Pinellas Jury Awards $7.56 Million to Man Hurt in Partially Drained, Unlit Resort Hot Tub
After trial: After the verdict, Wil Florin said it was unclear whether the insurer would pay or appeal. We found no appellate opinion or post-trial ruling, and could not confirm whether the judgment was paid.
Won by Florin Roebig.
A Pinellas County jury awarded Ehab Mina $7.56 million at the end of January 2018 for back, neck and shoulder injuries from a 2008 fall into a partially drained, unlit hot tub at the Boca Ciega Resort & Marina. An earlier jury had found the condominium association and its management company, Condos by Sirata, each 50 percent at fault. The damages jury covered his medical expenses and lost wages after a series of back surgeries and a shoulder operation.
What happened
In February 2008, Ehab Mina spent an afternoon in the hot tub at the Boca Ciega Resort & Marina, a condominium resort at 8800 Bay Pines Boulevard in St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, Florida. He went up to his condo for a few hours and came back that evening to use the tub again.
By then, according to his lawyers, the tub was not lit, and someone had partially drained it. Nothing roped it off. Mina stepped in, lost his balance, fell backward and was hurt. Wil Florin, Tommy Roebig and Chad Florin of Florin Roebig tried the case for him. They argued that the resort's condominium association and its management company, Condos by Sirata, were negligent in failing to provide adequate lighting in the evening hours and in failing to rope off the empty hot tub.
Mina had built boats for a living. After the fall he underwent a series of back surgeries and one shoulder operation, and the Tampa Bay Times reported that he suffered permanent back and neck injuries. A column in the Daily Business Review said he badly injured his right shoulder and spine and was ultimately forced to sell his boat-building business.
The association's lawyers argued that the half-empty hot tub was an obvious condition. The case was tried in two stages in Pinellas County circuit court in Clearwater. In the first, a jury found the resort association and Condos by Sirata equally at fault, 50 percent each. A second jury then heard the damages portion and deliberated for 11 hours before returning its verdict at the end of January 2018, ten years after the fall.
That jury awarded $7,556,438, covering Mina's medical expenses and lost wages. The Tampa Bay Times reported the figure as $7.5 million and described it as likely one of the largest injury-related verdicts in Pinellas County civil court.
After the verdict, Wil Florin told the paper that Mina was relieved to have this part of the process behind him, and that the question now was whether the insurance company would make him whole or continue with an appeal. We found no appellate opinion or post-trial ruling in the public record.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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