Resort Injury Lawyer Blog

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Resort Torts are cases of civil liability for negligent or criminal acts in a resort, vacation or recreational setting. They can encompass a variety of legal cases, revealing that tourists, business travelers and locals alike are all exposed to risk while traveling, vacation, or engaging in resort or pleasure activities... including NIGHTCLUBS.

The Sun Sentinel reported this week that a nightclub in Broward County, advertised from Fort Pierce to Miami, is a regular stop for Sheriff's deputies and city paramedics, for illegal drugs being sold and used, and for teenagers who have passed out, overdosed, or having seizures.

Pompano Beach Mayor Lamar Fisher said he receives weekly calls about the facility, from parents complaining about it. He wants the club's electronic dance music shows at Club Cinema - which pull in more than 2,000 people - shut down.

The Sun Sentinel article quoted the owner of the production company responsible for many of the shows at Club Cinema as saying that "Anything to do with electronic music, there's going to be drugs."

From April to September this year, 20 people at Club Cinema were treated by city fire-rescue crews - 11 of them under age 18 and 6 of them 18-20-year-olds.

Mayor Fisher said during a commission meeting this week: "One of these times we're going to lose a life and it's uncalled for."

Resort Torts can include a wide variety of legal cases but they all have one thing in common: Tourists, business travelers and locals alike are all exposed to risk while traveling, vacationing or engaging in resort and leisure activities.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, new filings with the state include the following injuries reported at Orlando theme parks:

Islands of Adventure
• A man from Puerto Rico had to have an eye removed after something stuck and lacerated it while he was riding the Dragon Challenge roller coaster in Universal Orlando's Islands of Adventure. According to the Sentinel, the description in the report Universal provided the state was "eye discomfort".

Walt Disney World
• An 18-year-old woman lost consciousness and experienced seizure-like symptoms in Castaway Creek.
• A woman injured an ankle on Mayday Falls.
• A woman lost consciousness after riding Mission: Space.
• A 16-year-old girl had a seizure on Star Tours.
• A woman fell and broke her leg at Haunted Mansion.
• Another woman fell and broke her leg on Prince Charming's Regal Carousel.

Wet 'n' Wild, owned by NBCUniversal
• An 8-year-old boy suffered a head injury on Storm.

Amusement Park Injury Reporting
In 2001, The International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA), the amusement park industry trade group, began producing its own injuries-per-ride-cycle figure for amusement rides (roller coasters, Ferris wheels, etc.) operated at fixed site locations. Their methodology is that IAAPA asks its members each year to report the number of riders they've processed through the turnstiles of their mechanical amusement rides, and the number of customers they know of who were treated by a doctor for injuries caused by any of those rides. They then come up with a number of patron rides taken each year, and an aggregated count of ride-related injuries parks reported knowing about.

This reporting system does not collect any information useful for analysis of accident patterns or development of prevention strategies. No information is collected that would identify the ride, the park, the age/size of patrons involved, the type of accident, or the injuries sustained.

With 82 million visitors each year, Florida and its many tourist attractions give rise to Resort Torts - cases of civil liability for negligent or criminal in a resort, vacation or recreational setting. Click here to contact a board certified civil trial specialist with 26 years of experience representing victims of negligence in personal injury matters.

"Eye-opening indictment of the way big business spins the media." --Variety
"Stunning debut ... Sends audiences out of the theater thinking in a brand new way." --Washington Post
"Entertaining, informative ... vividly illuminating." --Hollywood Reporter

HOT COFFEE is a feature-length documentary film by Susan Saladoff, revealing what really happened to Stella Liebeck, the Albuquerque woman who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonald's. The film explores how and why the case garnered so much media attention, who funded the effort and to what end. After seeing this film, you will decide who really profited from spilling hot coffee.

From the HOT COFFEE Website:
The civil justice system has been under heavy attack for over 25 years. Despite the fact that federal legislation has never been successful, big business interests have won in the hearts and minds of average people. They launched a public relations campaign starting in the mid-80's and continuing over the last two decades to convince the public that we have out of control juries, too many frivolous lawsuits and a civil justice system that needs reforming. They have used anecdotes, half-truths and sometimes out and out lies in their efforts, for one purpose - to put limits on people's access to the court system, the one and only place where an average citizen can go toe to toe with those with money and power and still have a shot at justice.

Voters believe that we have a court system out of control that needs reforming. Although there are consumer advocacy groups who have attempted to set the story straight, there has yet to be enough money to launch the kind of public relations campaign for consumers that can even begin to combat and challenge the public relations campaigns of pro-business and tort reform groups.

We think this movie has the potential, with the right funding and effort, to really change the way people think about our civil justice system and access to the courts.