Florida's Injury Threshold When You Are Sued After a Crash

Attorney Answer

Whether she could walk decides nothing on its own — but Florida law does limit what she can recover from you, and your insurance company, not you, is the one that defends this. People walk out of crashes and are still injured, and people exaggerate. Neither impression is the legal test. Three things actually control what happens next: a no-fault layer that pays first, a statutory threshold on pain and suffering, and a fault percentage.

Start with the practical step, because it has a clock on it. If suit papers were served on you, your liability policy generally obligates your insurer to provide and pay for a lawyer to defend you, and there is a short deadline to respond that the defense lawyer handles. Send your insurer every page you have received, today. From here on, do not talk to her attorney, do not give a recorded statement, and do not discuss the crash on social media. Anything you say about how it happened becomes part of the fault fight, and you have people whose job it is to say it for you.

Her own personal injury protection pays before you do. Under Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a), PIP covers "Eighty percent of all reasonable expenses for medically necessary medical, surgical, X-ray, dental, and rehabilitative services, including prosthetic devices and medically necessary ambulance, hospital, and nursing services if the individual receives initial services and care pursuant to subparagraph 1. within 14 days after the motor vehicle accident," within a $10,000 cap on medical and disability benefits.

Then comes the threshold, which is the part your instinct is reaching for. Fla. Stat. § 627.737(2) permits a plaintiff to recover damages in tort "for pain, suffering, mental anguish, and inconvenience because of bodily injury, sickness, or disease arising out of the ownership, maintenance, operation, or use of such motor vehicle only in the event that the injury or disease consists in whole or in part of: (a) Significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function. (b) Permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, other than scarring or disfigurement. (c) Significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement. (d) Death." That gate is fought with medical records and physicians, not with observations about how someone moves. It applies only to pain and suffering — her medical bills and lost income beyond PIP are not gated by it.

Fault is the last piece. You describe the crash as a couple of months before you wrote, which places it after March 24, 2023, so the current comparative fault statute governs. Under Fla. Stat. § 768.81(2), "contributory fault chargeable to the claimant diminishes proportionately the amount awarded as economic and noneconomic damages for an injury attributable to the claimant's contributory fault, but does not bar recovery, subject to subsection (6)." And under § 768.81(6), a party found to be more than 50 percent at fault for their own harm may not recover damages at all. Her share of the blame reduces her recovery, and above half it ends it.

What you can do

1. Report the claim or the lawsuit to your insurer today and send them everything you have received, envelope included.

2. Note the date the papers were served or arrived, and keep all of them together.

3. Ask your insurer in writing to confirm they will defend you and to tell you your liability limits.

4. Do not give a statement to her lawyer or her insurer, and do not post about the crash anywhere.

5. Preserve what already exists: photos, dashcam video, texts, and the vehicle itself if it has not been repaired.

6. Give your insurer's defense lawyer the names of anyone who saw the crash — names only, to that lawyer.

7. Ask a Florida attorney whether you also need your own counsel, which usually turns on how the size of the claim compares with your limits. Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. Fla. Stat. § 95.11 sets how long someone has to bring a negligence claim, keyed to the accident date: "(5) WITHIN TWO YEARS. — (a) An action founded on negligence" for crashes on or after March 24, 2023, and the former four-year period for crashes before that. On the date you describe, the two-year period is the one in play. But the deadline that matters to you right now is the court's deadline to respond to the suit, which is far shorter and is not set by that statute. Get the papers to your insurer and have a Florida attorney check the dates. This page cannot compute them.