Whether you were involved in a car accident, slipped and fell on someone else’s property, got injured by a medical professional, or otherwise, you may strongly contemplate taking legal action via a personal injury (PI) claim. However, you cannot contemplate for too long, as Florida law imposes a strict statute of limitations for PI claims such as yours. A statute of limitations is essentially a deadline that sets the maximum time after your PI event within which you may initiate legal proceedings. Continue reading to learn the statute of limitations for a PI claim and how an experienced Hillsborough County personal injury lawyer at Merricks Law Group, P.A. can help you make this deadline.
What is Florida’s tort reform?
Before all else, you must understand that, on February 15, 2023, Florida passed a bill that historically changed the state’s civil litigation landscape.
Within this tort reform, Florida switched from being a pure comparative negligence state to a modified comparative negligence. This means that now, you cannot recover financial compensation from a negligent party via a personal injury claim if you are found to be more than 50 percent at fault for your accident. Whereas before, you could have recovered any percentage of your claimed damages, regardless of your percentage of fault. For example, if you were 99 percent at fault, you could have still recovered one percent of your claimed damages.
Also within this tort reform, Florida revised the statute of limitations imposed on personal injury claims. Of note, this revision cut the time allotted for filing such claims in half.
What is the statute of limitations of a PI claim in Florida?
To reiterate, before the tort reform, the statute of limitations for personal injury claims in the state of Florida was four years. Whereas now, the statute of limitations is two years. Specifically, this means that you may only have two years from the date your personal injury accident occurred.
You must understand that there may not be a grace period or exceptions at this time. That is, this new, shorter statute of limitations may apply to all claims filed after the effective date of the tort reform, which was March 24, 2023.
This is all to say that you must commence your legal action as soon as possible, especially if your personal injury accident is approaching the two-year mark. Plus, the faster you file your claim, the faster you may recover financial compensation for the injuries and damages that have caused you great suffering.
When handling an urgent matter like this one, you must drop everything and call a skilled Hillsborough County personal injury lawyer. Our team at Merricks Law Group, P.A. can help you put the puzzle pieces together.
