Florida Statute of Limitations for Negligence Claims

The Florida statute of limitations for negligence claims is two years from the date of the injury for most cases, cut down from four years when House Bill 837 took effect on March 24, 2023.¹ Medical malpractice, wrongful death, and claims against government bodies each run on their own clocks and their own procedural rules, and missing any of them almost always ends the case for good.

The Two-Year Rule for Most Negligence Claims

Section 95.11(5)(a) of the Florida Statutes puts actions “founded on negligence” in the two-year category.² Car accidents, slip-and-fall injuries, and other claims built on someone’s failure to use reasonable care all fall inside this window. The two-year limit applies to any cause of action that accrued on or after HB 837’s effective date, so older guides quoting four years are out of date.

The clock generally starts the day the injury happens. If the harm was genuinely hidden and you could not reasonably have known about it, the two-year period may instead begin when you discover, or should have discovered, the injury. Florida courts read “should have been discovered” strictly, so the discovery rule is not a fallback for a claim that simply sat too long.

Medical Malpractice: Two Years, With a Four-Year Wall

A medical malpractice claim must be filed within two years of the malpractice or of when the injury was discovered (or should have been discovered), whichever is later.² Because surgical errors, misdiagnoses, and medication mistakes can take months or years to produce symptoms, the discovery rule does real work here.

Florida also imposes a four-year statute of repose. Even if you never had a fair chance to discover the injury inside those four years, the repose period cuts off the right to sue. The limitations period can shift with discovery; the repose period is an absolute wall measured from the date of the medical incident.²

Two exceptions push that wall back. If a healthcare provider committed fraud, concealed the malpractice, or intentionally misrepresented facts that prevented you from discovering the injury, the limitations period extends two additional years from discovery, with an absolute outer boundary of seven years from the incident. For minors, the four-year repose does not bar a claim filed on behalf of a child before the child’s eighth birthday, and the same eighth-birthday rule applies even where the seven-year fraud repose would otherwise control.²

Wrongful Death

When negligence causes a death, surviving family members have two years to file a wrongful death lawsuit under Section 95.11(4)(e).³ The two-year period typically runs from the date of death rather than the date of the negligent act.

Deaths caused by intentional acts like murder or manslaughter (as described in Sections 782.04 and 782.07) are treated differently. In those cases, the wrongful death lawsuit can be filed at any time with no deadline at all, and a criminal conviction is not required to bring the civil claim.³

Claims Against State and Local Government

Suing a Florida state agency, city, county, or other government body for negligence gives you a longer filing window but a stricter procedural path. Section 768.28 allows four years to bring a negligence action against the state or its subdivisions. If the claim involves medical malpractice or wrongful death, however, the standard two-year periods in Section 95.11(5) apply instead.⁴

Before filing suit, you must present a written claim to both the agency involved and the Florida Department of Financial Services. This notice is a condition of the court hearing your case at all. For wrongful death claims against the government, the written claim must be presented within two years of when the claim accrues.⁴ Skipping the notice step is a common and costly mistake, and courts will dismiss the case even where the underlying claim has merit.

When the Clock Pauses

A handful of situations can pause or extend the limitations period. These matter most when an injury surfaces late or the injured person cannot immediately take legal action.

The Discovery Rule

Where an injury is not immediately apparent, the limitations period may not begin until you discover, or reasonably should have discovered, the harm and its link to someone’s negligence. This comes up most often in medical malpractice and toxic exposure cases. It does not give you unlimited time. Florida’s statutes of repose still impose hard outer deadlines regardless of when you learned about the injury.

Minors and Incapacitated Persons

Florida’s tolling statute, Section 95.051, pauses the limitations period for minors or incapacitated individuals only under specific conditions: the person must lack a parent, guardian, or guardian ad litem, or the existing guardian must have a conflicting interest or be incapacitated. A minor with an active, capable parent generally does not get tolling, because the parent is expected to bring the claim on the child’s behalf. Medical malpractice claims are explicitly carved out from this general minority tolling. Those rely on the eighth-birthday rule described earlier.⁵

Fraudulent Concealment

If a defendant actively hides wrongdoing in a way that prevents you from discovering the harm, the statute of limitations may be tolled. Florida courts have recognized this since the Florida Supreme Court’s 1976 decision in Nardone v. Reynolds, which required a plaintiff to show both that the defendant successfully concealed the cause of action and that the concealment involved fraudulent conduct. The bar is high: simply failing to volunteer information is not enough, and the defendant must have taken affirmative steps to keep you from learning about the injury or its cause.

Defendant’s Bankruptcy

When a defendant files for bankruptcy, the federal automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362 prevents you from filing or continuing a lawsuit against them.⁶ The stay lasts until the bankruptcy case is closed, dismissed, or the court grants relief from it. The statute of limitations is generally tolled during that period so a defendant cannot run out your clock by filing for bankruptcy protection.

Medical Malpractice Pre-Suit Steps

Florida does not let you walk straight into court with a malpractice lawsuit. Before filing, you must complete a pre-suit investigation under Section 766.203, which includes obtaining a verified written opinion from a medical expert confirming that reasonable grounds exist to believe the healthcare provider was negligent and that the negligence caused your injury.⁷

After that investigation, you must send a notice of intent to initiate litigation to each prospective defendant. This triggers a mandatory 90-day pre-suit screening period during which the defendant’s side investigates the claim and may offer a settlement. You cannot file a lawsuit during those 90 days.⁸

The statute of limitations is tolled from the moment you mail the notice of intent through the end of the 90-day period, so the pre-suit process does not eat into your filing deadline. Failing to follow the procedural steps, though, can get your case dismissed outright. Courts treat these requirements as mandatory, and unreasonable failure to comply by either party can result in sanctions.⁸

What Happens if You File Too Late

If you file after the statute of limitations expires, the defendant will almost certainly raise it as a defense and the court will dismiss the case. Florida courts enforce these deadlines strictly. The dismissal is typically with prejudice, meaning you cannot refile the same claim, and the merits of the case are irrelevant once the clock runs out.

The effect reaches beyond the courtroom. A time-barred negligence claim weakens your position in insurance negotiations, because the insurer knows there is no lawsuit to worry about. Settlement offers, if they come at all, tend to shrink once the filing window closes. Pin the deadline down first. Everything else in a negligence case depends on the claim still being alive.

1
Florida Senate. House Bill 837 (2023)
2
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 95.11 (2025) – Limitations Other Than for the Recovery of Real Property
3
Florida Senate. Chapter 95 Section 11 – 2023 Florida Statutes
4
Justia. Florida Statutes 768.28 (2024) – Waiver of Sovereign Immunity in Tort Actions
5
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 95.051 – When Limitations Tolled
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 362 – Automatic Stay
7
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 766.203 – Presuit Investigation of Medical Negligence Claims
8
Justia. Florida Statutes 766.106 – Notice Before Filing Action for Medical Negligence