Earleen Cote and Scott Rosso, of the Ft. Lauderdale office, received a defense verdict in a negligence case. The Plaintiff was a 23 year old woman injured in a DUI automobile accident where the intoxicated driver stole his mother’s car without her permission. Plaintiff underwent a cervical fusion as a result of the accident, and had previously rejected a Proposal for Settlement. Thus, Plaintiff’s counsel was setting the case up to pursue a bad faith claim against the Insurer. After being successful on a Motion for Summary Judgment as to permissive use, Plaintiff’s counsel got creative and amended the complaint to allege negligence against the driver’s mother for not taking proper precaution in securing her keys so that her son could not steal the vehicle. Plaintiff argued that the Defendant’s son’s troubled past, involving drugs, alcohol, “mental illness,” and stealing from family members, should have warranted a higher than reasonable standard of care in her hiding the keys and preventing such an act from occurring. Even though Defendant hid the keys wrapped up in her husband’s dresser drawer, Plaintiff’s counsel tried to argue that the drawer was an expected hiding place, and an insufficient attempt by Defendant to prevent her son from taking the car.

Earleen and Scott were able to successfully convince the jury that even with his troubled past, the Defendant’s son had never before acted in any way demonstrating a propensity to steal his mother’s car, and therefore, the Defendant went above and beyond what was reasonable by hiding the keys to the extent she had.