Florida Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury Claims

Under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(3)(a), you have 2 years from the date your injury occurred to file a personal injury lawsuit in Florida. This applies to most negligence-based claims, including car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle crashes, pedestrian accidents, slip and falls, and dog bites. Before March 24, 2023, this deadline was 4 years — HB 837 cut it in half.

The 2-year clock starts on the date the injury happens — not the date you hire an attorney, not the date you finish medical treatment, and not the date you realize the full extent of your injuries. If your accident occurred on April 15, 2024, you must file your lawsuit by April 15, 2026. Filing even one day late results in permanent dismissal. The defendant will raise the statute of limitations as an affirmative defense, and the court will grant it.

For accidents that occurred before March 24, 2023, the old 4-year deadline still applies. HB 837's reduced statute of limitations applies only to causes of action that accrued on or after the law's effective date. If you were injured on March 23, 2023, you had until March 23, 2027. If you were injured on March 24, 2023, you had until March 24, 2025. The one-day difference between a 4-year and 2-year deadline matters enormously.

Under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(4)(d), wrongful death claims must be filed within 2 years of the date of death. The clock starts on the date of death, not the date of the accident that caused the death. If a car accident victim survives for three months before dying from accident-related injuries, the 2-year wrongful death clock starts on the date of death, not the date of the accident.

Only the personal representative of the deceased person's estate can file a wrongful death lawsuit under Florida's Wrongful Death Act (Fla. Stat. § 768.20). If there is no personal representative appointed, one must be appointed by the probate court before the lawsuit can be filed. This process takes time and must be completed before the 2-year deadline expires. Do not assume that appointing a personal representative pauses the clock — it does not.

Florida's wrongful death statute limits who can recover damages. Survivors eligible for compensation include the spouse, children, parents (if the deceased was a minor), and any blood relative or adoptive sibling who was partly or wholly dependent on the deceased for support. Each category of survivor has different recoverable damages, and the estate itself can recover certain damages separately.

Florida recognizes the discovery rule for certain types of injuries where the harm is not immediately known. Under the discovery rule, the statute of limitations begins to run when the injured person knew or should have known, through the exercise of due diligence, that they had been injured and that the injury was caused by another party's conduct.

The discovery rule most commonly applies in medical malpractice, product liability, and toxic exposure cases — situations where the injury may develop gradually or where the connection between the defendant's conduct and the plaintiff's harm is not immediately apparent. It rarely applies to standard car accident or slip-and-fall cases where the injury is obvious at the time of the incident.

Even when the discovery rule applies, Florida has statutes of repose that create an absolute outer deadline. For medical malpractice, the statute of repose is 4 years from the date of the incident regardless of when the injury was discovered, with limited exceptions for fraud, concealment, or misrepresentation by the healthcare provider (Fla. Stat. § 95.11(4)(b)).

Under Fla. Stat. § 95.051, the statute of limitations is tolled (paused) for minors and persons who are deemed mentally incapacitated at the time the cause of action accrues. For minors, the clock does not start running until the child turns 18. A child injured at age 10 has until age 20 to file a personal injury lawsuit — 2 years after turning 18.

For persons with mental incapacity, the statute is tolled during the period of incapacity. However, Fla. Stat. § 95.051(2) imposes an outer limit: the period of disability tolling cannot extend the filing deadline by more than 7 years beyond the date the cause of action accrued. This prevents claims from remaining open indefinitely.

Parents or legal guardians can file a claim on behalf of a minor at any time during the minor's childhood. Waiting until the child turns 18 is an option but carries risks — evidence degrades over time, witnesses become harder to locate, and memories fade. Many attorneys recommend filing sooner rather than later to preserve the strength of the case, even though the minor technically has additional time.

If your accident involved a Florida government entity — a county bus, a state highway patrol vehicle, a city-owned truck — special rules apply under Florida's waiver of sovereign immunity statute, Fla. Stat. § 768.28. You must provide written notice of your claim to the governmental entity and to the Florida Department of Financial Services before filing a lawsuit. The notice must describe the circumstances of the claim, identify the governmental entity, and state the amount of damages sought.

After the pre-suit notice is served, the government entity has 180 days to investigate and respond. During this 180-day investigation period, you cannot file a lawsuit. If the entity denies the claim or the 180 days expire without resolution, you can then file suit. The statute of limitations for claims against government entities is 4 years under Fla. Stat. § 768.28(14) — longer than the 2-year deadline for private parties.

Florida caps damages against government entities at $200,000 per claimant and $300,000 per incident under Fla. Stat. § 768.28(5). If your damages exceed these caps, the only way to recover more is through a special legislative claims bill — a process that requires an act of the Florida Legislature, which is extraordinarily rare and not guaranteed. These caps make government claims fundamentally different from private-party claims, where there are no statutory damage caps.

Medical malpractice claims in Florida have a 2-year statute of limitations from the date the patient knew or should have known about the injury (Fla. Stat. § 95.11(4)(b)). An absolute statute of repose of 4 years applies from the date of the incident, regardless of when the injury was discovered — with narrow exceptions for fraud, concealment, or misrepresentation, which extend the repose to 7 years.

Before filing a medical malpractice lawsuit, Florida requires a mandatory pre-suit investigation period under Fla. Stat. § 766.106. The claimant must serve the prospective defendant with a written notice of intent to initiate litigation, along with a verified medical expert opinion that the standard of care was breached. The defendant then has 90 days to investigate the claim. During this period, the statute of limitations is tolled.

The pre-suit process adds significant time and cost to medical malpractice claims. You need a medical expert willing to review the records and provide an affidavit before you even file suit. This is why starting early matters — the 2-year deadline can arrive faster than expected when you factor in the time needed to obtain records, find an expert, and complete the pre-suit process.

HB 837, signed into law on March 24, 2023, was the most significant overhaul of Florida's civil liability system in decades. Beyond cutting the statute of limitations from 4 years to 2 years, the law made several other major changes that affect personal injury claims across the state.

The law changed Florida's comparative negligence system from pure comparative (where you could recover even at 99% fault) to modified comparative with a 51% bar. If you are found 51% or more at fault for your injuries, you now recover nothing. This is a dramatic shift — before HB 837, Florida was one of the most claimant-friendly states for comparative negligence. The change means insurance adjusters now have a powerful tool: push your fault to 51% and the entire claim disappears.

HB 837 also reduced the statute of limitations for negligence actions from 4 years to 2 years, changed the bad faith insurance framework, modified the fee-shifting rules for insurance litigation, and altered how medical damages are calculated at trial. For anyone injured in Florida after March 24, 2023, every aspect of a personal injury claim is affected by this law. The 2-year filing deadline alone means you have half the time previous Florida claimants had to build a case and file suit.

If you file your lawsuit after the statute of limitations has expired, the defendant will raise it as an affirmative defense. The court will dismiss your case with prejudice — permanently. It does not matter how severe your injuries are, how clear the other party's fault is, or how much money you are owed. The deadline is absolute.

There is no 'good cause' exception for simply missing the deadline. Being unaware of the deadline is not an excuse. Being in the hospital is not an excuse (unless you were mentally incapacitated, which triggers tolling). Ongoing negotiations with the insurance company do not pause or extend the deadline. The insurance company is not required to warn you that the deadline is approaching — and some adjusters will deliberately stall negotiations hoping you miss it.

The only way to protect yourself is to be aware of the deadline from day one and to file suit before it expires if the insurance claim has not resolved. Filing a lawsuit does not mean you cannot still settle — most cases settle even after a lawsuit is filed. But the lawsuit preserves your rights and prevents the statute of limitations from destroying your claim.

If you were injured in Florida and are unsure whether your claim is still within the statute of limitations, get your free Injury Claim Check. You will answer a few questions about your accident and injuries, and we will provide a personalized report that includes whether your Florida claim appears to be within the filing deadline, how HB 837's 2023 tort reform changes affect your case, and whether connecting with a Tampa personal injury attorney makes sense for your situation.

Do not wait to find out whether you still have time. The 2-year deadline moves fast, especially when you are recovering from injuries, dealing with medical appointments, and trying to get back to your daily life. A free Injury Claim Check takes less time than being on hold with an insurance company — and it could prevent you from losing your right to compensation entirely.