South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers Blog

Florida’s Supreme Court Changed How Judges Screen a Punitive Damages Claim

Published on: October 30, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

Florida Statute § 768.72(1) keeps a claim for punitive damages out of a lawsuit until the injured person makes “a reasonable showing by evidence” that would support recovering them, and a judge must give permission before the claim is added. On June 11, 2026, the Florida Supreme Court decided how demanding that early screening is. In Perlmutter v. Federal Insurance Co., all seven justices held that the clear and convincing evidence standard used at trial does not apply at this stage.

Under Perlmutter, the test for adding Florida punitive damages is whether a reasonable person could conclude, from the injured person’s own evidence, that the defendant committed intentional misconduct or gross negligence. The judge looks only at that evidence, in the light most favorable to the injured person, and does not weigh it or take a competing submission from the defense. If you were hit by a drunk driver, the question is what your evidence shows, not how the defense answers it.

Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada has represented injured people across Miami-Dade and South Florida since 1976. Our Miami personal injury attorneys look at punitive damages early in cases involving drunk, racing, or otherwise reckless drivers.

After Florida’s E-Bike Veto, the Bicycle Rules Still Govern an E-Bike Crash

Published on: October 21, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

Florida Statute § 316.20655 treats an electric bicycle as a vehicle “to the same extent as a bicycle,” and gives its rider the same rights and duties as any bicycle rider. A 2026 bill, CS/SB 382, would have added speed and yielding rules for e-bikes near pedestrians. The Governor vetoed it on June 25, 2026, so every Florida e-bike crash is still judged under the statute as last amended in 2025.

After a Florida e-bike crash, fault is measured against the bicycle rules, the e-bike rider is not required to carry any insurance, and no-fault coverage does not apply when an e-bike strikes a pedestrian. Whether an e-bike rider hit by a car can draw personal injury protection (PIP) benefits is a closer question that the statute does not answer in terms.

Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada represents riders and pedestrians in Miami bicycle and e-bike accident claims throughout Miami-Dade County, including crashes on bike lanes, shoulders, and multiuse paths.

Is the Machine That Hurt You Too Old to Sue Over? Florida’s 12-Year Product Repose

Published on: October 11, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

Florida Statute § 95.031(2)(b) sets an outer limit on product liability lawsuits that is separate from the ordinary filing deadline. For most products, no claim may be brought if the harm was caused by use of the product more than 12 years after it was first delivered to an end user. For a worker hurt on older equipment, the manufacturer may be the only party outside the workers’ compensation system who can be sued, and this rule can bar that claim.

Under the Florida product liability statute of repose, the 12-year clock runs from delivery to the first end user, not from the day a later owner bought the machine used. An end user here means a first purchaser or lessee that was not in the business of selling or leasing the product or building it into another product. The statute presumes that every product outside its listed exceptions has a useful life of 10 years or less, so ordinary workplace machinery falls under the 12-year limit unless the manufacturer warranted a longer life.

Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada has represented thousands of injured workers across Miami-Dade and South Florida since 1976, and our defective product attorneys check a machine’s delivery history before anything else.

Florida Nursing Home Claims Run on Their Own 75-Day Notice Rule

Published on: October 2, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

A Florida nursing home negligence claim, or a claim that a resident’s rights were violated, follows its own presuit procedure in Chapter 400, Part II, of the Florida Statutes. Section 400.023(1)(e) states that Chapter 766, the medical malpractice statute with its own presuit investigation rules, does not apply to these claims. The notice, the waiting period, and the deadlines all come from Chapter 400 instead.

Before filing suit over an injury or death in a Florida nursing home, the claimant must send written notice by certified mail, return receipt requested, to each prospective defendant, and then wait 75 days. The notice has to go out within the limitations period, which is two years from the incident or its discovery and never more than four years from the incident.

Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada has represented injured people and their families across Miami-Dade and South Florida since 1976, and our Miami nursing home negligence attorneys handle these claims under Chapter 400. An assisted living facility falls under a different chapter, Chapter 429, with different rules.

The Role NICA Plays in a Florida Birth Injury Lawsuit

Published on: September 25, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

Last updated September 25, 2026 · Reviewed by Carolyn Friedman Frank

Florida law can require an administrative law judge to rule on a baby’s brain injury at delivery before any lawsuit over that injury goes forward in circuit court. On July 8, 2026, the Third District Court of Appeal applied that rule to a Miami-Dade case in which parents had sued a hospital and its executives in a lawsuit separate from their case against the doctors who delivered their child. The decision, Mount Sinai Medical Center of Florida, Inc. v. Esposito, puts the NICA question at the front of a Florida birth injury lawsuit even when the claim is aimed at hospital systems.

NICA is the Florida Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Plan, a no-fault system that compensates a limited class of catastrophic birth injuries in place of a malpractice suit. Florida Statute § 766.304 gives the administrative law judge exclusive jurisdiction to decide whether a claim is compensable under the plan, and it provides that no civil action may be brought until the judge has made the determinations listed in Florida Statute § 766.309. For families working with our Miami medical malpractice attorneys, the first contested question is often whether the injury falls inside NICA at all, and the negligence case waits on the answer.

Florida’s Apartment Security Presumption Survived the 2026 Session

Published on: September 15, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

Last updated September 15, 2026 · Reviewed by Elizabeth Estrada

Florida Statute § 768.0706 gives the owner of an apartment complex a presumption against liability for crimes committed on the property by third parties who are not its employees or agents, as long as the owner substantially implemented a list of security measures. Two 2026 bills would have denied that protection to properties with a recent history of reported crimes. Both died in committee on March 13, 2026, so the Florida apartment negligent security presumption remains exactly as the Legislature wrote it in 2023.

The presumption is not automatic. Subsection (3) puts the burden of proof on the owner or principal operator to show that it substantially implemented the security measures the statute lists. For a tenant or guest hurt in a robbery, shooting, or assault, the owner’s security records are central evidence, and our Florida negligent security attorneys ask for them first.

Florida Supreme Court Rules Workers’ Comp Can Cover an Assault at Work

Published on: September 10, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

Last updated September 10, 2026 · Reviewed by Carolyn Friedman Frank

An employee attacked on the job by a stranger can qualify for workers’ compensation benefits in Florida, the Florida Supreme Court held on July 9, 2026. The decision, Bouayad v. Normandy Insurance Co., quashed a First District Court of Appeal ruling that had taken a far narrower view of workers’ comp for assault at work in Florida. One way to show the attack is work-related, the Court said, is proof that the job duties and work environment exposed the worker to an increased risk of assault.

Florida Statute § 440.09(1) requires an employer to pay benefits for an injury “arising out of work performed in the course and the scope of employment.” The Court read that phrase to require a real connection between the injury and the job, not proof that the task the worker was doing at that moment caused the harm.

Florida’s New Memory Care License Law and What It Changes for Families

Published on: September 5, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

Last updated September 5, 2026 · Reviewed by Carolyn Friedman Frank

Florida created a separate license for assisted living facilities that care for residents with dementia when Chapter 2026-102, Laws of Florida, was approved by the Governor on May 22, 2026 and took effect that day. The Florida memory care license law, now Florida Statute § 429.076, will require an assisted living facility that serves memory care residents, or advertises memory care services, to hold a memory care services license on top of its standard license. That requirement does not apply yet.

The timing depends on rules the Agency for Health Care Administration must adopt by June 1, 2027. A facility licensed on or after the rules’ effective date needs the license before serving memory care residents or advertising memory care. A facility licensed earlier has six months after the rules take effect to obtain it. A memory care resident is a person with Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia living in an assisted living facility that claims to provide care, services, or activities specifically for that condition, whether or not the resident’s contract lists them, under Florida Statute § 429.02(15).

Florida Dog Bite Law and the Limits of a “Bad Dog” Sign

Published on: August 31, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

Last updated August 28, 2026 · Reviewed by Ronald David Rodman

Florida holds a dog owner responsible for a bite even when the animal has never shown aggression before. Florida Statute § 767.04 makes that responsibility strict, which places the state outside the older common-law rule that effectively gave every dog one free bite.

Under the statute, the owner of a dog that bites a person in a public place, or lawfully in a private place including the owner’s own property, is liable for the damages the bitten person suffers, regardless of the dog’s former viciousness or the owner’s knowledge of it. Strict liability is a rule that makes an owner answerable for the harm without the injured person having to prove carelessness. The statute then supplies one real defense, and it is narrower than the sign on the fence suggests. Our Miami dog bite attorneys find that gap misunderstood by owners and bite victims alike.

Florida Limits Medical Negligence Damages for Adult Children

Published on: August 16, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

Last updated August 28, 2026 · Reviewed by Carolyn Friedman Frank

Florida wrongful death law treats a death caused by medical care differently from every other kind of death. Florida Statute § 768.21(8) removes an entire category of damages from adult children when the death arises out of medical negligence, and removes the matching category from parents when the person who died was an adult child.

Florida Statute § 768.21(3) otherwise lets children of a person who died recover for lost parental companionship, instruction, and guidance, and for mental pain and suffering from the date of injury. Subsection (8) withdraws that recovery where the claim is one for medical negligence. The loss is identical, the family is identical, and the outcome turns on what caused the death. Our Miami medical malpractice attorneys explain this to families more often than any other rule in the statute.