Sued in Florida After an Accident You Caused

Attorney Answer

Being at fault for the crash decides who was negligent. It does not decide what the case is worth, and that is where these lawsuits are actually fought. The single most important thing right now is to get the lawsuit into your insurer's hands today. A liability policy generally obligates the insurer to defend suits covered by it and to hire the lawyer, and that obligation can be lost if you sit on the papers or handle the case yourself.

Do not wait. A served complaint carries a short deadline to file a formal response, set by court rule, and a defendant who lets it pass can have a default entered — a judgment without the damages ever being tested. Nothing below matters if that happens.

Once a defense is in place, several things remain contested.

Damages have to be proven. The plaintiff must show what the injuries are, that this crash caused them, and what they are worth — preexisting conditions and gaps in treatment are fair ground.

The tort threshold applies. Under Fla. Stat. § 627.737(2), a plaintiff may "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." A plaintiff who cannot meet that is limited to economic losses, which are not gated by the threshold.

The first layer of medical bills and lost wages usually runs through the plaintiff's own no-fault benefits. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1) provides personal injury protection up to $10,000 in medical and disability benefits, paying 80% of reasonable medical expenses under (1)(a) and 60% of lost gross income under (1)(b), without regard to fault.

Fault can still be divided, and the date of the crash decides how. For accidents before March 24, 2023, § 768.81(2) provided that 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." Even a defendant who caused the crash may be entitled to have a plaintiff's own share — a sudden stop, an unbelted passenger's injuries, a driver who was somewhere they should not have been — taken into account. The Legislature changed the shared-fault rule in 2023 for later accidents, and which version governs a particular crash is a lawyer's question. Section 768.81 also apportions damages among multiple responsible parties on the basis of each one's percentage, rather than making any one of them answer for the whole.

And there is the deadline. Whether the suit was filed within the period that applied to this crash is a defense in its own right, and your lawyer should check it first.

What you can do

1. Send the complaint and the summons to your auto insurer today, by a method that creates a record, and tell them the date you were served. If a lawyer has already been assigned, send it to that lawyer too.

2. Do not give a statement, recorded or written, to the other side's lawyer, adjuster, or investigator, and do not post about the crash. Anything you say can be used in the case.

3. Do not write out your own narrative of the crash for anyone except the lawyer defending you.

4. Preserve what already exists — photographs, the crash report, texts, dash camera files, repair records — and change nothing.

5. Gather your policy declarations page and find out your liability limits. If the demand exceeds them, say so to your insurer in writing and ask a lawyer about your own exposure above the limits.

6. Do not discuss the case with the plaintiff or their family.

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. Two clocks matter here and they are different. The deadline to respond to a served lawsuit is set by court rule and is measured in days, not years — that one comes first. Separately, for negligence claims arising before March 24, 2023, the former four-year period under the earlier text of § 95.11 applied, and § 95.11(5)(a) now sets two years for later accidents; whether this suit was filed inside the period that governed the crash is a defense to raise, not to assume. A Florida attorney should check both against your dates. This page does not calculate any date.