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6 Miami L.Q. 106 (1951-1952)
Dilemma of the Florida Defendant in a Personal Injury Suit

handle is hein.journals/umialr6 and id is 126 raw text is: COMMENT DILEMMA OF THE FLORIDA DEFENDANT IN A PERSONAL INJURY SUIT* I. Tin? ERA OF NEGLIGENCE The great criminal lawyer was front page news and biographical material in the early part of the twentieth century. Trials involving the possible execution of the accused were living drama in which the personality of counsel often overshadowed that of the defendant. Interest in this type of trial has declined, pcrlaps because crimc has become more syndicated and less passionate. Legal protection for the accused is greater than ever; there is more mercy and less capital punishment. There is a new courtroom scene. The negligence lawyer displays his °immense photographs and charts, while medical experts show the jury a section of a skeleton.' Bones, ligaments, tendons and nerves are the medico-legal stock in trade. Specialization in negligence has led also to organization and exchange of ideas at regular confereneesY Typical subjects for papers or panel discussions are: Pleading a Damage Suit; Medical Preparation of a Personal Injury Suit; Trauma and Cardiac Conditions; The Typical Head Injury, Back and Nerve Lcsion Case.3 It is not surprising that this highly lucrative field has drawn to it tal- ented and enterprising attorneys, who, like the Darrows and Fallons are making names in the history of the law. There arc analogies also in the appeal to the sympathies of the jury and in the manner in which the presentation of proof is weighted so that it benefits the physically injured plaintiff as it protects the accused criminal. Counsel are given wide latitude in argument, though it include the fanciful play of their imagination.4 \Vhile argument should be restricted *For a view from the plaintiff's side see Belli, The Adequate Award, 39 CALIF. L. REv. 1 (1951). 1. First Federal Say. & Loan Ass'n. of Miami v. Wylie, 46 So.2d 396, 400 (Fla. 1950). (Approved . . . the use of medical charts of the human body and a skeleton of the arm of a body to aid an expert witness in demonstrating to the jury the nature of the injury to the plaintiff and its resultant incapacitating effect.) 2. National Ass'n. Claimants' Compensation Attorneys, Fifth Annual Convention, San Francisco, Cal., August 6-12, 1951. 3, Supra note 2. These materials are not available to non-members. 4. olhnson v. State, 88 Fla. 461, 463, 102 So. 549, 550 (1924); Gaston v. State, 134 Fla. 538, 542, 184 So. 150, 151 (1938).

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