Key West Injury Lawyer Blog
A father who was allegedly driving drunk the day he crashed his car into a tree, killing his daughter, 5, and injuring his son, 3, faces DUI manslaughter charges, police said in a Dec. 31 news release.
The crash happened in Polk County, Florida, on Nov. 7 when a father, who is not being named to protect the identity of his son, was allegedly three times over the legal limit when he was behind the wheel. The man picked up his children from their grandfather’s home, missed a turn and ran a stop sign, according to police. He later crashed into a tree and the car went up in flames. The man’s daughter died in the incident and his 3-year-old son suffered burns to his face.
The man tried getting his son out of the car but fell to the ground. A passerby helped the child. The father was also injured in the crash, according to reporting from the Miami Herald.
The legal limit for drivers over 21 years old in Florida is 0.08% while the man’s blood alcohol content was .25 grams/dL (grams of alcohol per deciliter).
Leesfield & Partners
Leesfield & Partners has had a strong presence in Key West since the 70s with its Founder and Managing Partner, Ira Leesfield, trying his first-ever case there in 1973. The firm was established three years later and, in the 1980s, Mr. Leesfield purchased the firm’s Key West office in historic Whitehead Street. In nearly five decades of personal injury practice, the firm has developed a strong client base in the area with record and leading verdicts and settlements in areas such as tragic boating cases, jet ski incidents, motor vehicle collisions and more.
In Monroe County, over 1,600 crashes were recorded for 2024, according to data from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles’ Crash Dashboard. In those 1,600 crashes, five people were killed and nearly 1,200 people were injured. The month with the highest crash rate in the county was March, as has been consistent with annual crash data for the last several years, according to FLHSMV. This is because that is the month when thousands of college students flock to the area for spring break. Crash incident rates during March have become such an issue that Florida road safety officials have previously sent out advisories warning drivers and have begun annual sober driving campaigns to raise awareness about this ongoing issue.
In 48 years of personal injury practice, Leesfield & Partners has obtained more than $395,584,375 for clients injured on Florida roads, many of whom were injured because of distracted and/or impaired drivers. Due to the prevalent issue of impaired driving, Mr. Leesfield has teamed up with pedestrian and road safety organizations through his charitable organization, The Leesfield Family Foundation. In 2023, Mr. Leesfield was elected to the Friends of The Underline’s Board of Directors.
Previous Cases
Leesfield & Partners previously represented a Monroe County Sheriff’s Deputy in a motor vehicle collision. The day of the crash, the deputy was driving with his son when another car negligently failed to yield to the right-of-way and pulled out in front of them. Both the deputy and his child were seriously injured in the crash.
The firm previously represented a bicyclist who was stopped off the shoulder on the Overseas Highway when they were hit by a negligent driver distracted by their car’s GPS. A $5.35 million settlement was obtained for the bicyclist who suffered multiple, life-threatening injuries from this incident.
Recently, Evan Robinson, a Trial Lawyer at Leesfield & Partners secured $110,000 for a client injured in a Monroe County crash.
Another Florida Keys case involved an officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission who was driving a truck towing a 31-foot fishing boat near Marathon, Florida. The officer was going the speed limit when the trailer began to fishtail from side-to-side and went into oncoming traffic. A driver in a van tried to avoid a collision but couldn’t.
At least two people died, and catastrophic injuries were suffered by multiple others. The driver of the van survived but had nine broken bones, numerous lacerations to her face and was left traumatized by the ordeal. An investigation from the Florida Highway Patrol concluded that the combined weight of the trailer and the boat exceeded the maximum towing capacity of the trailer hitch on the truck, causing the crash.
Leesfield & Partners secured the maximum, capped settlement in that case.
Another Leesfield & Partners client suffered tremendously in a Key West crash with an ambulance that left him permanently injured and disfigured. The driver of the ambulance in that case claimed he was on his way to an emergency but did not have on his lights or signals when he ran through an intersection in which he had the red light. Due to the lack of emergency signals, our client had no way of knowing that the ambulance would not stop as he crossed the intersection.
A jury awarded our client a $2.1 million verdict.
