Child Catastrophic Injuries
At Justice for Kids®, we represent children who are catastrophically injured in all settings. We represent parents in death cases where we believe that we can protect other children from the same tragedies. Our team helps all children who are paralyzed, brain damaged, sexually abused, and permanently injured. We strive to create trusts to fund life care plans to provide for medical expenses, therapeutic services, supports, placements, training, education and the critical financial needs for these children throughout the remainder of their lives.
- Jury Awarded $15 Million to Brain Damaged 8-Year-Old Child in Damages Case Against DCF for Negligent Investigation. In one of the largest jury awards in Florida history, a young girl was awarded a $15 million verdict against the Florida Department of Children & Families for negligently investigating abuse reports that her mother had abused drugs endangering the child. The eight-year-old girl who is referred to as H.H., was tortured and suffered permanent traumatic brain injury and quadriplegia from repeated episodes of abusive head trauma and is now completely dependent on others for all aspects of her daily functioning.(Link to Results and Verdicts Page) Stacie Schmerling and Lisa Elliott, attorneys with the Justice for Kids® Division of Kelley Kronenberg, represented H.H., by and through her permanent guardian in this lawsuit.(Link to Results and Verdicts Page)
- Angela Sozzani v. Help-A-Child, Florida Department of Children & Families
At the age of two, Angela nearly drowned in a pool at her foster home, leaving her permanently dependent on a ventilator and supportive care at Pediatric Nursing Facility, KIDZ KORNER. Howard Talenfeld and his team filed negligence claims against Help-A-Child, the Florida Department of Children & Families, and the foster parents who all caused and or contributed to her catastrophic injuries. After obtaining seven figure settlements, which were placed in her special needs trust, Howard’s work had only just begun. This is because there is so much more to representing catastrophically injured foster children in the care of government child welfare agencies, DCF and its private providers than just obtaining a monetary award. Howard was there to obtain the opinions of the best expert treaters, medical professionals, and a life care planner to ensure that Angela received the maximum damages recovery, that the proceeds were placed in an appropriately designed Medicaid Special Needs Trust, and that she could receive all of the public benefits she needed as both a child and an adult. And, if the recoveries are not enough to sustain Angela throughout her life, Angela through her attorneys has a right under the settlement with DCF to pursue a claims bill from the Florida Legislature to supplement the money she recovered from the agencies who injured her and their insurers. - Confidential Settlement in Death of Minor at Day Care Facility. After picking up a two-year-old child one summer morning, the day care center failed to conduct head counts and take attendance as children were entering the facility. Had they taken attendance and compared it to the transportation logs, as they are mandated by the state to do, the day care center would have rapidly discovered that NS was still on the van. For more than five hours, no one noticed that he was unaccounted for and missing. It was not until someone picked up his backpack that they realized he wasn’t there. There were also staffing deficiencies at the facility. NS was found inside the van. Tragically, he did not survive. Entrusted with the most vulnerable, childcare facilities are governed by state mandated standards to ensure the protection of our children and when they fail, they must be held accountable. We were able to reach a confidential settlement prior to initiating litigation.
Florida Child Legal Cases Handled By Kelley Kronenberg: