Practice Area
Larmoyeux & Bone has been successfully recovering compensation and protecting the financial future of Slip and Fall 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 claims that we routinely handle:
When you’ve been injured in a slip and fall accident, you need an experienced West Palm Beach board certified trial lawyer—our firm has been helping victims like you for over 20 years.
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 slip and fall accident 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 board certified trial lawyers are experienced in handling premises liability cases and will 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.
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
The term ‘slip and fall’ accident generally refers to a variety of accident scenarios where a person loses his or her footing, falls, and is injured on someone else’s property. Slip and fall accidents are a subcategory of the broader category of cases referred to as ‘premises liability.’ They typically occur on either residential or business property owned or maintained by someone else.
Common slip and fall scenarios include:
Slip and fall claims are often more complicated than it would appear to the average person. Under Florida premises liability law, it’s not enough to show that there was a hazardous condition which caused an accident resulting in injuries. An accident victim must also prove that the party responsible for maintaining the premises knew or should have known about the hazardous condition, which is not an easy task.
Our board certified trial lawyers have experience handling slip and fall accident cases and know how to effectively investigate, prepare, and present every type of injury claim from the routine to the most complex cases.
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 Slip and Fall Accidents 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?
Personal injury accidents generally occur because one or more parties involved were negligent. Florida law imposes a duty of care on people engaged in certain activities that require them to exercise due caution and ordinary and reasonable care to ensure the safety of others.
For example, Florida law imposes a duty of care on all drivers of motor vehicles that require them to exercise due caution and ordinary and reasonable care to ensure the safety of others sharing the roads. A driver is negligent when they fail to act with proper respect, breaching the duty of care and causing injury to others.
For an accident victim to recover compensation, they bear the burden of proof to establish that the other party or parties involved in the accident are legally liable for their injuries. Establishing legal liability is often highly complex. In general, a victim must show:
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.
The unfortunate reality is fair and reasonable compensation to help victims become whole again, i.e., placed in approximately the same physical, mental, and financial state as before the accident resulting in injuries and loss through financial compensation, is not simply given to victims automatically based on justice and fairness. In fact, insurance companies often aggressively fight even obviously legitimate claims.
The fact is insurance companies make money by denying claims and paying out as little as possible. Victims are forced to take the initiative and proactively seek out and fight for fair and reasonable compensation within a system that is strategically stacked against them.
This involves going up against property owners, their insurance companies, and a variety of other sophisticated parties all motivated to pay as little compensation as possible, regardless of the severity of injuries to victims or how irresponsible the behavior of the property owner may be.
Insurance claims procedures often make it very difficult for victims to obtain fair compensation. In fact, the claims process can be so complex and frustrating that some victims feel overwhelmed, give up, and accept lowball settlement offers. This strategy is effective with victims who don’t have an experienced lawyer on their side.
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.
There is no charge for our professional case evaluation, so contact us today worry-free to begin the process of preserving your rights, obtaining fair and reasonable compensation, and holding the property owner responsible for your suffering accountable for his or her actions.
We have the experience, expertise, and resources to successfully take on property owners and their insurance companies.
We’ll provide an objective knowledge-driven, experience-based professional assessment of the viability of your slip and fall injury claim at no cost to you.
Did you know that parties other than the owner or operator of the premises where the
injury occurred may also 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.
Yes! Florida follows the doctrine of modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar rule. F.S. § 768.81. This is a fault and damages allocation system. Florida law uses the term “comparative fault” rather than the more commonly used “comparative negligence.”
Under this system, fault is determined and apportioned among the parties involved (plaintiff and all defendants), and how much compensation the plaintiff can recover is limited by his or her relative share of fault for causing the accident that resulted in the injury. As a result, the plaintiff’s recovery is limited by his or her assigned percentage of fault. The 51% bar rule means that if the plaintiff’s allocated percentage of fault is 51% or greater, he or she is completely barred from recovering any damages. Plaintiffs in Florida must be 50% or less at fault for the accident that resulted in their injuries in order to recover damages.
For example, assume a plaintiff is determined to be 50% at fault, and the damage award is $100,000. The amount to which the plaintiff is entitled is $50,000 because the plaintiff’s allocated percentage share of fault, i.e., 50% or $50,000, is deducted from the total damage award. If the plaintiff were determined to be 51% at fault, he or she would by completely barred from recovering any damages because Florida applies the 51% bar rule. Thus, if the plaintiff is deemed 50% or less at fault for the accident, he or she is eligible to recover damages proportional to the amount the plaintiff is deemed not to be “at fault.” However, if the plaintiff is deemed 51% or more at fault for the accident, he or she is not eligible to recover any damages at all.
This law applies to all negligence actions but not to medical negligence claims.
High Damage Awards and Settlement Amounts for Slip and Fall Accidents Cases
Damage awards in cases involving personal injury can be quite substantial, especially when the victims’ injuries are caused by the reckless or other particularly egregious behavior of the at-fault party. These cases are generally described as ‘enhanced value’ cases. They often implicate a legal concept commonly referred to as ‘aggravated negligence,’ which can lead to much higher damage awards and settlement amounts for victims than accidents involving ordinary negligence.
Virtually all accidents resulting in personal injury are the result of negligence by at least one of the parties involved. For example, when a driver rear-ends the vehicle in front because the driver was following too closely, his or her negligence was the cause of the accident. But the driver’s behavior wasn’t an egregious and wanton disregard for the safety and welfare of others. It’s an example of what’s referred to as ‘ordinary negligence.’
In contrast, for example, in a situation where a driver is traveling 20+ mph over the speed limit, weaving in and out of traffic and cutting off other drivers in the process, passing other vehicles on the shoulder of the road, and eventually causes a serious crash, the driver’s behavior will likely be characterized as reckless. As such, the degree of negligence involved will also likely be classified as ‘aggravated,’ meaning the damage award or settlement amount for the victims will likely be much higher than if the driver had been guilty of ordinary negligence.
Simply put, cases involving aggravated negligence will generally result in a sizable damage award or settlement amount. Our personal injury lawyers have been successfully handling aggravated negligence cases on behalf of clients for decades. We have the experience and knowledge to help you with any type of personal injury claim, including those involving aggravated negligence.
Damages Awarded Depend on the Facts of the Case
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 a personal 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 lawyer who focuses on personal injury cases in order to protect your rights and provide a fact-based, experience-driven assessment of the potential value of your injury claim.
Otherwise, without an objective and reasonable valuation of your case based on an experienced personal injury 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 personal injury 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
Punitive Damages
In some limited personal injury accident cases, punitive damages may also be recovered in addition to any compensatory damages. This type of damage award is generally available only when the offender’s conduct is especially reprehensible and reckless. Punitive damages are typically available only when the offender acted with malice, willfulness, moral turpitude, or reckless indifference for the safety and welfare of others. That is, punitive damages are not available in cases involving only simple negligence, which is present in virtually every personal injury accident case. The offender’s behavior must go beyond that of simple negligence before punitive damages are even a possibility.
Some examples of behavior that can potentially lead to punitive damages include scenarios in which the offender:
The primary purpose of punitive damages is not to compensate the victim for any actual economic loss; rather, it is to punish and deter the offender’s particularly heinous behavior. Although punitive damages are intended to punish the offender, their purpose is not to bankrupt him or her. The offender’s financial situation is taken into consideration when determining the amount of punitive damages. Under Florida law, for most personal injury cases, punitive damages are capped at either three times the amount of compensatory damages or $500,000, whichever is greater.
It’s important for victims to understand that simply because punitive damages may be available to them in light of the facts involved they are not awarded automatically. Victims must specifically plead (or request) and prove entitlement to them. If you’ve been seriously injured in an accident due to someone else’s reckless actions, you need to have an experienced personal injury lawyer on your side, so you receive everything to which you are entitled under the law.
Could You Still Have a Claim for Compensation Even if You Were Partially At-Fault?
Yes! Florida is a pure comparative negligence state. This means that after a slip and fall 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.
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 incident than the property owner.
For example, in a slip and fall accident where the injured party is deemed to have been 30% negligent in contributing to the accident, his or her total damage award will be decreased by 30%. So the maximum amount the injured party can receive is 70% of the total monetary recovery. Thus, if the total monetary recovery is $100,000, the injured party 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 slip and fall accident victims must be extremely careful if they decide to talk with insurance companies. Statements made to them can be used to help establish victims’ share of fault for the accident. No matter how friendly and sympathetic their representatives may seem, they are not looking out for victims’ best interests.
It’s vital for slip and fall accident victims to consult with an experienced lawyer 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.
When you enter someone else’s property with permission, you naturally have a reasonable expectation that you won’t get injured on the property. To help ensure the property is safe, owners and those in possession of the property (such as lessees and property managers) have a responsibility for maintaining a safe environment through appropriate vigilance, maintenance, and repairs. Both property owners and those in possession of the property are potentially liable when a visitor is injured as a result of a slip and fall accident.
Not every slip and fall accident results in legal liability for the property owner and other parties. Visitors who slip and fall have a responsibility to exercise care in seeing and avoiding the condition that allegedly caused them to fall. That is, visitors are required to be aware of and avoid obvious hazards.
In order for an injured party to recover compensation, he or she must establish that his or her injuries resulted from the property owner’s failure to keep the property safe. Establishing legal liability can be complex. In general, an injured party must prove each of the following:
Real property is frequently covered by some type of insurance, so insurance companies are often parties to slip and fall cases. 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 injured party alone to obtain full and fair compensation from insurance companies when up against those odds.
But having an experienced board certified trial lawyer on your side helps level the legal playing field and can dramatically improve your likelihood of receiving full and fair compensation.
Don’t try to take on property owners and their insurance companies by yourself get one of our experienced West Palm Beach board certified trial lawyers on your side and working hard for you. Our lawyers have over 60 years of combined experience helping 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 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.
