumatic head injuries, over the past decade, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the number of children under the age of 14 who have been seen at hospital ERs due to acute head injuries has risen to over twenty thousand annually. Generally parents focus on the number of head injuries associated with sports, such as football, but head injuries, including concussions, caused by falls on playgrounds are a growing epidemic which needs to be better addressed. The number of head injury visits to emergency rooms rose by almost fifty percent over the past 3 years. Boys made up nearly sixty percent of those emergency room visits. Nearly one half of the children seen at ERs were between five and nine years old.

Although some of the increase in head injury emergency room care may be attributed to parents becoming more aware of the dangers presented by head trauma, given the increased publicity about professional football plays; there can be no doubt that falls from monkey bars and swings play an increasing role in playground concussions. Not surprisingly, almost sixty percent of all children and adolescent head injuries happen on school playgrounds. Parents need to remain vigilant of the symptoms of brain injury children may display after suffering head trauma.

Articles Posted in Miami Personal Injury Attorney

Businesses Need to Have Proper Secuirty Due to Rise in Violent Crime

Preventing Injuries to Children on Playgrounds