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Industries Continue Propaganda Campaign Against Justice System

I was interested to see a piece on the Orlando Channel 9 website about two elderly women from Brevard County who have been accused on staging a slip-and-fall accidnet in a Publix grocery store.  In support of the story, Channel 9 posted some in-store surveillance video that appears to show one of the women carefully laying down on the ground while the other woman assists her.  The reports says that the women have been charged with fraud.

Whenever I see a story like this one, I am always hit by conflicting emotions.  First, I am always happy to see people trying to commit fraud caught and punished.  People like this make it much more difficult for us to achieve real, deserved justice for our legitimately injured clients.

Second, I am always left to wonder how a story like this really serves as "news".  Is a story like this really of vital importance to the community?  How did the media come across this "news" story?  Did someone in the insurance industry provide this story to the media, and for what purpose?  Why does the media never run stories about the numerous people legitimately injured in Florida slip-and-fall incidents who are being ignored, or low-balled, or treated poorly by the insurance industry?

Third, how is it that Publix so easily produce crisp and clear video footage to Channel 9 for this story.  In all of my experiences representing people who have been legitimately injured in Publix (and other grocery stores), we are almost always told that the store surveillance video has been erased, or taped-over, or accidentally destroyed.  In the rare instances where the stores actually produce video, it is always of horrendous quality so that virtually nothing can be seen.

My final emotion is always that of relief -- relief that this Orlando slip-and-fall lawyer has nothing to do with ladies like these.  However, these kinds of stories should be seen as what they are -- small efforts as part of a larger propaganda campaign by big business and the insurance industry to make every personal injury claim seem like fraud.  Hopefully potential Florida jurors, and consumers generally, will not be so easily manipulated.