Florida Tort Claims Act: Deadlines, Notice, and Damage Caps

The Florida Tort Claims Act, found at Section 768.28 of the Florida Statutes, is the law that lets you sue a state or local government entity for negligence — something you generally could not do before the Legislature partially waived sovereign immunity. The waiver comes with hard limits: you can recover no more than $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident, attorney fees are capped at 25 percent, and you must send a written pre-suit notice and wait out an investigation period before filing in state court.¹

Who You Can Sue

The Act reaches state agencies and subdivisions broadly. That includes the executive departments, the Legislature, the judicial branch (including public defenders), counties, municipalities, independent establishments such as state university boards of trustees, and corporations that primarily act as arms of the state, counties, or municipalities. The Florida Space Authority is specifically named.¹

Liability attaches only when the negligent act was committed by an employee acting within the scope of official duties. You cannot sue the officer, employee, or agent personally unless they acted in bad faith, with malicious purpose, or with wanton and willful disregard for human rights, safety, or property. Your defendant is the government entity itself.²

Independent contractors are usually not treated as government employees, so the state generally has no liability for what they do. The statute carves out narrow exceptions where certain contractors are deemed state agents, including some healthcare providers contracted by the Department of Corrections, regional poison control centers under the Department of Health, rail operators and dispatchers for the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, firms monitoring state road and bridge construction for the Department of Transportation, and providers contracted by the Department of Juvenile Justice. If a private contractor injured you, whether the Act applies depends on whether that contractor fits one of these statutory categories.¹

Deadlines You Must Meet

Two clocks run at once, and missing either one ends the case.

The pre-suit written notice must reach the appropriate agency (and, for state-level claims, the Department of Financial Services) within three years after the claim accrues. For wrongful death claims, that notice deadline drops to two years.¹

The lawsuit itself must be filed within four years after the claim accrues. Medical malpractice and wrongful death cases follow the shorter limitations periods in Section 95.11(5) rather than the four-year default.¹

Here is the trap: for medical malpractice and wrongful death actions, the statute of limitations is tolled while the Department of Financial Services or the agency takes to deny the claim. That tolling does not apply to ordinary negligence claims. If you are pursuing a slip-and-fall or car accident against a government entity, the four-year clock keeps running while the agency investigates.

Sending the Pre-Suit Notice

Written notice is a mandatory condition precedent. Skip it or serve it incorrectly and the court will dismiss the case.

Who Gets Served

For claims against a state agency, serve both the head of the specific agency and the Department of Financial Services. For claims against a municipality, county, or the Florida Space Authority, serve only the entity itself; the Department of Financial Services does not need a copy.¹ At the state level, the Department of Financial Services routes claims to its Division of Risk Management, which investigates liability claims involving state agencies and universities.³p>

What to Include

The statute does not prescribe a form, but the notice needs enough detail for the agency to evaluate liability. At a minimum, include your full legal name and contact information, the date and location of the incident, a description of how the government’s negligence caused your injuries, and the nature and extent of those injuries. Attach police reports, medical records, and photos where you have them. Make sure your name matches the name on your identification, because mismatches cause avoidable delays.

Send the notice by certified mail with return receipt requested. You may later need to prove the exact date the agency received it.

The Waiting Period Before You Can File

Once the agency receives your notice, a mandatory waiting period starts. During that time you are barred from filing suit. For most claims the agency has six months to reach a final disposition; for medical malpractice and wrongful death claims, the window is 90 days.¹

Three things can happen:

The agency offers a settlement, typically within the statutory caps.
The agency issues a written denial before the period expires, which lets you file immediately.
The agency does nothing, and the claim is deemed denied when the six months (or 90 days) run out.

Filing before the waiting period fully elapses, even by one day, can result in dismissal. Courts enforce this strictly.

Filing the Lawsuit

After denial or deemed denial, you file a complaint in Florida state court. The Act does not waive Florida’s Eleventh Amendment immunity in federal court, so federal court is generally not available for these state-law tort claims.¹

Service of process for the lawsuit goes to the head of the agency involved and, for state-level claims (not municipalities, counties, or the Florida Space Authority), to the Department of Financial Services. The agency or department then has 30 days to respond.¹

Damage Caps and What You Cannot Recover

No single claimant can collect more than $200,000 from a government entity for injuries arising from one incident. When multiple people are hurt in the same event, the total payout across all claimants cannot exceed $300,000. These caps apply no matter how severe the injuries or how clear the negligence.¹

A jury can return a larger verdict, but the government is not obligated to pay the excess. Getting anything above the cap requires a claims bill from the Legislature.

The Act also bars two categories of damages entirely: punitive damages and prejudgment interest. You cannot recover damages meant to punish the entity, and no interest accrues on the judgment for the period before the court enters it.¹

Situations Where Immunity Still Applies

Several scenarios remain outside the waiver even though they involve government conduct:

Injuries caused by someone fleeing a law enforcement officer in a vehicle, when the officer reasonably believed the person had committed a forcible felony, followed the agency’s written high-speed pursuit policy, and did not drive with reckless disregard for human life.
Florida National Guard members performing duty under Title 10 or Title 32 of the U.S. Code.
Injuries to a person who unlawfully participated in a riot, unlawful assembly, or civil disobedience, when the injury arose out of that activity.
Claims filed in federal court, which the Act does not authorize.

These exclusions come directly from the statute and are not subject to judicial discretion.¹

Florida courts also apply the discretionary function doctrine, which shields planning-level policy decisions from liability. Claims about how a policy was carried out can proceed; claims challenging the policy choice itself usually run into immunity.

Attorney Fee Limit

The Act caps attorney fees at 25 percent of any judgment or settlement. No attorney may charge, demand, or collect more than that for services on a claim under this statute. That is below the roughly one-third contingency common in private personal injury work, which can make it harder to find experienced counsel willing to take on smaller government tort claims.¹

The math on a maximum recovery: on $200,000, the fee is $50,000, leaving $150,000 before case costs. For catastrophic injuries where actual damages far exceed the statutory limits, the financial calculation for both client and counsel often depends on whether a claims bill is realistic.

Getting Paid Above the Cap: Claims Bills

If a jury awards more than $200,000 to a single claimant or more than $300,000 across all claimants from one incident, the government pays only up to the cap. Collecting the rest requires a claims bill, which is a special piece of legislation authorizing the state to appropriate funds for the excess.⁴

The process is legislative, not judicial. Senate and House rules require you to exhaust administrative and judicial remedies before the Legislature will take up a contested claim bill. A special master appointed by the Legislature holds a hearing at which you must appear, provide supporting documentation, prove negligence by a preponderance of the evidence, and submit an affidavit breaking down attorney and lobbying fees.⁴

Legislators have complete discretion to approve, deny, or partially fund a claims bill, and most fail. Under Section 11.065 of the Florida Statutes, no claim may be presented to the Legislature more than four years after the cause for relief accrued. Recovering a large verdict against the government in Florida effectively requires winning twice: once in court, and again in the Legislature.

1
Florida Statutes. Florida Code 768.28 – Waiver of Sovereign Immunity in Tort Actions
2
Florida Senate. Florida Code 768.28 – Waiver of Sovereign Immunity in Tort Actions
3
Florida Department of Financial Services. Division of Risk Management
4
Florida Senate. Legislative Claim Bill Manual