Your home or business flooding is a traumatic experience. In addition to physical damage to your personal property or home, there is also an emotional component to such an event. Seeing your home and personal possessions in knee-deep water can leave you with lasting emotional scars. After all, these are your worldly possessions, personal property that may have significant monetary as well as sentimental value to you. People who have suffered flooding-related property damage also often report insomnia, anxiety or other mental health/emotional symptoms every time it rains as a result of what they have experienced. Unfortunately, this anxiety and stress is not something one can recover for in a property damage lawsuit except in very rare scenarios. This is true regardless of the source of the flooding, whether, from a nearby road construction project down the street or a developer who cut corners building a development adjacent to your property.
The Impact Rule
Florida is one of a few states left that have what is known as the impact rule. The impact rule requires you to have a suffered a physical injury in order to recover purely emotional damages. Put another way, the impact rule prevents you from recovering for purely emotional damages unless you suffered a physical impact that caused actual physical injuries.
The Impact Rule in Flooding Cases
How does this come up in property damage cases? In a property damage case based on flooding to your home as a result of a construction project, your house may have flooded. This water in turn caused mold to form and you breathed in mold spores. This worsened your pre-existing asthma, which would be enough to get around the impact rule because you suffered a tangible physical impact (the mold spores that infiltrated your lungs) from the flooding that then caused you to suffer a physical injury (the exacerbation of your asthma).
Call The Florida Flood Lawyer
Even if you have not actually suffered any physical injuries as a result of water intrusion to your home or business, you can still recover damages. Contact the Florida Flood Lawyer by email or via phone (352) 448-1405 today to discusss your options if you have been adversely affected by flooding, regardless of the source.
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