Florida tort law governs civil claims for injuries and other harms, letting an injured person sue for money damages from whoever caused the harm. The system covers three broad categories of wrongdoing, requires plaintiffs to prove specific elements, reduces or bars recovery based on the plaintiff’s own share of fault, and imposes strict filing deadlines that were shortened by legislation in 2023. Different rules apply to auto accidents, medical malpractice, slip-and-falls, and claims against government agencies, so the path a case takes depends heavily on how the injury happened and who caused it.
The Three Categories of Tort Claims
Every Florida tort claim falls into one of three buckets, and the category controls what the plaintiff has to prove.
Negligence is the most common. It covers careless conduct — car crashes, slip-and-falls, medical errors — where the defendant failed to act as a reasonable person would have. Intent isn’t required; carelessness that causes injury is enough.
Intentional torts involve deliberate acts, or acts the defendant knew were substantially certain to cause harm. Battery, false imprisonment, and defamation fit here. Because the conduct is purposeful, these cases more often open the door to larger awards, including punitive damages.
Strict liability holds a defendant responsible regardless of intent or care. In Florida, this most often applies to defective products. A plaintiff must show the product had a defect and that the defect caused the injury. Florida recognizes three defect types: design flaws, manufacturing errors, and failures to warn of known risks. When a manufacturer provides adequate warnings, the failure-to-warn theory generally does not apply.
What a Plaintiff Has To Prove in a Negligence Case
Because negligence drives most tort cases, its four elements are worth knowing:
- Duty. The defendant owed the plaintiff a legal obligation to act with reasonable care. A driver, for example, owes other drivers and pedestrians a duty to operate safely.
- Breach. The defendant failed to meet that duty. Running a red light, ignoring a wet floor, or texting while driving are all breaches.
- Causation. The breach actually caused the injury. Florida requires both but-for causation (the injury wouldn’t have happened otherwise) and proximate causation (the injury was a foreseeable result of the breach).
- Damages. The plaintiff suffered real, measurable losses. Medical bills, lost income, and documented pain qualify. Without actual harm, careless behavior alone doesn’t support a claim.
If any element is missing, the claim fails. Causation is where cases most often break down: a defendant may have been careless, but if the plaintiff can’t tie that carelessness to the specific injury, the case falls apart.
How Shared Fault Affects Recovery
Florida uses modified comparative negligence. A court or jury assigns each party a percentage of fault, and that percentage controls what the plaintiff can collect.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 768.81 – Comparative Fault
A plaintiff who is 50 percent at fault or less has their award reduced by their share. Someone found 30 percent responsible with $100,000 in damages collects $70,000. But a plaintiff found more than 50 percent at fault recovers nothing at all.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 768.81 – Comparative Fault
The 51 percent bar does not apply to medical malpractice claims under Chapter 766. In those cases, the plaintiff’s damages are still reduced by their percentage of fault, but they are not cut off from recovery entirely.2Florida Senate. Florida Code 768.81 – Comparative Fault
Florida also does not use joint and several liability in negligence cases. Each defendant pays only their own share. If one defendant is uninsured or judgment-proof, the plaintiff absorbs that loss rather than collecting it from the others.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 768.81 – Comparative Fault
Filing Deadlines Under Current Florida Law
Miss the statute of limitations and the case ends before it starts. Florida’s deadlines were shortened substantially in 2023, so older assumptions about how long you have are often wrong.
General Negligence and Personal Injury
For negligence-based personal injury claims — car accidents, slip-and-falls, general premises liability — the deadline is two years from the date of injury. This applies to claims arising on or after March 24, 2023, when House Bill 837 took effect. The previous deadline was four years.3Florida Senate. House Bill 837 (2023)
Medical Malpractice
A medical malpractice claim must be filed within two years of the injury or within two years of when the patient discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the injury. No claim can be filed more than four years after the incident regardless of when it was found. That four-year cutoff is the statute of repose.4Online Sunshine. Florida Code 95.11 – Limitations Other Than for the Recovery of Real Property
Before filing suit, the plaintiff must send written notice to each prospective defendant. The defendant then has 90 days to investigate and respond with a rejection, a settlement offer, or an offer to arbitrate. The limitations clock is paused during that window.5Online Sunshine. Florida Code 766.106 – Notice Before Filing Action for Medical Negligence
Wrongful Death
A wrongful death lawsuit must be filed within two years of the death. One narrow exception: when the death resulted from an intentional killing described under Florida’s murder or manslaughter statutes, there is no time limit.4Online Sunshine. Florida Code 95.11 – Limitations Other Than for the Recovery of Real Property
The Extra Hurdle in Auto Accident Cases
Florida is a no-fault state for motor vehicle accidents. Every driver must carry Personal Injury Protection (PIP) insurance, which provides up to $10,000 in medical and disability benefits regardless of who caused the crash. PIP covers 80 percent of reasonable medical expenses and 60 percent of lost income, but only if the injured person receives initial treatment within 14 days of the accident.6Online Sunshine. Florida Code 627.736 – Required Personal Injury Protection Benefits
Suing an at-fault driver for pain and suffering means clearing the serious injury threshold. The injury must involve at least one of the following:7Florida Senate. Florida Code 627.737 – Tort Exemption; Limitation on Right to Damages
- Significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function
- Permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability
- Significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement
- Death
The word “permanent” runs through every category. Broken bones that heal cleanly and soft tissue injuries that resolve with therapy generally don’t clear the bar. Meeting it usually requires medical records, imaging, and physician testimony establishing that the injury will not fully resolve.
Slip-and-Fall Claims Carry a Knowledge Requirement
If you slip on a spill, fallen merchandise, or any other temporary hazard in a business, you must prove the business either knew about the dangerous condition or should have known about it. Constructive knowledge can be shown by proving the hazard existed long enough that a reasonably attentive business would have noticed it, or that the same kind of hazard occurred often enough to be foreseeable.8Florida Senate. Florida Code 768.0755 – Premises Liability for Transitory Foreign Substances
Proving you slipped and got hurt is not enough. A bottle of oil that fell off a shelf 30 seconds before you walked by gave the store no chance to find it. A leaking refrigeration unit that employees walked past for hours is a different case entirely.
What a Successful Claim Can Recover
A plaintiff who proves a tort claim can recover three types of damages.
Economic Damages
These cover losses with a clear dollar value: past and future medical expenses, lost income, lost earning capacity, funeral costs, and property damage. They are built from documentation like bills, pay stubs, and expert projections. Future amounts are reduced to present value.9Florida Senate. Florida Code 768.81 – Comparative Fault – Section: Definitions
Non-Economic Damages
These compensate for harm that doesn’t come with a receipt: physical pain, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, and loss of companionship. Amounts are subjective, and juries have wide discretion. In auto cases, non-economic damages are only available if the injury meets the serious injury threshold.
Punitive Damages
Punitive damages punish egregious conduct rather than compensate the plaintiff. Florida caps them in three tiers:10Florida Senate. Florida Code 768.73 – Punitive Damages; Limitation
- General misconduct: the greater of three times compensatory damages or $500,000.
- Conduct driven solely by unreasonable financial gain, where a managing agent or officer knew it was unreasonably dangerous: the greater of four times compensatory damages or $2 million.
- Specific intent to harm the plaintiff, where the defendant succeeded: no cap.
Punitive damages are rare. Most negligence cases don’t involve the level of reckless or intentional behavior that supports them, and courts require clear and convincing evidence before allowing a punitive claim to reach trial.
Wrongful Death Damages by Survivor
When someone dies because of another party’s negligence, intentional act, or breach of contract, Florida’s Wrongful Death Act lets survivors recover through the decedent’s personal representative. The principle is straightforward: if the deceased could have brought a tort claim while alive, the defendant does not escape liability because the injury proved fatal.11Justia Law. Florida Code 768.21 – Damages
What each survivor can recover depends on their relationship to the deceased:
- Any survivor can recover lost financial support and services the deceased would have provided, from the date of injury forward.
- A surviving spouse can recover for loss of companionship and protection, and for mental pain and suffering.
- Minor children — or all children if there is no surviving spouse — can recover for lost parental companionship, guidance, and mental pain and suffering.
- Parents of a minor child can recover for mental pain and suffering. Parents of an adult child can recover this only if there are no other survivors.
Medical and funeral expenses can be recovered by whichever survivor paid them. The estate can also recover the decedent’s lost earnings between injury and death, plus the net accumulations the estate would have built over the deceased person’s expected lifetime.11Justia Law. Florida Code 768.21 – Damages
Claims Against Florida Government Agencies
Suing a city, county, or state agency follows separate rules. Florida has waived sovereign immunity for tort claims but caps damages at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident.12Justia Law. Florida Code 768.28 – Waiver of Sovereign Immunity in Tort Actions
A plaintiff can win a judgment above those caps, but the excess is only payable if the Florida Legislature passes a special bill authorizing it. That process, known as a claims bill, is difficult to move through the legislature, so most plaintiffs are effectively limited to the statutory amounts.
Government tort claims also require written notice to the appropriate agency, and for state-level claims, to the Department of Financial Services. The notice must be presented within three years of when the claim accrues, or within two years for wrongful death. No lawsuit can be filed until the agency denies the claim in writing.12Justia Law. Florida Code 768.28 – Waiver of Sovereign Immunity in Tort Actions