South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers Blog

Florida Did Not Repeal PIP in 2026, and the 14-Day Rule Still Applies

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

Last updated July 24, 2026 · Reviewed by Ronald David Rodman, a Florida personal injury attorney.

Two bills that would have ended Florida’s no-fault auto insurance system died in committee on March 13, 2026, the day the legislative session closed. Senate Bill 522 would have repealed the Florida Motor Vehicle No-Fault Law outright, and House Bill 769 was its counterpart in the House. Neither reached a floor vote, so personal injury protection coverage remains mandatory on most vehicles registered in the state.

Florida Statute § 627.736 requires PIP to pay 80 percent of reasonable and medically necessary medical expenses and 60 percent of lost gross income, up to a combined limit of $10,000. That coverage carries a deadline that ends more claims than either repeal bill would have. Initial services and care must be received within 14 days after the crash, or PIP medical benefits are not reimbursable at all. Our personal injury attorneys see that deadline missed more often than any other.

A 2026 Ruling Changed How Florida’s Workers’ Comp Deadline Is Calculated

Published on: July 22, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

Last updated July 24, 2026 · Reviewed by Carolyn Friedman Frank, a Florida attorney who handles workers’ compensation and medical malpractice matters.

Florida’s First District Court of Appeal has changed how the deadline for filing a workers’ compensation petition is calculated, in an en banc decision issued March 23, 2026. The court held that benefit payments and authorized medical care do not lengthen the two-year window, which is what roughly 25 years of its own case law had concluded. They stop the clock instead, and it restarts a year later.

Under Florida Statute § 440.19(1), a petition for benefits is barred unless it is filed within two years of the date the worker knew or should have known the injury arose out of work. Section 440.19(2) tolls that period for one year from the last payment of indemnity benefits or the last furnishing of authorized treatment. In Estes v. Palm Beach County School District, the court held that this tolling suspends the two-year period rather than extending it, so the two years do not begin running until one year after benefits or care stop. Our workers’ compensation attorneys read that as a meaningfully longer window than the one carriers have been calculating.

When a Third Party, Not Your Employer, Is Liable for a Florida Work Injury

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

Last updated July 24, 2026 · Reviewed by Carolyn Friedman Frank, a Florida workers’ compensation and medical malpractice lawyer and Partner at Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

Florida workers’ compensation is the only claim an injured employee has against an employer. Florida Statute § 440.11 makes that trade explicit, and it is the reason a workplace injury claim and a personal injury lawsuit are two different things carrying two different sets of damages.

Chapter 440 pays indemnity benefits and authorized medical care, and that is the whole of it. There is no provision anywhere in the chapter for noneconomic damages, which is the deliberate other half of the bargain the Legislature struck. A claim against a negligent third party who is not the employer runs in circuit court under ordinary negligence law, where those damages are available, and it can proceed at the same time as the comp claim. Our workers’ compensation attorneys look for that second claim in every serious injury file.

Which Insurance Pays After an Uber or Lyft Crash in Florida

Published on: July 3, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

Last updated July 24, 2026 · Reviewed by Ronald David Rodman, a Florida personal injury attorney and Partner at Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

Coverage after a rideshare collision in Florida turns on what the driver’s app was doing at the moment of impact. Florida Statute § 627.748 sets two separate sets of minimum liability limits for transportation network company drivers, and the distance between them is wide enough to decide what an injury claim is worth.

A driver who is logged on to the app but has not accepted a ride must carry at least $50,000 for bodily injury per person, $100,000 per incident, and $25,000 in property damage, under Florida Statute § 627.748(7)(b). Once that same driver has accepted a trip and is engaged in a prearranged ride, the required coverage rises to at least $1 million under § 627.748(7)(c). Same driver, same intersection, twentyfold difference in what is available per injured person. Our rideshare accident attorneys start every one of these claims by establishing which of the two applied.

Who Can File a Claim After a Fatal Car Accident in Miami?

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

After a fatal car accident in Miami, only one person can file a wrongful death claim: the personal representative of the deceased person’s estate. Individual family members, even a spouse or a parent, cannot bring their own separate lawsuit under Florida law. When a high-speed crash like the recent overnight collision in Little Havana takes a life, the family’s first questions are usually about who has the right to act and how much time they have.

How Florida’s Wrongful Death Act Decides Who Can File

Florida law puts the wrongful death claim in the hands of the estate’s personal representative, not the grieving relatives directly. The Florida Wrongful Death Act, found at sections 768.16 through 768.26 of the Florida Statutes, controls these cases. Under Florida Statute § 768.20, the personal representative files a single lawsuit on behalf of everyone who lost something because of the death.

Hit-and-Run Bicycle Accidents in Florida

Published on: June 29, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

When a driver hits a cyclist and speeds off, the victim’s family can still recover money, often through the cyclist’s own auto insurance and through a wrongful death claim. In late June 2026, a 68-year-old cyclist riding in a marked bike lane on the Southeast 17th Street Causeway in Fort Lauderdale was killed when a driver struck her and left the scene. Cases like this raise a hard question for families across South Florida: what happens to the claim when the person who caused the crash runs.

The attorneys at Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada handle fatal crash and wrongful death cases for families in Miami-Dade, Broward, and the surrounding counties, and a driver fleeing does not close off the family’s options.

Your Own Insurance Can Pay When the At-Fault Driver Is Long Gone

What to Do After a Wrong-Way Crash on I-95 in Miami

Published on: June 26, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

If you were hit by a wrong-way driver on I-95, you can usually hold that driver responsible for your medical bills and lost income, and a serious injury may let you pursue money for pain and suffering too. These crashes tend to happen late at night, and they often leave victims with severe injuries. A recent early-morning crash on the northbound express lanes of I-95 sent two people to Jackson Memorial Hospital, one of them in critical condition, after a driver headed south in the wrong direction.

The car accident attorneys at Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada have represented people hurt on South Florida highways since 1976. If you are dealing with an injury from a wrong-way crash, understanding how fault and insurance work in Florida helps you know what your claim is actually worth.

Why fault is usually clear when a driver goes the wrong way

What to Do After a Fatal Hit-and-Run Pedestrian Crash in Miami

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

When a driver hits someone on a Miami street and speeds off, the family left behind faces two problems at once: losing a loved one and having no one at the scene to answer for it. A hit-and-run pedestrian accident still gives that family real legal options, even while police are searching for a car and a suspect. The recent deadly crash on Northwest 17th Avenue, where a pedestrian was killed and the driver fled, is the kind of case that happens on South Florida roads more often than most people realize.

Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada has handled Miami-Dade pedestrian accident cases since 1976, including crashes where the at-fault driver was never caught.

Why a Driver Who Flees Faces Felony Charges in Florida

Miami Grocery Store Slip and Falls

Published on: May 27, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

If you had a slip and fall at a Miami grocery store, Florida law puts the burden on you to prove the store either knew or should have known about the dangerous condition that caused your fall. This is a tougher standard than most people realize, and it’s the single biggest reason slip-and-fall cases at Publix, Winn-Dixie, Sedano’s, and Whole Foods locations across South Florida get denied.

The statute that governs these claims is Florida Statute § 768.0755, and it changed how grocery store cases work back in 2010.

What Florida Statute § 768.0755 Requires

Under § 768.0755, if you slip and fall on a transitory foreign substance in a business establishment, you must prove that the business establishment had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition and should have taken action to remedy it. A transitory foreign substance is any temporary substance on the floor that isn’t supposed to be there — spilled milk, leaking produce water, a smashed grape, melted ice cream, or anything similar.

You can prove the store’s knowledge two ways:

Actual knowledge — an employee saw the spill, was told about it, or caused it themselves. This is the harder version to prove because it usually requires witness testimony or video.
Constructive knowledge — the condition existed long enough that, in the exercise of ordinary care, the store should have known about it, or the condition occurred with regularity and was therefore foreseeable.

Your Rights if You’ve Been Injured as a Passenger in a Miami Car Accident

Published on: May 17, 2026 | by Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada, P.A.

If you were a passenger in a car accident in Miami, you can usually file a claim against multiple insurance policies — your driver’s, the other driver’s, and sometimes your own. Passengers also rarely face the comparative fault arguments that complicate driver claims, which often makes a passenger’s case stronger than the drivers’ own claims.

That’s true whether the crash happened on I-95, Bird Road, the Dolphin Expressway, or a side street in Little Havana.

How Passenger Insurance Claims Work in Florida

The first source of coverage is Personal Injury Protection (PIP) under Florida Statute § 627.736. PIP pays 80% of your medical bills and 60% of lost wages up to $10,000, regardless of fault. Where it comes from depends on your situation. If you own a car, your own PIP pays first, even though you weren’t driving. If you don’t own a car, the PIP on a resident relative’s auto policy may apply. If neither exists, the PIP on the car you were riding in covers you.