Maria E. Dalmanieras, Esq. from the Miami office successfully obtained a summary judgment for her client, a road contractor, in a wrongful death lawsuit resulting from an auto accident in May 2020. Plaintiff claimed that the decedent’s auto accident resulted from the client’s failure to place proper signage on the roadway to warn the decedent of an upcoming construction zone maintained by another contractor, which caused her to drive through the construction zone that ultimately resulted in her death after her vehicle landed upside down in a canal. The trial court granted the client a summary judgment finding that the Plaintiff failed to prove the client had any such duty to warn or maintain the roadway. Further, because the driver had passed away, there was no evidence as to why she left the roadway, which resulted in Plaintiff’s inability to prove causation.
In June 2020, Plaintiff filed for an Appeal, where the Third District Court of Appeal reversed and remanded for further proceedings. In July 2022, Maria E. Dalmanieras, Esq. and Peter R. Restani, Esq. successfully defended the client against an almost 9-million-dollar damages claim. At trial, the trial court granted a direct verdict in favor of the defense on duty and causation after the close of all evidence but allowed the case to go to the jury. After deliberations, the jury returned a defense verdict.