Miami Wrongful Death Lawsuit: Damages, Deadlines & Tort Reform

A Miami wrongful death lawsuit is filed by the personal representative of the deceased person’s estate, in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, generally within two years of the date of death, under the Florida Wrongful Death Act at sections 768.16 through 768.26 of the Florida Statutes.¹ These cases arise from car crashes, medical errors, unsafe premises, nursing home neglect, and workplace accidents, among other circumstances. The lawsuit is filed once, on behalf of every eligible survivor and the estate itself, and the damages available to each survivor depend on their relationship to the person who died.

Who Can File the Lawsuit

Individual family members cannot bring their own separate wrongful death suits in Florida. Only the personal representative of the deceased person’s estate has legal standing to file, and that single lawsuit covers every eligible survivor.²

The personal representative is appointed through probate court. If the deceased left a will naming someone for the role, that person has priority. If there was no will, the surviving spouse generally takes precedence, followed by a majority vote among the heirs or the closest qualified relative.² Once appointed, the court issues letters of administration giving the representative authority to act for the estate. That representative has a fiduciary duty to maximize recovery for all beneficiaries, negotiate any settlement, sign legal documents, and distribute the proceeds fairly.³

In Miami-Dade County, wrongful death suits are filed in the Circuit Court, which handles civil cases involving damages above $50,001.⁴ Given what is typically at stake, nearly all of these cases land there rather than in county court.

Deadline to File

Families have two years from the date of death to file a wrongful death lawsuit in Florida.⁵ The clock generally starts on the date the person dies.

Some exceptions change that timing. If the death resulted from an intentional act such as murder or manslaughter, there is no deadline, and no arrest or criminal conviction is required before filing.⁶ The clock can also pause if the person responsible has left the state, is using a false name to avoid being served, or is concealing themselves within Florida.⁷

Product liability wrongful death claims carry a separate outer limit: the lawsuit generally cannot be filed more than 12 years after the product was first delivered to a purchaser or lessee. Exceptions exist for products with an expected useful life exceeding 10 years and for manufacturers who actively concealed a known defect.⁸

What Survivors Can Recover

Florida’s Wrongful Death Act identifies specific categories of survivors who can receive compensation through the personal representative’s lawsuit. What each survivor can claim depends on their relationship to the person who died.

A surviving spouse can recover for lost support and services, loss of companionship and protection, and mental pain and suffering dating from the injury that caused death.⁹
Minor children under 25 can recover for lost parental companionship, instruction, and guidance, plus mental pain and suffering.⁹
Adult children can recover for lost support and services. They can also recover for lost parental companionship and mental pain and suffering, but only when there is no surviving spouse. In medical negligence cases, adult children cannot recover for lost companionship at all.⁹
Each parent of a deceased minor child can recover for mental pain and suffering. Parents of a deceased adult child can only recover if there are no other survivors, and they are barred from doing so in medical negligence cases.⁹
Blood relatives and adoptive siblings may recover for lost support if they can show they were financially dependent on the deceased.²

The estate itself can also recover through the personal representative. That includes the deceased person’s lost earnings from the date of injury to the date of death, and the prospective net accumulations the estate would have gained had the person lived. Medical and funeral expenses are recoverable by whichever party paid them, whether a survivor or the estate.⁹ Awards to the estate, unlike those to individual survivors, are subject to creditor claims under Florida probate law.

Wrongful Death Claims and Survival Actions

Florida draws a line between wrongful death claims and survival actions, though the personal representative usually files both together. A wrongful death claim compensates living family members for their own losses: lost companionship, lost financial support, and emotional suffering. A survival action recovers damages the deceased person would have been entitled to had they lived, such as medical bills, lost wages between the injury and death, and the deceased’s own pain and suffering before dying.²

The distinction matters because survival action proceeds go to the estate and are reachable by creditors, while wrongful death damages flow to the individual survivors and generally are not.

Extra Steps in Medical Malpractice Cases

Wrongful death claims arising from medical malpractice face procedural hurdles that other cases do not. Before filing, the plaintiff must conduct a presuit investigation to determine whether there is evidence of medical negligence. The plaintiff may petition the court for an automatic 90-day extension of the statute of limitations to carry that out.¹⁰

After the investigation, the plaintiff must send each prospective defendant a formal notice of intent to initiate litigation by certified mail or another trackable method. That notice triggers a mandatory 90-day waiting period during which no lawsuit can be filed. The defendant and their insurer are expected to investigate and either reject the claim, offer a settlement, or propose arbitration. If the defendant does not respond within 90 days, the claim is considered denied.¹¹

The notice must include copies of the medical records relied on by the plaintiff’s expert, a list of healthcare providers who treated the patient in the two years before the alleged negligence, and a signed authorization for release of medical records.¹¹ During the waiting period, both sides must cooperate in informal discovery, including unsworn statements and document exchanges, without court involvement. Failing to cooperate can result in dismissal of the claim or the defense.

Medical malpractice wrongful death cases also restrict who can recover. Adult children cannot recover for lost parental companionship, and parents of a deceased adult child cannot recover for mental pain and suffering, when the death was caused by medical negligence.⁹

When Punitive Damages Are Available

Punitive damages are available in Florida wrongful death cases, but only when the defendant’s conduct rises above ordinary negligence. A jury must find, by clear and convincing evidence, that the defendant engaged in intentional misconduct or gross negligence. Gross negligence is conduct so reckless that it amounts to a conscious disregard for the life and safety of others.¹²

Florida law caps punitive damages at the greater of $500,000 or three times the compensatory damages awarded. If the wrongful conduct was motivated solely by unreasonable financial gain and a managing agent or officer knew of the danger, the cap rises to the greater of $2 million or four times compensatory damages. There is no cap when the defendant specifically intended to harm the plaintiff and succeeded.¹³

Employers and corporations can be held liable for punitive damages based on an employee’s conduct only if the company actively participated, or if officers or managers knowingly condoned or ratified the behavior.¹²

How the 2023 Tort Reform Changed Things

Florida’s tort reform law, HB 837, signed by Governor DeSantis on March 24, 2023, made changes that affect wrongful death cases filed after that date. The most significant was moving Florida from a pure comparative negligence system to a modified one. Under the new rule, if the deceased person or their survivors are found to be more than 50% at fault for the death, they are barred from recovering any damages. Before the change, plaintiffs could recover even when they bore most of the fault, with awards simply reduced by their percentage of responsibility.¹⁴

Wrongful death actions arising from medical negligence are exempt and remain under the pure comparative negligence standard.¹⁴

The 2023 law also changed how medical expense damages are calculated. Recoverable damages are now limited to the amount actually paid or expected to be paid to healthcare providers, rather than the total amount billed. Letters of protection, arrangements where a provider treats a patient in exchange for a promise of payment from any future settlement, must now be disclosed along with itemized bills and any financial relationship between the referring attorney and the medical provider.²

Suing a Government Entity in Miami

Wrongful death claims against government entities in Florida, including cities, counties, and public hospitals, face sovereign immunity. Under Florida Statute 768.28, the state and its subdivisions cannot be held liable for more than $200,000 per person or $300,000 per incident.¹⁵ A jury can award more, but collecting anything above the cap requires the plaintiff to pursue a claims bill through the Florida Legislature. That bill is assigned to a special master, reviewed by committees, and must pass both chambers before the governor signs it.¹⁶

The case of Peniel Janvier shows how that plays out. Janvier, 28, drowned in August 2022 after being pushed into the deep end of the pool at the Scott Rakow Youth Center in Miami Beach. He was not a strong swimmer and struggled in the water for roughly 12 minutes while an on-duty lifeguard was looking at a cell phone, according to the family’s attorneys, who cited surveillance footage. The family filed suit in March 2023 and reached a $2 million settlement with the City of Miami Beach. Because the settlement exceeded the sovereign immunity cap, the city initially paid $300,000, and the remaining $1.7 million required the passage of a claims bill, SB 14, which Governor DeSantis signed in 2025.¹⁷¹⁸

In another case, a Miami-Dade police officer struck and killed a bicyclist in February 2021. A jury awarded $3 million in 2024, and the Third District Court of Appeal upheld the verdict. Florida’s sovereign immunity cap still stands between the family and the full amount.¹⁹

Legislation to raise the caps has been under consideration. HB 145, introduced during the 2026 session, would increase the limits to $500,000 per person and $1 million per incident beginning October 1, 2026, with further increases to $600,000 and $1.2 million after 2031, and would let local governments settle above the caps without a separate claims bill. The Legislature passed a version during the 2026 session, though final executive action was still pending as of mid-2026.¹⁶²⁰

One boundary to note: Florida courts have held that an unborn fetus does not qualify as a person under the Wrongful Death Act, so families cannot bring a wrongful death claim for the death of an unborn child. Parents can pursue a separate common-law negligent stillbirth claim, limited to medical expenses and emotional distress.²¹

Attorney Fees

Most wrongful death cases in Florida are handled on a contingency fee basis: the attorney collects a percentage of the recovery rather than charging hourly. The Rules Regulating the Florida Bar cap contingency fees in personal injury and wrongful death cases at 33⅓% of any recovery up to $1 million if the case settles before the defendant files an answer, and 40% if it settles or goes to verdict after that point. For recoveries between $1 million and $2 million, the cap drops to 30%. For amounts above $2 million, it falls to 20%.²²

When claims are brought against government entities under the sovereign immunity statute, attorney fees are further limited to 25% of any judgment or settlement.¹⁵ Individual survivors may retain their own separate attorneys, but the total fee paid by any one survivor stays capped at the standard percentages; courts will not permit a double fee when multiple lawyers are involved in the same case.

Recent Miami Wrongful Death Verdicts

Miami-Dade County has seen several large wrongful death results in recent years. On July 15, 2025, a Miami-Dade Circuit Court jury awarded $100 million to the family of Jason Campbell, a 23-year-old fatally shot at the Monte Carlo Condominium complex in Biscayne Gardens on June 1, 2021. The suit, brought by his parents, former state senator Daphne Campbell and Hubert Campbell, alleged that the property manager, condominium association, and security firm failed to protect residents despite knowing the shooter had previously entered the building unauthorized and armed. The jury assigned 57% of the fault to AKAM On-Site Inc., the property manager, 18% each to the Monte Carlo Condominium Association and EMS Protective Group, and 7% to a tenant who allowed the shooter access. The assailant, Lakoria Washington, separately pleaded guilty to murder. Daphne and Hubert Campbell were each awarded $25 million for pain and suffering, and Jason Campbell’s three children received $50 million collectively.²³²⁴

In February 2026, a jury in the same court awarded $14.7 million in a nursing home wrongful death case brought on behalf of the estate of an 82-year-old man who developed Stage 4 pressure sores at Krystal Bay Nursing and Rehab, leading to sepsis, bone infection, multiple amputations, and death. The jury split fault evenly between the facility’s licensee and its management company, awarding $350,000 per year for seven years to each of the man’s six surviving children.²⁵

The single largest wrongful death recovery connected to the Miami area remains the approximately $1.2 billion settlement in the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, approved by the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County on June 23, 2022. That settlement, finalized less than a year after the building collapsed and killed 98 people, resolved claims brought on behalf of the victims’ families and survivors.²⁶

1
Florida Legislature. Wrongful Death Act Overview
2
Florida Legislature. Damages in Wrongful Death Actions
3
17th Judicial Circuit of Florida. Personal Representatives Handbook
4
Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts. Civil Court Services
5
Florida Legislature. Limitations of Actions, Section 95.11
6
Florida Legislature. Section 95.11, Limitations of Actions
7
Florida Legislature. Limitations of Actions, Section 95.051
8
Florida Legislature. Limitations of Actions, Section 95.031
9
Florida Senate. Section 768.21, Florida Statutes
10
The Florida Bar. Florida Medical Malpractice and the Statute of Limitations
11
Florida Legislature. Section 766.106, Notice Before Filing Suit
12
Florida Legislature. Section 768.72, Pleading in Claims for Punitive Damages
13
Florida Legislature. Section 768.73, Punitive Damages Caps
14
Florida Senate. CS/HB 289 Analysis
15
Florida Legislature. Section 768.28, Waiver of Sovereign Immunity
16
Florida Phoenix. Bill to Ease Litigation Hurdles Against State, Local Governments
17
Miami Herald. Peniel Janvier Drowning at Scott Rakow Youth Center
18
Florida Senate. SB 14 Claims Bill
19
PWD Law Firm. Florida Appeals Court Upholds $3 Million Wrongful Death Judgment Against Miami-Dade
20
Florida Senate. HB 145 Legislative Analysis
21
Florida Senate. CS/HB 289 Legislative Analysis
22
The Florida Bar. Consumer Pamphlet: How Do I Choose and Use a Lawyer
23
Miami Herald. Former State Senator Campbell Family $100 Million Verdict
24
Insurance Journal. Miami Jury Awards $100M in Wrongful Death Suit
25
Lancaster Eagle Gazette. Senior Justice Law Firm Secures Record $14.7 Million Jury Verdict Against Miami Nursing Home
26
SMBB Law. $1.2 Billion in Surfside Condo Collapse Litigation