Pamela focuses her practice on motor vehicle negligence, premises liability, product liability, and legal malpractice. This includes defending trucking companies and individuals in motor vehicle negligence actions, as well as supermarkets, grocery stores and other retailers in premises liability actions. Pamela also represents manufacturers and retailers in product liability actions and agricultural suppliers in products liability and negligence claims.
Pamela occasionally works with law firms defending legal malpractice claims. She also has significant experience representing nursing homes and adult living facilities involving negligence and wrongful death cases. She also defends contractors, day care centers, churches, school boards, and a variety of businesses in negligent hiring, supervision, and retention claims. She also has represented insurers in state and federal court in insurance coverage determinations and declaratory actions.
Pamela has handled over 150 auto and trucking negligence cases. These have included the use of vision and illumination experts, accident reconstruction experts, design experts, traffic experts, vocational rehabilitation experts, and economists.
A native of Virginia, Pamela attended Randolph-Macon Woman's College, graduating cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1981. After graduation, she worked on the legislative staff of U.S. Senator Lawton M. Chiles Jr. for three years. She later attended the Marshall Wythe Law School, College of William and Mary, graduating in 1987. She was a member of the Law Review from 1985-87. Pamela has lectured on discovery and other pretrial discovery matters as well as research and discovery issues for paralegals.
She was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1987 and to the Georgia Bar in 1999. She is admitted to the Middle District of Florida and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Significant Representative Matters
· Co-counsel in a case involving alleged loss of a father's cremated ashes led to a jury award of $9 million to his three adult children. After the trial judge ordered that the verdict be reduced to $300,000 (a remittitur order), the plaintiffs were granted a second trial. In the interim, the plaintiffs attempted to amend the pleadings to add a claim for punitive damages, which was denied after counsel argued against it in a mock trial. At the close of the second trial, the jury rendered a verdict in the amount of $160,000, which was $140,000 less than the order of remittitur.
· Settled a case of alleged legal malpractice involving an attractive 40-year-old single mother who lost sight in one eye as a result of alleged negligent deployment of her airbag. The law firm failed to secure storage of her car, which ultimately was destroyed at a wrecking yard. The case settled for a figure about 25 percent of what comparable cases are valued.
· Handled an alleged negligence matter by a truck (that had been parked in a zone where it was forbidden to do so and blocked the sight line of oncoming motorists), defended the truck's owner against claims made by a motorcyclist (who had multiple broken bones and asserted life long motor and cognitive problems) and his passenger, a 16-year-old orphan who was rendered a paraplegic in the accident. The case settled for an amount that was about fifty percent of the demand. Involved the use of accident reconstruction experts, motorcycle helmet experts, and life care planners/vocational rehabilitation experts.
Representative Cases
· J.B. Coxwell Contracting, Inc. v. Theodore Ladue and Carolyn Ladue, as Co-Personal Representatives of the Estate of Brooke Ladue, and Theodore Ladue and Carolyn Ladue, Individually, Appellate Case No. 5D07-1556 (Fifth Court Court of Appeal 2007)
· Terry v. Timmins, 2006 Fla. App. LEXIS 19685 (November 22 2006)
· Gibraltar Design, Inc. v. RRG of Amelia, Inc., 931 So. 2d 905 (Fla. 1st DCA 2006)
· Alvarez v. Merriam-Callahan Insurance Agency, Inc., 843 So. 2d 1022 (Fla. 1st DCA 2003)
· Agency Premium Services, Inc. v. C.B.S. Bus., Inc., 733 So. 2d 518 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999)
· Glisson v. Jacksonville Transportation Authority, 705 So. 2d 136 (Fla. 1st DCA 1998)
· Glisson v. Jacksonville Transportation Authority, 698 So. 2d 869 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997)
· Myrick v. Luhrs Corporation, 689 So. 2d 416 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997)
· Gustafson's Diary v. Charles, 686 So. 2d 585 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997)
· Reddick v. Globe Life & Accident Insurance Company, 575 So. 2d 207 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991)
· Jacksonville Transportation Authority v. Forsyth Street Properties, Ltd., 551 So. 2d 1216 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989)
· Bessent v. Matthews, 543 So. 2d 438 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989)
Classes/Seminars Taught
· CLE Seminar, Effective Informal Discovery Techniques, 1997, 1998
Past Employment Positions
· Webb & Quinn, P.A., Jacksonville, Florida
· Whitehurst, Blackburn, Warren & Kelly, Thomasville, Georgia
· Allen, Brinton & Simmons, Jacksonville, Florida
Associations & Memberships
· Florida Bar Association
· Florida Defense Lawyers Association
· Georgia Bar Association
· Jacksonville Bar Association
· Jacksonville Defense Lawyers Association
· Jacksonville Women Lawyer's Association, Treasurer
· Juvenile Diabetes Association of North Florida, 2006 - 2007, Board of Directors
Year Joined Organization: 2004
Publications
Mediation Attendance in Florida: Failure To Comply Results in Harsh Sanctions
Defense Digest Article
Florida - Civil Practice/Mediation , Key Points: For insurers, the most important thing about mediation is that it requires a representative of the insurance carrier for any insured party who is not such carrier's outside counsel and who has full authority to settle up to..., Defense Digest, Vol. 17, No. 4, December 2011