$37 Million Verdict After FPL Killed Traffic Signal, Killing a 12-Year-Old

On September 12, 1997, an FPL lineman disconnected power at a utility pole in the Miami area during repair work nearby. He did not realize the same pole fed a nearby traffic signal, and no one from FPL called police, placed flaggers, or put up any warning. The signal went dark, leaving a busy intersection uncontrolled.

Minutes later, Rosalie Goldberg drove her Mercedes-Benz through the now-uncontrolled intersection with her 12-year-old daughter Jill. The car was struck by a Ford Expedition and then hit by a GMC Suburban. Jill died from her injuries. Her parents, Walter and Rosalie Goldberg, brought a wrongful-death action against FPL, arguing the utility had a duty to alert authorities or otherwise secure the intersection before leaving the power off.

Stuart Grossman and Andrew Yaffa of Grossman and Roth, P.A. represented the Goldberg family at trial before Judge Juan Ramirez, Jr. in Miami. The case turned on whether FPL's failure to notify police of the outage constituted actionable negligence and whether that failure was the proximate cause of Jill's death. On March 15, 1999, the jury returned a verdict of $37,372,000 in favor of the plaintiffs.

FPL appealed. An initial panel of the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the liability finding but concluded the damages were excessive and remitted the award to $10 million. Sitting en banc, the full Third District reversed outright and entered judgment for FPL. The Florida Supreme Court then took up the case, quashed the en banc decision, and reinstated the panel's ruling, leaving the verdict in place at the remitted figure of $10 million.

At the time of the trial verdict, the $37.37 million award was described by MoreLaw's verdict reporter as believed to be the largest wrongful-death verdict for a minor plaintiff in American jurisprudence.