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Larmoyeux & Bone has been successfully recovering compensation and protecting the financial future of boating accident victims in West Palm Beach for decades.
Our trial lawyers have over 70 years of combined experience winning millions of dollars for victims of personal injury accidents, just like you.
We devote 100% of our practice to helping victims injured due to the negligent, reckless, and intentional actions of others. Here’s a sample of the most common types of personal injury accident claims that we routinely handle:
If you or a loved one has been injured in a boating or other watercraft accident, you need an experienced boating and watercraft attorney. Our firm has been helping victims like you for over 20 years.
Boating-related accidents can be devastating. Victims often sustain agonizing, potentially life-threatening and life-altering physical and emotional injuries; face the prospect of financial ruin; and experience a catastrophic disruption to their entire way of life.
The team of boating and watercraft accident legal professionals at our West Palm Beach law firm understands what you’re going through.
You have questions about how much your claim is worth and how long it’ll take to get a fair settlement. Our experienced board certified trial attorneys will give you straight, simple answers to all your questions.
When you call our accident investigators will help determine if you have a case.
We will begin the investigation, negotiation, mediation, or lawsuit.
Most cases are settled before going to trial. If yours isn’t, we will fight your case in court.
Not Sure If You Have A Claim? If In Doubt, Contact Us
According to U.S. Coast Guard casualty data for 2011-2015, Florida leads
the nation in both boating accidents and boating fatalities.
Source: COMDTPUB P16754.29. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. U.S. Coast Guard. Office of Auxiliary and Boating Safety. 2015 Recreational Boating Statistics. Available at URL: http://uscgboating.org/library/accident-statistics/Recreational-Boating-Statistics-2015.pdf.
Our board certified trial lawyers have decades of experience representing victims who have been injured in all types of boating-related accidents throughout South Florida and the Treasure Coast. No case is too small or too big.
Don’t let injuries sustained in a boating accident capsize your life!
Contact us today and get the compassionate and experienced legal help you need and deserve.
We’ll provide an objective knowledge-driven, experience-based professional assessment of the viability of your boating accident injury claim at no cost to you.
Did you know that multiple parties may be
liable for your injuries and owe you compensation?
We know how to identify all the potential at-fault parties in your case against whom you may have a claim.
You and your loved ones have absolutely nothing to lose and potentially an awful lot to gain by calling us today.
While each personal injury case is unique, most cases typically involve the following basic steps.
Step 1: Determine if there’s a viable claim—after accepting the case, the personal injury lawyer will perform an initial investigation into the plaintiff’s injury to determine whether the facts and circumstances genuinely support a claim for damages.
Step 2: Demand letter—once a good-faith basis for a personal injury claim has been established, plaintiff’s lawyer sends a demand letter notifying the defendant’s insurance company of the claim, including a demand for a specified dollar amount to resolve the matter.
Step 3: Response and negotiation—upon receiving the demand letter, the insurance company will respond in one of three ways: (1) agree with the demand letter and promptly settle, (2) make a counteroffer and negotiate for an amount less than specified in the demand letter, or (3) deny the claim outright and refuse to pay any amount. Negotiating a settlement is the most common response, and most cases are resolved this way.
Step 4: Filing a lawsuit—if the parties can’t reach a settlement, the plaintiff’s lawyer files a lawsuit. During the pre-trial phase, the parties obtain evidence from each other, witnesses, and third parties in a process called “discovery.” The pre-trial phase can take several months or even years.
Step 5: Mediation—nearly all personal injury cases in Florida will be ordered to mediation by the court. Mediation is the process in which a neutral mediator facilitates discussion between the parties in an effort to resolve the case before going to trial. The parties can settle the case at any time, even after a lawsuit has been filed.
Step 6: Trial—if the parties can’t reach a settlement during mediation, the case goes to trial where a jury will generally determine liability and damage awards, if any.
Step 7: Appeal—a party who is unhappy with the final verdict can appeal, but there must be a legal basis for doing so, i.e., some material error that prevented a fair trial. Simply being unhappy with the outcome isn’t sufficient for an appeal.
The laws governing personal injury cases in Florida are extremely complex and highly specialized. To ensure that your legal rights to full and fair compensation are adequately protected, you must have the assistance of an experienced local personal injury lawyer, especially for cases involving particularly complex legal issues such as wrongful death, medical malpractice, and catastrophic injuries.
There are very strict and complicated filing deadlines that must be followed, or your case will not even be allowed to proceed, regardless of the actual merits of your case. Similarly, for many types of personal injury claims, there are numerous legal technicalities and complexities in place that make successfully prosecuting a personal injury claim virtually impossible for anyone other than a highly experienced and knowledgeable personal injury lawyer.
Various business and insurance interests have lobbied lawmakers aggressively over the years to get legislation enacted that often makes it difficult to hold the responsible parties and their insurance companies accountable for victims’ injuries and property damage they cause. This is especially true when victims attempt to take on the at-fault parties and their insurance companies by themselves.
Fortunately, our personal injury lawyers have the experience, knowledge, and resources to successfully navigate the complexities of Florida’s personal injury laws as well as the insurance claims process in order to obtain full and fair compensation for our clients.
We’ll provide an objective knowledge-driven, experience-based professional assessment of the viability of your personal injury claim at no cost to you. You have absolutely nothing to lose and potentially an awful lot to gain by calling us today.
We’ll give you straight, simple answers to all your questions, including medical payment coverage, personal injuries, property damage, and lost income, as well as assist you with completing necessary paperwork and guide you every step of the way through the legal and insurance claims processes.
And we do so with integrity, compassion, and understanding.
Florida Personal Injury Law Is Complex
The laws governing personal injury cases in Florida are extremely complex and highly specialized. To ensure that your legal rights to full and fair compensation are adequately protected, you must have the assistance of an experienced local personal injury lawyer, especially for cases involving particularly complex legal issues such as wrongful death, medical malpractice, and catastrophic injuries.
There are very strict and complicated filing deadlines that must be followed, or your case will not even be allowed to proceed, regardless of the actual merits of your case. Similarly, for many types of personal injury claims, there are numerous legal technicalities and complexities in place that make successfully prosecuting a personal injury claim virtually impossible for anyone other than a highly experienced and knowledgeable personal injury lawyer.
Various business and insurance interests have lobbied lawmakers aggressively over the years to get legislation enacted that often makes it difficult to hold the responsible parties and their insurance companies accountable for victims’ injuries and property damage they cause. This is especially true when victims attempt to take on the at-fault parties and their insurance companies by themselves.
Fortunately, our personal injury lawyers have the experience, knowledge, and resources to successfully navigate the complexities of Florida’s personal injury laws as well as the insurance claims process in order to obtain full and fair compensation for our clients.
Contact us today for a no-cost initial consultation and preliminary case review. Remember, time is not on your side. Each day you delay in seeking legal help is one day closer to you being time barred from ever bringing a case for your injuries.
Chris Larmoyeux and Bill Bone have devoted their over 70 years of combined legal experience to helping personal injury accident victims like you.
They are among the 1% of all lawyers who are Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by The Florida Bar, have been awarded the highest possible rating for Legal Ability and General Ethical Standards by Martindale-Hubbell—the preeminent independent lawyer rating service, and consistently earn annual inclusion in the entirely peer-review lawyer rating service Best Lawyers. And, yes, they’ve won numerous $1 million+ recoveries for victims and their families.
Chris Larmoyeux and Bill Bone are trial lawyers.
Not all personal injury lawyers are trial lawyers. Many personal injury lawyers have never taken a case to trial. There’s an extremely important distinction between lawyers who are ready, willing, and able to go to trial and those who won’t and settle 100% of their cases.
The ability and willingness to take on insurance companies at trial is a critical consideration when choosing a top personal injury lawyer, especially when very serious or catastrophic injuries are involved. When facing a lawyer who will actually litigate the case in court if necessary, insurance companies know that if their pretrial settlement offer is unreasonably low they risk having a jury award a much higher amount at trial. This helps keep settlement offers, for the most part, fair and reasonable.
In contrast, insurance companies are more willing to extend lowball settlement offers to those lawyers who will never go to trial (and there are many of them), and insurance companies know exactly who they are. Trials are expensive, time-consuming, and require high-caliber litigation skills for victory. Many lawyers lack the financial resources, patience, and/or legal ability to take insurance companies to court and win, so they make a career out of settling every single one of their cases.
But is this the type of personal injury lawyer you want and need representing you? Think about it—even if the final settlement offer is objectively and insultingly low, what’s the lawyer going to do? He or she may negotiate a slight increase but still way below full and fair value. Without the legitimate threat of going to trial, the insurance company knows that eventually the offer will be accepted.
This makes the insurance company happy because it saves money, and it makes the lawyer happy because he or she gets a portion of the settlement. It’ll likely even make the injured client happy because a settlement amount is received, but unbeknownst to the client, it’s likely a lot less than if he or she had a personal injury lawyer ready, willing, and able to go to trial.
Chris Larmoyeux and Bill Bone are trial lawyers. They are both experienced litigators who are ready, willing, and able to go to trial to fight for full and fair compensation for their clients.
Don’t Take On Insurance Companies By Yourself
To receive full and fair compensation for your injuries and property damage, you need an experienced personal injury lawyer on your side.
The truth is the likelihood of you receiving full and fair compensation is relatively low if you decide to take on the insurance companies by yourself. There is a maze of incredibly complex legal rules and insurance claims procedures in place that make it very difficult for you to obtain everything to which you are entitled under the law on your own.
Insurance companies are in the business of making as much profit as they can. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but they do this by paying out as little as possible to accident victims and their families. That’s why they sometimes aggressively fight even obviously legitimate and deserving claims. This is true for both victims’ own insurance company as well as those of the at-fault party or parties involved in the accident.
Victims who don’t have an experienced personal injury lawyer representing them are at a tremendous disadvantage. They generally don’t know how to realistically value their claim, how to maximize the amount of any settlement offer, and how best to prove their case. Insurance companies and their lawyers take advantage of this inexperience and lack of knowledge to deny victims’ claim outright or pay a mere fraction of what they would have paid if an experienced personal injury lawyer were representing the victims.
Unfortunately, some insurance companies are notorious for establishing claims procedures and institutional mechanisms that make it as difficult as possible for victims to obtain fair compensation. They have been known to deliberately make the claims process as complex and frustrating as they can in the hopes that victims will feel overwhelmed, give up, and accept lowball settlement offers. This strategy is highly effective with respect to victims who don’t have an experienced personal injury lawyer on their side.
To make the situation even worse, victims are faced with this seemingly impossible task at a time when they are likely at their most vulnerable and desperate point in their life. Even under the best of circumstances, it is virtually impossible for the average person alone to successfully battle insurance companies and their army of lawyers and paid expert witnesses. No matter how obviously deserving of compensation a victim may be, no insurance company is going to simply provide a fair and reasonable settlement offer to the victim merely because he or she deserves it.
Don’t let the insurance companies decide what your claim is worth. And don’t let them bully you into giving up valuable rights or accepting less than what you are entitled to under the law.
Contact us today for a free initial consultation and case evaluation. We have the experience, knowledge, and resources to successfully take on the insurance companies for you.
Yes! We’re here for you 24/7.
Our lawyers personally handle every case they agree to take and treat every client with compassion and understanding. We don’t hand victims off to junior associates or recent law school grads once victims have entrusted their claim and hopes for the future to them.
We understand the enormous trust clients place in them and would never do anything to violate the sanctity of that trust.
We know that the aftermath of a personal injury accident is an incredibly traumatic and stressful time for you. You may be suffering from agonizing, potentially life-threatening and life-altering physical, mental, and emotional injuries; facing the prospect of financial ruin; and experiencing a catastrophic disruption to your way of life.
Your focus should be on your physical, mental, and emotional recovery, not dealing with medical bills and trying to navigate the complex maze of the insurance claims process and fighting for compensation from the at-fault party.
Thankfully, you don’t have to. You focus on healing. We’ll do all the work. We handle the coordination of your medical bills, navigate the insurance claims process, and fight for the compensation you deserve. We keep you updated and informed through the entire process, ensure you have all the information you need to make the necessary decisions, and advise you of any changes or new developments in your case.
We firmly believe that consistent and timely communication with you is an essential part of our representation and critical for your peace of mind.
If You Don’t Need a Lawyer, We’ll Tell You. if We Can Help, We’ll Get Started on Your Claim Immediately.
There are so many West Palm Beach Boating Accident lawyers that it’s nearly impossible for the average person to identify and choose one truly among the area’s top practitioners. It’s true in fact, there are far too many … but it’s equally valid that there aren’t enough really good ones. So how do you identify and choose one of the really good ones?
In order for a boating accident victim to recover compensation, he or she must establish that some other party (or parties) to the accident is legally liable for his or her injuries. Establishing legal liability is complex; an experienced and skilled boating accident attorney is vital to successfully establishing liability (fault). In general, a victim must show:
Insurance companies work hard to deny liability outright, shift as much blame to the victim as possible (see Comparative Negligence discussion), or minimize the severity of injuries. They employ a team of adjusters, lawyers, doctors, and technical experts to help them pay out as little as possible.
It’s extremely difficult for an accident victim alone to obtain full compensation from insurance companies when up against those odds. But having a lawyer experienced in handling boating accident cases on your side helps level the legal playing field and can dramatically improve your likelihood of receiving full and fair compensation.
Therefore, if you’ve been seriously injured in an accident due to someone else’s reckless actions, you need an experienced personal injury lawyer on your side to get the compensation you deserve.
If you or a loved one has been the victim of a boating or other watercraft accident, it is important that you contact a knowledgeable lawyer with experience handling boating accident cases. Boating accidents have the potential of being covered by either Florida law, federal law, or both. Federal maritime laws are frequently very different from state laws covering accidents and civil cases.
Maritime law has its own set of technical rules regarding filing deadlines, pleading requirements, and other procedural matters of which lawyers who do not have experience handling boating accident cases simply may not be aware.
Failing to strictly comply with these technical rules could result in your claim being denied and dismissed regardless of the actual merits of your case. That is why it is crucial to consult with an experienced lawyer who knows which laws actually apply to your case and how best to utilize the facts and applicable laws to recover full compensation for your injuries.
In addition, whether you were injured while boating for pleasure or for work may affect the liability and procedural rules governing your case. For instance, if you suffered injuries while pleasure boating, Florida law likely, but not necessarily, applies to your case. On the other hand, if you were injured while working on navigable waters, your case is likely covered by federal law, specifically the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. Determining which laws are applicable to your case is a complex legal analysis that should be performed by only an experienced board certified trial lawyer with experience handling boating accident cases.
Our experienced West Palm Beach board certified trial lawyers possess the in-depth knowledge to protect your rights, the compassion to serve your needs during this difficult time, and the proven skill to obtain the compensation to which you are entitled.
Contact us today for a no-cost initial consultation and preliminary case review. Time is not on your side. Each day you delay in seeking legal help is one day closer to you being time barred from ever bringing a case for your injuries.
Florida boaters are involved in far more boating accidents than boaters in any other state. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, for the period from 2011 through 2015, there were 3,284 boating accidents and 291 deaths in Florida waters. To put those figures into perspective, California had the second most accidents and deaths during that timeframe with 1,938 and 224 respectively.
The most common types of boating accidents occur when a boat hits:
The Coast Guard lists and tracks the following primary contributing factors of boating accidents and injuries.
Operator error or negligence accounts for the top five contributing factors for boating accidents.
After you’ve been injured in a boating or watercraft-related accident, the insurance company of the at-fault party or parties may contact you with a settlement offer. However, that offer may be much less than you actually deserve and are entitled to in light of the nature and severity of your injuries and the circumstances surrounding the accident. But you have no way of knowing whether it’s a fair offer.
Why? Because in order to make that determination, you need to know past settlement amounts and jury verdicts in cases involving victims of boating accidents similar to yours. Insurance companies use this information in their settlement negotiations. As a result, without having this information yourself, you simply don’t know whether you’re receiving a fair offer.
Fortunately, you don’t have to blindly accept the insurance company’s settlement offer.
We monitor boating accident settlements and jury verdicts, so we know approximately how much your claim is likely worth based on comparable cases and whether any settlement offers from the insurance company are fair and reasonable.
Call us today before you accept a settlement offer. Once you’ve accepted, it’s too late because you can’t sue for a higher amount later even if you discover the settlement amount is much less than your claim is actually worth.
In order for a boating accident victim to recover compensation, he or she must establish that some other party (or parties) to the accident is legally liable for his or her injuries. Establishing legal liability is complex; an experienced and skilled boating accident attorney is vital to successfully establishing liability (fault). In general, a victim must show:
Insurance companies work hard to deny liability outright, shift as much blame to the victim as possible (see Comparative Negligence discussion), or minimize the severity of injuries. They employ a team of adjusters, lawyers, doctors, and technical experts to help them pay out as little as possible.
It’s extremely difficult for an accident victim alone to obtain full compensation from insurance companies when up against those odds. But having a lawyer experienced in handling boating accident cases on your side helps level the legal playing field and can dramatically improve your likelihood of receiving full and fair compensation.
Yes! Florida is a pure comparative negligence state. This means that even if you are partially at-fault for your boating accident injuries, you may still be entitled to compensation. In fact, under pure comparative negligence, you may still be eligible for compensation even if you are deemed to have been at greater fault for the accident than the other party or parties involved.
After a boating accident, fault is determined and apportioned among the parties involved, and how much compensation injured parties can recover is limited by each party’s relative share of fault for causing the accident. As a result, an injured party’s recovery is limited by his or her assigned percentage of fault for causing the accident.
For example, in a boating accident where the injured victim is deemed to have been 30% negligent in contributing to the crash, his or her total damage award will be decreased by 30%. So the maximum amount the victim can receive is 70% of the total monetary recovery. Thus, if the total monetary recovery is $100,000, the victim is entitled to only 70% of that amount or $70,000.
Comparative negligence helps explain why insurance companies work so hard to shift as much blame for an accident as possible to victims. That’s also why a boating accident victim must be extremely careful if he or she decides to talk with insurance companies. Statements made to them can be used to help establish the victim’s share of fault for the accident. No matter how friendly and sympathetic their representatives may seem, they are not looking out for the victim’s best interests.
It’s important for boating accident victims to consult with an experienced attorney before talking with anyone from an insurance company. A board certified trial lawyer has the knowledge and experience to protect victims’ rights when dealing with the insurance companies. In addition, an experienced lawyer knows how best to use the available evidence and which experts are needed, if any, to accurately establish the parties’ relative fault for an accident.
High Damage Awards and Settlement Amounts for Boating Accidents Cases
Naturally, the specific types of damages and amounts that may be awarded depend upon the facts and circumstances of each individual case. There are literally dozens of factors that contribute to the settlement value or jury award amount of an injury claim. As such, what someone you know received or the amount an injured victim claims to have obtained in a law firm’s advertisement will have virtually no bearing on the actual value of your claim.
That is why it is so important to consult with an experienced and knowledgeable boating accident lawyer in order to protect your rights and provide a fact-based, experience-driven assessment of the potential value of your injury or damage claim.
Otherwise, without an objective and reasonable valuation of your case based on an experienced boating accident lawyer’s expert opinion, you could unwittingly accept a settlement offer that is dramatically lower or holdout in vain for an offer that is unrealistically higher than the generally accepted valuation range of your case based on all the facts and circumstances involved. In either scenario, the very real possibility exists that you will not be fairly and fully compensated, if at all, for your injuries, personal property, out-of-pocket expenses, and lost income.
Below is a list of the most common types of compensatory damages awarded in boating cases. As the name implies, compensatory damages are intended to compensate the injured party and help him or her return to the physical, emotional, and financial state he or she was in prior to the injury. They are generally classified as either Noneconomic Damages or Economic Damages.
Noneconomic Damages
Economic Damages
Don’t try to take on the insurance companies by yourself get one of our experienced West Palm Beach board certified trial lawyers on your side and work hard for you. Don’t let the insurance companies decide what your claim is worth. And don’t let them bully you into giving up valuable rights or accepting less than what you are entitled to under the law.
Our lawyers have over 60 years of combined experience helping boating accident victims like you in West Palm Beach and surrounding communities along the Treasure Coast and throughout South Florida, so you can trust our experience, compassion, and results.
We help the injured with no upfront costs and no charge for our lawyers’ services unless we win your case or recover a settlement.
If you don’t need a lawyer, we’ll tell you. If we can help, we’ll get started on your claim immediately with no upfront costs and no lawyer fees unless we recover compensation for you.
Contact us today and get the compassionate and experienced legal help you need and deserve.
Larmoyeux & Bone provides legal services in Palm Beach County Florida including the towns and cities of Boca Raton, Belle Glade, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Greenacres, Hypoluxo, Juno Beach, Jupiter, Lantana, Lake Park, Lake Worth, Loxahatchee, Palm Beach Gardens, Riviera Beach, Royal Palm Beach, Tequesta, West Palm Beach, and Wellington.
