South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers Blog
Last updated August 28, 2026 · Reviewed by Elizabeth Estrada
Florida limits what a government agency can pay an injured person to $200,000, however large the verdict. The Florida Senate received 17 bills on August 7, 2026 whose entire purpose is paying claims above that ceiling, and five of them name Miami-Dade County.
The cap is not a measure of what a case is worth. Florida Statute § 768.28(5)(a) bars the state, its agencies, and its subdivisions from paying any one person more than $200,000, or more than $300,000 for all claims arising out of the same incident. The same subsection allows a judgment to be entered above those figures and directs that the excess may be reported to the Legislature, payable in part or in whole only by a further act of it.
People injured by a county vehicle, a public hospital, or a sheriff’s deputy are often told the cap ends the discussion. It does not. Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada has handled personal injury claims across Miami-Dade County since 1976, including claims against public bodies, and two questions decide most of them. Was written notice given in time, and is the loss large enough to justify the legislative route.
What Section 768.28 Caps, and What It Does Not
The statute waives sovereign immunity, meaning it grants permission to sue a government body that would otherwise be immune from suit entirely. Florida Statute § 768.28(5)(a) then sets the payment limits at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident, and excludes punitive damages and prejudgment interest.
What the subsection does not do is cap the verdict. A jury can find damages of several million dollars against a county, and that judgment stands as entered. The agency simply cannot pay past the statutory figures without legislative authorization. The distance between those two ideas is the distance between a case that is finished and a case with one step left.
The Notice Requirement That Comes First
None of it is reachable without written notice, and this is where these claims are most often lost. Florida Statute § 768.28(6)(a) makes it a condition of filing suit that the claimant present the claim in writing to the appropriate agency, and, except for claims against a municipality, a county, or the Florida Space Authority, also to the Department of Financial Services, within three years after the claim accrues. A wrongful death claim carries a shorter window of two years.
The agency must then deny the claim in writing before suit can be filed. Failure to make final disposition within six months after filing counts as a denial, which stops an agency from running out the clock by staying silent. Florida Statute § 768.28(6)(b) treats notice and denial as conditions precedent rather than elements of the claim, so satisfying them does not change the date the cause of action accrued.
The Claim Bills Filed for the 2027 Session
A claim bill is a private bill asking the Florida Legislature to pay the portion of a judgment or settlement that exceeds the sovereign immunity limits. Every bill filed so far for the 2027 session is one. The Florida Senate’s 2027 bill list shows 17 filings, all dated August 7, 2026, and every one of them a relief act.
Five name Miami-Dade County. The rest name the Department of Children and Families, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, Charlotte County, the City of Clearwater, the City of Temple Terrace, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the Department of Corrections, the Department of Legal Affairs, and the University of South Florida. Several are filed by an estate rather than a living claimant, which is what a Florida wrongful death claim against a public entity looks like by the time it reaches this stage.
Talk With Us About a Claim Against a Florida Government Agency
Claims against public entities run on a different clock and a different ceiling from ordinary injury claims, and the notice deadline is the one that quietly ends them. Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada has represented injured people throughout Miami-Dade, Broward, and Collier Counties since 1976. Call us at (305) 448-8585 or contact our Miami office for a free consultation. We work on contingency, and you pay nothing unless we recover for you.