In March 2023, Florida passed one of the broadest changes to its civil justice system in decades. House Bill 837 rewrote rules that had governed car crashes, falls, and other negligence claims for a generation, and it took effect almost immediately for new incidents. Plenty of people injured since then still assume the old rules apply, usually because a friend or relative went through a claim years ago and passed along advice that no longer holds.
The reform touched how long people have to file, how fault is divided, and how medical expenses are proven in court. For someone hurt in a rideshare collision, bitten by a neighbor’s dog, or injured in an ordinary fender-bender, a few of those shifts matter a great deal more than the rest.
The Clock Is Now Half as Long
Before the reform, Florida gave people four years to file most negligence lawsuits. For claims arising after March 24, 2023, that window is two years. The difference sounds manageable on paper, but injury claims rarely move quickly. Medical treatment can take months to stabilize, insurers take their time responding to demands, and many people wait to see whether they will recover fully before deciding to pursue anything at all.
Someone injured in Escambia County this year who calls Michles & Booth, P.A. or any other local practice will likely be asked for the date of the incident before almost anything else, since that single detail now determines how much room there is to work. Two years leaves time for treatment and negotiation, though not much slack for a claim that sits untouched through its first twelve months.
The shorter period applies to negligence claims broadly, which covers most car crashes, premises injuries, and similar cases. Wrongful death claims and medical malpractice claims have their own deadlines, which were already two years before the reform.
Fault Above 50 Percent Now Ends the Claim
For decades, Florida used pure comparative negligence. An injured person who was mostly at fault could still recover a fraction of their damages, reduced by their own share of the blame. HB 837 replaced that with a modified system for most negligence cases, under which a plaintiff found more than 50 percent responsible recovers nothing. Medical malpractice claims were carved out and still follow the older approach.
The practical effect shows up in how insurers argue. Adjusters have a stronger incentive to push a claimant’s share of fault past the halfway mark, because doing so eliminates the claim entirely rather than trimming it. A driver who was going slightly over the limit, a pedestrian who crossed mid-block, or a passenger who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt may find those facts emphasized far more than they would have been in 2022.
Funny thing is, the change has made early evidence more valuable than it used to be. Photos of the scene, witness names, and dashcam footage that seemed like extras under the old system can now be the difference between a reduced recovery and none.
Rideshare Crashes and Shifting Coverage
Uber and Lyft collisions add a layer that ordinary crashes don’t have. Florida law ties the available insurance to what the driver was doing in the app at the moment of impact. When a driver is logged in and waiting for a request, the required coverage is relatively modest: $50,000 per person and $100,000 per incident for bodily injury, plus $25,000 for property damage. Once a ride has been accepted, and until the passenger leaves the vehicle, the requirement rises to $1 million.
Passengers usually fall within that higher tier, but occupants of other cars and pedestrians hit by a rideshare vehicle may not, depending on the app status. Sorting out which policy applies is often the first task for a pensacola uber accident attorney, who will typically request the trip log and the driver’s status data from the company before anything else is negotiated. Florida’s personal injury protection rules still apply on top of all this, so an injured person’s own PIP coverage, if they carry it, generally pays the first $10,000 in qualifying medical costs and lost wages regardless of fault.
There is also a 14-day rule worth knowing about. To use PIP benefits, an injured person generally has to receive initial medical care within 14 days of the crash. People who feel sore but decide to wait it out sometimes lose access to those benefits without realizing it until a bill arrives.
Dog Bites Follow Their Own Statute
Florida treats dog bites differently from most injuries. Under the state’s dog bite statute, an owner is liable when their dog bites someone in a public place or someone lawfully on private property, even if the dog had never shown aggression before. The victim does not have to prove the owner knew the dog was dangerous, which removes the hurdle that applies in many other states.
There are limits. Damages can be reduced if the victim’s own negligence contributed to the bite, such as by provoking the animal or reaching over a fence. Owners who display an easily readable “Bad Dog” sign on their property may avoid liability in some situations, although that defense does not apply when the victim is under six years old or when the owner’s own negligence caused the bite.
Most of these claims are paid through homeowners’ or renters’ insurance, and a growing number of policies exclude certain breeds or cap dog-related coverage at a low figure. A victim who only begins searching for a dog bite law firm fort walton beach after a low first offer arrives often finds that the policy terms, rather than the injury, are setting the ceiling on what the insurer is willing to pay.
Reading the New Rules Before They Become a Problem
The 2023 reform was covered heavily in legal and insurance circles and far less in the places most people get their news. As a result, the people most affected by it are often the last to learn about it, usually from an adjuster who has little reason to explain it in detail. Writing down the date of an injury, getting checked by a doctor promptly, and keeping copies of every message exchanged with an insurer cost nothing, and they preserve options that the shorter deadlines and stricter fault rules would otherwise take away.
