When someone is injured as the result of another’s negligence they should consider retaining the right experienced, skilled accident lawyers to bring an appropriate personal injury lawsuit against the individual or entity at fault. Often times when an individual falls, whether at a restaurant, food store, or night club there is usually video footage of the incident. These property owners are generally recording key locations of their premises – practically 24 hours a day – whether for the purposes of preventing theft, increases security, or for specifically recording someone’s accident and ensuing injuries. One would hope they would also use these videos for the purpose of training their employees to more effectively avoid accidents.
Unfortunately, these property owners almost never voluntarily release these videos without a court ordering them to do so. Florida case law distinguishes between those circumstances when a Plaintiff in a lawsuit can compel footage that has been recorded of them. The pivotal case on the rights and limitations to obtain surveillance video was decided in the case of Dodson V. Percell and United States Fidelity and Guarantee Company, by the Florida Supreme Court in 1980. That case essentially distinguishes between the defendant’s intention to investigate a case (work product material) versus when a defendant intends to introduce the surveillance information into evidence at the impending trial; the later of which needs to be shared with the Plaintiff and be produced accordingly.
A more recent case decided by Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeals (Fla. 4th DCA) is Target Cop. Vs. Vogel, in July of 2010, established that if the video material depicted actual footage of the Plaintiff’s accident, it had to be produced in the normal course of the discovery process.
In the Target case, even though Target argued that the Plaintiff’s medical records conflicted with the information portrayed in the video footage, Target was ordered to produce the footage before the Plaintiff’s deposition.
For further discussion regarding this topic please feel free to contact the Fort Lauderdale injury lawyer at info@www.schulaw.com or by calling 1-877-529-0444.
