Attorney Blog

Sexual Abuse Allegations Lead to Shut Down of Green Isle Ranch

kcullen@cullen-law.com (Blog Author)27889 — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST

Under the category of "its about time", the Orlando Sentinel has recently reported that the Green Isle Ranch, a facility for troubled youth in the Clermont area, is closing its doors. In my opinion this could not have happened soon enough. Unfortunately, it appears that several children were sexually abused at the facility -- before anyone took the positive step of shutting the place down.

Apparently, the home organization that had been running the Green Isle Ranch -- Bridges of America -- felt like the facility couldn't weather the bad publicity generated by revelations about the sexual abuse. This negative publicity seemed to have been hurting registrations, as the facility was housing only six children when it was designed to host 32.

While allegations of sexual abuse involving six different children in late 2009 are serious enough, the facility had been previously shut down by Lake County Sheriff's officials in 2008 following reports of maltreatment of the children, as well as serving rancid food. There was definitely a failure of management, as well as negligence in the supervision of these children.

It appears that Bridges of America has done a favor for any child that may ultimately have found himself a resident of Green Isle Ranch. Hopefully the at-risk kids in Central Florida will find a place that it better-suited to their needs. Its seems a hearty "good riddance" is appropriate for the Green Isle Ranch.

Distracted Driver Almost Kills Hero

kcullen@cullen-law.com (Blog Author)27758 — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST

There is a new story about a driver distracted by her cell phone, with catastrophic consequences. I have been blogging about this topic for some time now, see here and here. In this instance, paramedic Chad Lowery was working a motorcycle accident scene when a driver distracted by her cell phone plowed right into him.

Lowery suffered a serious neck injury. His injury is such that he has to use a hard cervical collar, and has been ordered by his doctor not to lift anything as heavy as his 8-month old doctor. Obviously, in a physical job like paramedic, Lowery is have a difficult time getting back to work. The Lowery family is going to be living with the consequences of this careless driver's actions for a long time -- if not forever.

Fortunately, the Florida Legislature is addressing this troubling car accident trend. There are reportedly 17 different bills before Florida lawmakers addressing cell phone use in cars, and most importantly, the more dangerous texting while driving.

In Florida, drivers are responsible for safely operating their vehicles, and can be held liable if the engage in careless or negligent activity behind the wheel. Call Kim Cullen if you have any questions - 407-254-4901.

Bar Can Be Liable For Overzealous Bouncer

kcullen@cullen-law.com (Blog Author)27756 — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST

Christopher Monette went out to have a couple of beers with his brother in Daytona Beach. Little did he know that by the end of the night, he would be in the hospital diagnosed with a serious brain injury. According this this article, Monette got a little rowdy at The Doghouse bar in Daytona Beach, when a Doghouse employee named "Lurch" approached him and began to escort him out. Apparently, some exchange ensued, and Lurch ended up dropping or tossing Monette out of the bar and on to his head so violently that Monette was later diagnosed with a brain bleed.

To make matters worse, at the time of this attack at the Doghouse, Lurch was purportedly out of jail on bond for an attack earlier this year on a customer while he was working at another Daytona Beach nightclub called the Colliseum.

Unfortunately for the owners of the Doghouse, businesses are responsible for the actions of their employees in the course and scope of their employment. In situations like this one, the business owners of the Doghouse had a duty to background screen Lurch to make sure that he would be safe to have around its customers. Even a cursory background check should have revealed that Lurch (also known as Nathaniel Phelps) was facing charges for beating up a woman at the Colliseum.

Certainly, bar employees sometimes have to be firm with rowdy customers, but this level of violence is unexcusable. This isn't Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse, after all. The owners of the Doghouse should have done their homework before hiring Lurch. We have successfully handled cases against bars and nightclubs across Florida.

Osceola Teacher Sexually Abuses High School Student

kcullen@cullen-law.com (Blog Author)27670 — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST

What is it these female high school teachers and their male students? This week the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office arrested Dellys Serano, a teacher’s aide at New Beginnings School in Kissimmee, and charged her with unlawful sexual activity in connection with her sexual relationship with a 16-year old student. Ms. Serano is a 36-year old married woman.

Apparently suspicions arose when Ms. Serano began regularly giving rides to her parramore and a friend. She also openly purchased things for the boy she was having sex with including snacks, lunches, cigarettes, and even an air-soft pistol. She also regularly texted with the boy, including an offer to have “birthday sex” with him.

This is actually Ms. Serano’s second stint with an Osceola County school. She was previously a science teacher at Celebration High School until the summer of 2006, when her contract was not renewed at Celebration.

As always in cases involving the sexual abuse of a child in a school or any other supposedly safe facility, it will be interesting to see what kind of background check was completed by New Beginnings before Ms. Serano was hired. As this post is being prepared, new allegations are surfacing that Ms. Serano had a sexual relationship with a student at her old job at Celebration. If this information was somehow not divulged or was hidden in any way, it would seem that Osceola County Schools might be facing some big problems.

Additionally, it will be interesting to see what kind of supervision was applied to Ms. Serano, and what kind of interaction she had with the boy under the watchful eyes of her supervisors.

If you have any questions about legal rights in connection with claims of child sexual abuse, call Attorney Kim Cullen at 407-254-4901.

Social Media Could Trip Up Your Personal Injury Claim

kcullen@cullen-law.com (Blog Author)27500 — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST

More and more insurance companies are performing social media searches on personal injury accident victims, trying to get information to use against claimants. We just recorded a new video blog designed help accident victims navigate this emerging trend in insurance claims handling practice. Click here to check it out.

YMCA Deserves Credit For Admitting Responsibility For Sexual Abuse Incident

kcullen@cullen-law.com (Blog Author)27443 — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:00:00 EST

One of our local Orlando stations ran a story about the sexual abuse of a 7-year old girl by a 13-year old boy on the premises of the Tangelo Park YMCA. According to the story, the 13-year old boy was serving some kind of sentence imposed by the teen court, which included some kind of service time at the YMCA. Apparently, the 13-year old boy was left unsupervised and given access to other children. He followed a 7-year old girl into a bathroom and sexually abused her there.

To the great credit of the Tangelo Park YMCA, the facility has admitted legal liability for what happened to the little girl. They have admitted that the 13-year old was never cleared by the facility to be a volunteer there, and that a staff member unilaterally allowed the 13-year old unsupervised access. The parents of the child are obviously distraught that a juvenile offender would be allowed this kind of access to their daughter. Apparently, the YMCA and the parents are trying to work out some kind of settlement over the child's damages.

The reason that I am crediting the YMCA is that, all too often in these kinds of cases, we find that facilities and organizations that have been accused of negligent supervision or negligently exposing kids to dangerous people or situations often take extremely defensive and unreasonable positions about liability. The more common responses we see from defendants are denials and attempts to cover everything up. It is very refreshing to read about an organization that realizes that it has done something wrong and steps up and admits it.

Shard Of Glass In Your Salad? 'Get Over It'

kcullen@cullen-law.com (Blog Author)27441 — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:00:00 EST

We have recently accepted two new clients who have been injured by foreign objects in food. One client was eating a burger at McDonalds and bit into a very s harp piece of bone causing his tooth to break and requiring dental work. The other client was eating a salad at Crispers Restaurant (owned by Publix) when he bit into a large piece of glass, causing him to require a visit to the emergency room for a deep cut in his mouth. Both clients immediately reported the incidents, and both clients were fortunate enough not to have swallowed these dangerous shards, and were able to save enough of the foreign objects to show them to McDonald's and Publix, respectively.

The attitudes demonstrated by the claims representatives for these two companies has been basically that our two clients need to just "get over it". Neither McDonalds nor Crispers seems to want to take any responsibility for the fitness or wholesomeness of the food that the companies are selling. They seem to want to blame our clients or anyone else for the dangerous food they have served. This amounts to nothing more than adding insult to injury. Neither of our client asked to have their mouths torn up when they sat down to each their lunches.

Unfortunately for these companies, the law in Florida is that restaurants are responsible for taking all reasonable steps to serve wholesome food to customers. This includes making sure that sharp pieces of bone and shards of glass are removed from food.

Theme Park Accidents Lead to Business As Usual

kcullen@cullen-law.com (Blog Author)27440 — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:00:00 EST

I just read a piece by Nick VinZant at local news Channel 13 here. The gist of the piece is that accidents with injuries or death at any of the Orlando-area theme parks have very little, if any, impact on the traffic or visitation of the parks. A professor from the University of Central Florida was interviewed and said he thought Sea World should expect no short or long term consequences as the result of the recent death of a killer whale trainer following an encounter with a killer whale. The professor did note that sometimes the theme parks institute their own changes in procedure, but not always.

This has also been our experience with handling injury cases at the theme parks and water parks. Theme parks seem slow to institute changes to safety policies and procedures. In our experience, the local theme parks and water parks are very difficult to convince that they've done anything careless or negligent. Even when we convince them that they were negligent and get them to settle claims, they routinely force confidentiality provisions into settlement agreements and general releases. Of course, the affect of these confidentiality provisions is that the public-at-large never learns about the dangerous condition.

No wonder the parks never see descreasing attendance numbers.

Controversial decision about red-light cameras sparks debate in Tallahassee

kcullen@cullen-law.com (Blog Author)27284 — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 08:00:00 EST

Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Jerald Bagley has issued an Order finding that a Miami-Dade County town cannot issue citations based upon evidence from red-light cameras. Essentially, Judge Bagley found that the red-light cameras could not be used to replace a law enforcement officer issuing a traffic citation based upon a violation of Florida law. The judge ruled that only the State of Florida can pass traffic laws. Cities around Florida have been trying to avoid this by issuing city code violations instead of formal traffic tickets. This practice may have to end.

This issue is far from dead. Florida legislators have shown an interest in passing a state-wide law approving the use of red-light cameras. Legislators see these tickets as a cost-effective way to raise revenue as the proposed law requires local governments to share the revenue from new red-light camera violations with the State.

Drivers running red lights are a huge safety issue. Drivers running through yellow or red lights can cause serious car accidents resulting in spinal injuries, brain injuries, broken bones or scarring. Red-light camera seem like a reasonable way to encourage drivers to stop at red lights as they are supposed to.

Pedestrian Deaths From Car Crashes Can Be Avoided With Education

kcullen@cullen-law.com (Blog Author)27128 — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:00:00 EST

Metroplan Orlando announced this week that it is launching a comprehensive program to educate Central Florida drivers about how to avoid pedestrians and the often fatal accidents that occur when automobiles collide with pedestrians. This effort should be congratulated and supported in any way possible. Metroplan Orlando's own study estimates that there is one automobile versus pedestrian fatility each week in the Orange County, Seminole County, and Osceola County metropolitan area. In fact, just yesterday a woman in a wheelchair was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver.

Local law enforcement obviously supports this effort, and recognize that it is a difficult undertaking to remind drivers to look out for people crossing the roadway at busy intersections and heavy commercial areas. According to law enforcement statistics the most dangerous roadways for pedestrians are Semoran Boulevard just east of Highway 50, Highway 50 in Orlando, and Orange Blossom Trail in Kissimmee and Orlando.

Although sometimes pedestrians are at fault for crossing against traffic lights, or crossing in impermissible locations, many of today's drivers are too distracted by cellular telephones, texting, and even surfing the internet on their phones. In our experience, this increasing level of driver distraction is a contributing reason why automobile versus pedestrian fatalities are on the rise.

Sexual Abuse In Clermont Facility For At-Risk Teens Didn't Have To Happen

kcullen@cullen-law.com (Blog Author)27126 — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:00:00 EST

Unfortunately, stories like the one that came out of Clermont last week about a facility called the Green Isle Children's Ranch are becoming too frequent. From looking at its website, it appears that the Green Isle Children's Ranch holds itself out as a place where broken, at-risk children can go to find safety and comfort in a Christian-based environment. Apparently, in November 2009, at least five teenaged residents came forward reporting that they had been sexually abused by another teenaged resident.

It goes without saying that any allegations of sexual abuse are extremely serious. Isolated incidents are one thing, but these allegations involve six teenagers. A press release issued by the Green Isle Ranch after local television news honed in on this story insists that the residents of the facility receive outstanding counseling, care, and attention. Further, Green Isle Ranch insists that the children are under direct adult supervision day and night.

Although we admittedly don't yet know the whole story, it is difficult to imagine that sexual acts involving six children could happen if the children were under direct supervision day and night. To the contrary, in our experience handling dozens of claims involving negligent supervision, it is usually a distinct lack of supervision that leads to sexual abuse. In our experience, facilities often lose sight of the fact that the children they are charged with caring for many times have deep-seeded emotional and psychological problems that make it very likely that their behavior will be inappropriate, and often in the form of sexually acting out. We certainly wish facilities charged with caring for troubled teens would fulfill their promises.

Troubled Green Isle Ranch Closes Down After Sex Abuse Allegations

kcullen@cullen-law.com (News Author)13279 — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST

The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that the national organization that had been recently running the Green Isle Ranch in Lake County has finally decided to pull the plug on the troubled facility. A few weeks ago, allegations surfaced that up to six of the teenagers at the facility had been involved in some sort of sexual activity or had been sexually abused by one of the residents. Meanwhile, the Green Isle workers assured the media that all of the children were being well supervised.

Apparently, the sexual abuse allegations, as well as the steady decline of teenage residents caused Bridges of America to decide to close Green Isle Ranch. This sounds like an appropriate end to this saga.

Bad Bouncer Brings Burden On Bar For Brain Injury

kcullen@cullen-law.com (News Author)13247 — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST

Check out this story from the Daytona Beach News-Journal. Apparently, this bouncer had a violent past. I wonder what kind of background check was conducted? This bar could be in serious trouble. Bars and nightclubs can be held liable for injuries caused by their overzealous bouncers or security staff. The patron in this case wound up with a very significant brain injury. It sounds like the patron was causing some trouble himself, but that doesn't excuse the level of violence that was administered to him by this employee - apparently named "Lurch".

Paramedic Almost Killed by Driver Distracted By Cell Phone

kcullen@cullen-law.com (News Author)13249 — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST

Chad Lowery, an Orange County paramedic, is lucky to be alive. Apparently, he was working a motorcycle accidnet crash scene when a passing driver lost control of her vehicle and hit him. She has admitted that she was distracted by her cell phone. Lowery has suffered serious injuries to his cervical spine and can't lift his 8-month old daughter. We wish nothing but the best for Firefighter Lowery and his family.

Distracted driving is a disturbing trend. The Florida Legislature need to do something about this frequent cause of automobile accidents before more tragic stories like this one occur.

Pediatrician Accused Of Child Sex Abuse

kcullen@cullen-law.com (News Author)13180 — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST

This is a tragic story from the Washington Post coming out of the town of Lewes, Delaware, involving a pediatrician accused of sexually abusing and molesting many his minor female patients since 1998. In some cases, the doctor even videotaped with hidden videocameras his encounters with the kids.

The story is an interesting read because it illustrates what we find to be the situation with the parents of the minor victims in many of our cases. In almost every case of child sexual abuse, the warning signs of abuse are there is plain sight for everyone to see - but people either choose not to see them, or have reasons in their own background that they are not equipped or cannot see them.

For example, in the Delaware story, the pediatrician used many of the standard "tricks" used by pedophiles to earn the trust of kids -- providing children with toys, candy, lots of personalized attention. Sadly, the parents in the Delaware story just took this to be eccentric behavior on the part of the doctor. This was actually a warning sign.

For more information, or to have your questions about child sexual abuse cases answered, call Kim Cullen at 407-254-4901.