Faddis and Faddis

Current Cases

Set forth below are summaries of several cases currently being litigated by the lawyers at Faddis & Faddis, P.A.

Pharmaceutical / Pharmacist Negligence - Eye Injury / Blindness (Marion County) In these three separate cases, each of our three clients was undergoing routine cataract surgery in Ocala when they were blinded in one eye by an improperly compounded Vancomycin antibiotic solution. A chemical analysis of the solution injected into the patients' eyes showed that it had a pH of 3.9 when it should have been 7.3-7.5. Further, the solution contained no sodium chloride (salt), which is necessary as both a buffer to maintain the pH and to more closely match the natural fluid of the eye. As a result of this toxic insult to the eye, each patient developed a rare injury called Toxic Anterior Segment Syndrome or TASS.

Importantly, the pharmacy technician responsible for compounding the Vancomycin solution destroyed the solution once she was informed that there was a problem. Rather than preserve the solution for comprehensive analysis, she decided it was best to dispose of the materials. Thankfully, the surgeon who performed the cataract surgeries and injected the toxic solution into our clients' eyes recognized that something was wrong with the solution, so he saved what little remained in the bottle he was provided by the pharmacy and sent it off for the analysis that revealed the pharmacy utilized the wrong solution to compound the antibiotic.

Rather than admit responsibility for blinding three completely innocent people through its own negligence, the pharmacy and pharmacist chose to deny wrongdoing and challenge the results of the chemical analysis performed on the solution preserved by the surgeon. Unbelievably, the pharmacy and pharmacist are defending the case by arguing that the universally-accepted testing methodology employed by the laboratory was faulty while completely ignoring the fact that its own employee destroyed incriminating evidence and attempted to cover up the wrongdoing.

Medical Malpractice / Nursing Home Negligence / Wrongful Death - Failure to Recognize and Treat Clostridium Difficile (C.Diff.) Infection (Orange County)
In this case, our client was admitted to a nursing home for rehabilitation following a hip fracture and surgery. On admission to the nursing home, our client was prescribed a broad-spectrum antibiotic which was widely recognized as significantly increasing her risk of a clostridium difficle (C. Diff.) infection. During the course of her short nursing home stay, our client developed obvious signs of a C. Diff. infection, including loose stools and a significantly elevated white blood cell count. Despite the obvious signs of significant infection, the physician, nurse practitioner and nursing home staff failed to transport our client to the hospital for necessary, emergency treatment. When our client was finally transported to the hospital at the insistence of her 90 year-old husband, it was too late and she died in the Emergency Department of the hospital. Our elders deserve appropriate medical and nursing home care, and our client did not deserve to have his beloved wife stolen from him by a completely and easily preventable complication of a routine surgery. Had anyone at the nursing home, including the doctor and his nurse practitioner, paid any attention to her signs and symptoms, this wonderful woman would not have died.

Motorcycle/Automobile Accident (Orange County)
In this automobile and motorcycle collision case, our client was sideswiped on his Yamaha motorcycle by a young man driving his father's Ferrari 550 Maranello in Orlando, Florida. The Ferrari driver was permitted to drive the sports car while his parents were out of the country on vacation. After stopping to show off the car to a former girlfriend, the Ferrari driver took a friend, who is an automobile mechanic, for a ride. Shortly after leaving the ex-girlfriend's home, the Ferrari driver noticed the parking brake light was illuminated; he could not figure out how to disengage the parking brake; and his friend indicated he should pull over in order to avoid causing damage to the brakes on the ultra-exclusive Ferrari.

While the Ferrari was driving down the inside, left lane of the road, our client was approaching in the right lane on his motorcycle. As a result of being distracted and scared of the prospect of a costly brake job on his father's prized possession, the Ferrari driver darted across the road without looking for our client in an effort to stop the car and determine the cause of the brake problem. Unfortunately for our client, at that exact time, he was driving past the Ferrari in the right lane and he had absolutely no opportunity to avoid the collision with the Ferrari.

As a result of the accident, our client suffered a significant closed head injury, spinal cord injury and multiple orthopaedic injuries.

Premises Liability / Trip and Fall - Wrongful Death (Clay County)
This case involves the tragic death of a legally blind elderly man from massive head injuries he suffered in a fall caused by a severely damaged concrete parking stop in a convenience store parking lot. While walking into the store to buy some snacks, our client's cane, which he used due to his blindness, became stuck in a cracked and broken parking stop in front of the store. As he walked and the cane jammed into the broken concrete, our client lost his balance, fell, and struck his head on the concrete curb leading from the parking lot to the sidewalk in front of the store.

On two separate occasions, the store manager requested that the property owner repair the severely damaged and dilapidated parking stops pursuant to the terms of their lease agreement for the property. When his first request went unfulfilled, the store manager again requested the repairs be made. Again, his request went unfulfilled. Importantly, the store manager testified that the reason he wanted to parking stops fixed was that they presented a danger to his customers. Sadly, he was correct, as our client died as a direct result of these broken, dilapidated, and dangerous parking stops.

Construction Site Accident - Fall Through Skylight (Alachua County)
In this case, our client, who owned a paint supply store was asked to check a piece of machinery on the roof of a hangar at the Gainesville Regional Airport. Contrary to OSHA regulations, the roofing company had not secured the skylights on the roof of the hangar with protective netting and barricades to prevent people from falling through the lights to the ground 25 feet below. While he was being led to the piece of machinery on the roof, our client fell through an unprotected skylight to the concrete floor below. By all accounts, our client should not have survived this fall. In fact, the vast majority of OSHA incident reports of similar workplace skylight falls indicate the victim died as a result of the trauma and injuries caused by the fall. Luckily, our client was not killed. He was, however, seriously and permanently injured.

In an effort to protect himself during the fall, our client landed on his arm, which was pulverized by the impact. He also struck his face on the concrete severely fracturing the bones in his face. As a result of the injuries he suffered, our client can no longer work and was forced to sell his interest in the business he helped found and grow.

Nursing Home Neglect / Falls With Fractures (Citrus County)
In this case, our client was admitted to the nursing home due to her increased risk for falls. During the first several months of her residency, the nursing home staff carefully monitored her condition and provided necessary assistance with her activities of daily living. As a result, our client sustained only one fall with no resulting injuries.

Unfortunately, several months into our client's residency, the facility underwent a renovation, so our client was removed from her original room and placed in a new room with caretakers who were not adequately knowledgeable or trained on her specific needs. Consequently, the staff left our client unattended while toileting, she fell and sustained a fractured pelvis and dislocated shoulder. As a result of these injuries, our client became bedridden and suffered multiple pressure ulcers and skin breakdown.

Medical Malpractice and False Imprisonment (Orange County)
In this case, our client, a twelve year old girl, presented to a hospital Emergency Room in Apopka on a Sunday afternoon exhibiting bizarre and highly unusual behavior. According to the girl's parents, she had been home with her family all weekend, and began acting bizarrely after church on Sunday. Although the girl had absolutely no history of drug use and was an above-average student, the Emergency Room physician assumed she had taken illicit drugs and suspected a drug-induced psychosis, so he ordered a comprehensive drug screen to determine what drugs she had taken. The drug test came back negative.

Despite the negative drug test and history inconsistent with drug use, our client was Baker Acted and involuntarily detained at the hospital. The following day, the involuntary institutionalization continued, and our client was transported to a behavioral center in Kissimmee, Florida. After two days, our client was found unresponsive and transported to the local Emergency Department where she was diagnosed with viral encephalitis, which was the cause of the bizarre and unusual behavior. Sadly, none of the medical professionals involved in her care at either the hospital or psychiatric facility recognized the clear signs and symptoms of the encephalopathy and continued to hold our client captive and treat her as a drug abuser. Additionally, the careless treatment by the various healthcare providers and facilities completely denied our client's other access to her young daughter for several days.

As a result of the negligence of the hospital and emergency room physicians, and the improper detainment of our client, our client was deprived of necessary and essential medical care, and equally important, her mother was deprived of the opportunity to provide the love and support her daughter so desperately needed and deserved during that critical time.

Medical Malpractice / Failure to Diagnose Prostate Center (Volusia County)
In this case, our client underwent a PSA Screen on an annual basis with his primary care physician in Deland, Florida. Our client was not informed that his PSA test results had risen over a three year period, and was identified as "abnormal" on a PSA test result. His physician never informed him of the abnormal test results, despite our client having two appointments with the doctor after the doctor had received the abnormal test result indicating our client had prostate cancer. The doctor inexplicably failed to tell our client about the troubling test results, which deprived him of the opportunity to seek appropriate treatment.

Approximately one year after the abnormal test result, our client's cardiologist ordered blood work and a PSA test. At that time, our client's PSA test result was significantly abnormal, and according to his oncologist, the cancer had spread outside the prostate. Our client is currently undergoing extensive cancer treatment and has a significantly reduced life expectancy.

Construction Site Accident (Orlando, Orange County)
In this construction site accident case, our client, an electrical contractor, was performing a walk-through of his company's work in preparation for a county inspection. As he was walking and looking at the electrical work in the ceiling, he moved a piece of a two by four that was leaning against a wall in front of him. Unbeknownst to him, the piece of lumber was propping up approximately fifteen sheets of gypsum drywall board that had been placed on the site by a materials supplier. As our client moved the piece of lumber, the propped-up stack of drywall fell onto his leg and pinned him beneath a thousand pounds of drywall. The impact crushed his leg very badly and has resulted in a permanent painful injury that will affect his ability to walk for the rest of his life.
On the day of the accident, one of our client's workers asked the contractor to move the stacked drywall, because it was stacked in front of an area in which he needed to place some electrical boxes. The contractor refused to move the drywall, because "it is heavy." Interestingly, the contractor blames his drywall supplier for stacking the drywall instead of laying it flat on the floor. He also blames our client's worker for stacking the drywall, because he asked his own employees if they stacked the drywall and they denied doing so. The drywall supplier claims that, in the absence of specific instruction from a contractor, they would have laid the drywall flat on the ground, because if it were leaned against a wall, it would be a danger to the workers at the site. Due to the danger of drywall leaned against a wall, the supplier places a bright orange warning sticker on the boards every time that particular supplier leans it against a wall at a site. This sticker was absent from the boards that fell on our client.

Products Liability - Industrial Accident - Wrongful Death (Volusia County)
In this tragic case, our clients' son was killed when he fell into a large machine used to dye cypress mulch with red dye. He was horribly crushed and dismembered by a large auger that turned the mulch to coat it with dye. We sued several entities in this case as a result of the death, including the company where the man worked, the manufacturer of the machine, and the company that designed the machine, because each of the defendants played an important role in the death.

When too much mulch was placed in the machine, it would form a "bridge" and clog, so the workers would be required to turn the machine off, break the bridge with tools, and clear the mulch by hand. This process was time consuming and labor intensive, which decreased the amount of mulch that could be produced every hour and thereby decreased the profitability of the business. Put simply, if the machine wasn't running, it wasn't making money-it was costing money. So, the machine was run at all costs in order to maximize its profitability.

In order to avoid shutting the machine down, the owner and operator of the company instructed his employees to leave the machine running and poke or hit the bridged mulch with pitchforks or other implements in order to break the bridge and keep the machine running. Because the machine was so tall, the workers would have to stand in the bucket of a front end loader tractor to reach the mulch with a pitchfork. This created an obviously dangerous situation for any workers attempting to remove the clogged mulch as they stood over the mouth of a large industrial machine in the front bucket of a tractor poking at a large quantity of stuck mulch.

The machine was designed and manufactured with two important defects. First, the machine routinely bridged with mulch which necessitated shutting it down and unclogging it by hand (or dangerously poking the mulch from overhead). Second there was no safety grate or other means to prevent people from falling into the hopper when the machine was running. The manufacturer and designer claimed the machine was capable of producing a certain quantity of dyed mulch per hour, which made the machine an attractive and profitable addition to a landscape products company. However, these production figures did not account for the significant time the machine was out of operation while being unbridged or unclogged.

Not surprisingly, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) issued numerous citations to the landscape materials company as a result of its unsafe workplace practices that put workers in grave danger. These citations are important evidence of the company's wrongdoing.

Products Liability - Lawnmower Fire (Lake County)
In this interesting case, our client purchased a commercial zero turn radius (ZTR) mower to cut the grass on his five acre parcel of land in Astor, Florida. One day, our client set out to mow his grass, but as he traveled about 100 feet, he smelled gasoline. He looked to his left and saw gas spraying under pressure beneath his seat and next to one of the gas tanks. Recognizing the serious danger of the situation, he turned off the mower and lifted his weight from the seat to leave the area. However, as his weight shifted off the seat, the seat activated engine kill switch activated and created a spark. This spark immediately ignited the gasoline that had sprayed and vaporized. Our client was engulfed in a huge fireball that serious burned him and the machine.
In total, our client was burned with first and second degree burns over 20 percent of his body, including his face, neck, arms, and hands. In fact, the only places on his upper body that were not burned were those areas covered by his shirt at the time of the fire. Following the fire, the burns blistered severely and required an excruciatingly painful process known as debridement to remove the dead tissue in order to prevent infection and promote healing. The debridement consisted of daily removal of dead tissue by picking it off with tweezers and by scrubbing the burned areas with an abrasive pad and hydrogen peroxide solution. As you might imagine, the burns, and subsequent debridements were exceptionally painful for our client, who suffered great pain-even with narcotic pain medications.

During our investigation into the fire, we discovered that this manufacturer has had other similar mowers either catch fire or explode as a result of similar problems. In fact, in late 2006 a jury awarded the family of a South Carolina man $6,000,000.00 as a result of an explosion that killed him while he was riding one of this company's mowers. Clearly, this company was aware of significant problems with its products that caused serious injury and death.

Auto Accident (Orange County)
In this automobile accident case, our client was stopped in traffic on the East West Expressway in downtown Orlando when a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed in the opposite direction veered out of control and crossed the median into her lane of travel. She was absolutely stuck and could do nothing but watch the other driver's SUV fly through the air towards her as she sat trapped in her car. The other driver's SUV landed on top of her car and caused serious and permanent injuries to her shoulder, which required an extensive surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff and chronic nerve impingement. Unfortunately, the first surgery was not successful and she must now undergo a second surgery in an attempt to repair her accident-related injuries.
Although the surgery was essentially a success, our client has been left with permanently reduced strength in her right arm and shoulder and recurrent chronic pain in that area. She has undergone lengthy physical therapy regimens as well as numerous cortisone and nerve blocking shots with little relief. In addition to the significant physical injuries, she suffered from post traumatic insomnia, nightmares, and significantly increased anxiety surrounding driving or even being a passenger in a car after the accident.

Will Contest (Lake County)
Faddis & Faddis represents a young man who managed a dairy in Fruitland Park in a will contest action involving a will and trust signed by his long-time employer which greatly reduced his inheritance and effectively transferred land worth $50,000,000.00, which had historically been an operational dairy farm, to a lawyer and pastor who succeeded in having the woman change her estate documents shortly before her tragic death from highly aggressive abdominal cancer. In the final months of the woman's life, her mental and physical health began to deteriorate as she battled cancer. When she decided she needed to be hospitalized, the pastor took her to the lawyer's office to sign critical documents making significant changes to her estate documents before they took her to the hospital. At that pre-hospitalization meeting, the lawyer and pastor, who were aware of the huge value of the woman's land, had her execute documents that resulted in them becoming the primary beneficiaries of the trust that holds the $50,000,000.00 land.

Through the years, the woman had fought to prevent development of surrounding lands being consumed by The Villages and surrounding areas. She fought to maintain her farm as an operational dairy that was not to be developed. However, as soon as she died, the lawyer, pastor, and the trust they created for themselves began the process of having the land rezoned for development in order to increase its marketability and sales value. The change in estate documents executed by the woman shortly before her death was so shocking to her prior, long-time lawyer, that he notified our client that something was wrong and that there may have been some undue influence exerted on her during her time of need and sickness. In fact, early investigation into the matter has revealed that the lawyer had been previously disciplined by The Florida Bar for knowingly submitting a fraudulent will to probate in Lake County, Florida.

Maritime Injury - Jones Act - Death Aboard Ship (Hillsborough County)
Faddis & Faddis represents the family of a young man killed in an industrial accident aboard a ship docked in the Port of Tampa. Our clients' son was working on a ship transporting frozen orange juice concentrate when he and another employee were trapped in a freezer and froze to death. Although our investigation has just begun, it appears that the young men were killed when liquid nitrogen, used as a refrigerant to keep the juice concentrate frozen, leaked and caused a quick and drastic decrease in the temperature. Unable to escape the area, the men were trapped until someone finally realized they had not been seen in some time. Sadly they were found frozen to death and huddled together to try to stay alive.