Fort Lauderdale Personal Injury Lawyer

Fort Lauderdale personal injury cases we handle

Personal injury law covers harm caused by negligence, a defective product, intentional misconduct, or another legally actionable act. The evidence and the insurance change a lot from one case type to the next. These are the personal injury cases we handle most often in Fort Lauderdale.

• Car accidents. Florida is a no-fault state, so your own PIP usually pays first, and you need care within 14 days. Without an emergency medical condition diagnosis, PIP medical benefits can cap at $2,500 instead of $10,000. Recovering pain and suffering from the at-fault driver is separate, and it takes an injury that clears Florida’s tort threshold.
• Truck accidents. A commercial truck case often has more than one responsible party, including the driver, the motor carrier, the maintenance contractor, and whoever loaded the trailer. Electronic logs and dashcam footage can be overwritten in weeks, so a preservation letter goes out fast.
• Motorcycle accidents. Motorcycles sit outside Florida’s ordinary PIP system, so a rider can be carrying medical bills while the liability claim is still open. Florida’s helmet law doesn’t require every adult rider to wear one. Riders over 21 may go without if they carry the medical coverage the statute requires. In a head-injury case, though, the defense may still raise helmet use as a comparative-fault issue.
• Slip and fall injuries. Under Florida law, it isn’t enough that you fell on something. You have to show the business knew about the hazard or that it sat there long enough that they should have. Surveillance video is usually the proof, and stores routinely record over it.
• Premises liability. Broken stair rails, unlit parking garages, unsecured pool gates, and negligent security claims against apartment complexes fall here.
• Medical malpractice. These claims run on a separate track, with a required pre-suit investigation and a different filing deadline than an ordinary negligence case.
• Product liability. When a defective vehicle part, medical device, or consumer product causes the injury, the claim runs against the manufacturer and the sellers rather than a driver or property owner.
• Brain injuries and burn injuries. Catastrophic cases are valued on a life care plan rather than a stack of bills, so economists and treating physicians come in early.
• Nursing home abuse. Staffing records and state inspection history often tell the story better than the chart does.
• Wrongful death. Florida’s Wrongful Death Act routes the claim through a personal representative, and it defines exactly which family members can recover and for what.
• Boating and waterway injuries. Between the New River and the charter fleet at Port Everglades, Broward produces year-round claims that can fall under state, federal, or admiralty rules.

Common injuries in Fort Lauderdale accident claims

Some of the injuries that come up most often in the personal injury claims we handle here:

• Traumatic brain injuries, including concussions missed in a busy emergency room that show up weeks later as memory or mood changes
• Spinal cord injuries, from herniated discs through partial and complete paralysis
• Broken bones, especially the wrist and hip fractures that come with falls on tile and pavers
• Internal injuries and organ damage, which can go unnoticed for a day or two after a crash
• Burns, from vehicle fires and defective products
• Soft tissue injuries to the neck and lower back, the ones insurers most often call minor
• Amputation and crush injuries, common in truck and industrial cases
• Drowning and near-drowning injuries, a real risk in a county with this many pools

What happens during a personal injury case

Most of our clients have never had a claim before. Here’s the shape of it.

Step 1: Free case review

You tell us what happened, and we tell you whether you have a case and what your deadline is. There’s no charge for that conversation, and you’re not committed to anything by having it.

Step 2: Investigation

We send preservation letters, pull the crash report and any video, order your records, and identify every insurance policy in play. In serious cases, we bring in accident reconstruction and medical experts to prove negligence.

Step 3: Treatment and demand

We wait until your doctors know where your recovery is heading before we put a number on your case. Settling before that point tends to leave future medical care unpaid. Then we send a demand backed by the records.

Step 4: Negotiation and suit if it’s needed

Sometimes the adjuster’s number is fair, and you should take it. When it isn’t, we file, which puts the carrier on a court’s schedule instead of its own.

Step 5: Resolution

Most cases settle, many of them at mediation. The ones that don’t, we try. You approve the final number, not us.

What compensation can you recover in Florida?

Florida personal injury damages fall into two groups: what the injury cost you in money, and what it cost you in everything else.

Economic damages cover medical bills you’ve already run up, the future care your doctors say you’ll need, lost wages, and reduced earning capacity if you can’t go back to the work you did before.

Non-economic damages cover pain and suffering, emotional distress, scarring, and the loss of things you used to enjoy. There’s no formula for these in Florida, which is why two claims with identical medical bills can settle for very different amounts.

In a wrongful death case, Florida law spells out which survivors can recover and for what. A surviving spouse can recover for lost companionship and protection and for mental pain and suffering. Minor children can recover for lost parental companionship, instruction, and guidance, and for mental pain and suffering. If there’s no surviving spouse, all of the children can. Florida counts children under 25 as minor children for this purpose, which is broader than most people expect. The estate can recover the decedent’s lost earnings between the injury and the death, and, where the statute allows it, prospective net accumulations.

If you’re assigned a share of the fault, your damages get reduced by that share, so our personal injury attorneys in Fort Lauderdale treat the fault dispute as part of what the case is worth.

How long do you have to file a claim in Florida?

If your claim is based on negligence, you generally have two years from the date it accrues to file suit. Florida Statute 95.11(5)(a) applies that two-year window to negligence claims that accrued after March 24, 2023. Claims that accrued before that date still run on the old four-year period. Not every personal injury claim is a negligence claim, though, and the others can run on their own deadlines.

A few situations run differently:

• Wrongful death: two years from the date of death
• Medical malpractice: two years from when the injury was discovered or should have been discovered, with an outside limit of four years from the incident in most cases
• Claims against the state, a county, a city, or another public body: Florida’s sovereign immunity statute takes over. It adds pre-suit notice requirements and sets its own filing deadlines, and those can differ from the ordinary two-year negligence period.

You don’t need to work out which deadline is yours. That’s our role, and it’s one of the first things we check. Call us early anyway, because evidence goes stale long before the statute runs.

Frequently asked questions

What should I do after an accident in Fort Lauderdale?

Get medical attention right away. If you’ll be claiming PIP medical benefits after a covered motor vehicle crash, Florida generally requires that initial care to happen within 14 days. Photograph the scene and your injuries, get the names of any witnesses, report the crash, and keep every bill. Then be careful about giving the other side’s adjuster a recorded statement before you’ve talked to a lawyer, since an early statement about fault gets used later.

How much does a personal injury lawyer in Fort Lauderdale cost?

Nothing up front. Legal representation here is on a contingency fee basis, and you pay no attorney’s fees unless compensation is recovered. The fee and costs are set out in writing before you sign anything, and the consultation is free.

How do I know if I have a personal injury case?

You generally need four things: someone owed you a duty of care, they fell short of it, that failure caused your injury, and you have losses that money can address. The middle two are where most cases are won or lost. Ask any Ft. Lauderdale personal injury attorney you’re considering how many cases they’ve actually taken to verdict, because the answer tells you something about how your claim will be valued.

How long will it take to resolve my Fort Lauderdale personal injury case?

Anywhere from a few months to two years or more. A clear-liability case with finished treatment can resolve quickly. Cases with disputed fault or multiple negligent parties take longer, and filing suit adds time.

Can I recover compensation if I’m partially at fault?

Usually yes, up to a point. Florida uses modified comparative negligence under Statute 768.81. Your damages get reduced by your percentage of fault, and if you’re found more than 50 percent at fault, you recover nothing. So a $200,000 verdict with you 20 percent at fault pays $160,000, and the same verdict with you 51 percent at fault pays nothing. That bar doesn’t apply to medical negligence claims, which are handled under a different chapter of Florida law.

Talk to a Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorney

At Lytal, Reiter, Smith, Ivey & Fronrath, we’ve represented injured people and grieving families in South Florida since 1985, and we’ve recovered more than $2.5 billion doing it. Our Fort Lauderdale personal injury law firm handles the insurance company and the deadlines so you can put your attention on getting better.

The consultation is free, and there’s no attorney’s fee unless we recover compensation for you. Call our personal injury lawyers in Fort Lauderdale at (561) 655-1990 or contact us online to get started.