What You Need to Know About Personal Injury Recovery Limits in Florida

Personal injury recovery limits are important for victims of personal injuries to understand as they will affect the amount of compensation they are able to recover for the damages they have suffered. Understanding how these limits can affect your claim will help you to better understand your lawsuit, and at Glover Law Firm, PLLC, we want to make sure you have all the information you need to make an informed decision.

If you or someone you love has suffered serious injuries as the result of a personal injury accident, nothing beats a consultation with an experienced Ocala personal injury lawyer at Glover Law Firm, PLLC

Let us explore how personal injury recovery limits can affect your specific case.

What Are Personal Injury Recovery Limits?

Personal injury recovery limits — also known as damage caps — are essentially what they sound like. They are statutes that set a limit on the amount of money a victim of a personal injury can collect for certain types of cases or losses.

These recovery limits are generally set for victims who are seeking to earn compensation for non-economic damages (e.g. pain and suffering).

To clarify, Florida has three types of damages that can be awarded depending on the circumstances of your personal injury. These include:

1. Economic Damages – This refers to compensation that can be objectively verified such as lost wages, medical bills, loss of use of property, costs of repair or replacement, loss of employment, and other damages.
2. Non-Economic Damages – This refers to subjective losses such as pain and suffering, as well as other forms of mental anguish.
3. Punitive Damages – Compensation awarded to the victim that also acts as a punishment to the party that behaved poorly or acted unethically.

Statutes used to exist that placed a damage cap on non-economic damages, but the Florida Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional in 2017.

How Do Personal Injury Recovery Limits Affect Floridians?

 One key takeaway from this post is that in the state of Florida, personal injury recovery limits only affect a small number of cases.

For example, for economic damages under standard personal injury cases – which includes medical bills, lost wages, lost earning capacity, etc.— there are no damage cap statutes that exist.

As stated earlier, non-economic damages like pain and suffering and mental anguish had statutes that placed limitations on payouts. However, these statutes were ruled unconstitutional in the Florida Supreme Court in 2017.

In the state of Florida, Fla. Stat. Ann. section 768.73 states that punitive damages are subject to certain limitations based on certain situations:

• The defendant clearly intended to inflict harm upon the plaintiff (no limitation).
• The defendant didn’t mean to harm the plaintiff, but was aware that harm was highly likely to happen and acted in an unreasonably dangerous manner solely for financial gain (limitations exist up to four times the value of the economic damages plus the non-economic damages — a.k.a. compensatory damages — awarded to each claimant, or $2 million).
• All other cases of punitive damages are calculated at a rate of three times the amount of compensatory damages, or $500,000.

Statute of Limitations for Filing a Florida Personal Injury Lawsuit

Individuals who have faced catastrophic damage as the result of personal injury have four years starting from the date of the incident to file a civil lawsuit against the party responsible for harming them.

It is absolutely vital that you do NOT fail to file your personal injury claim within this time frame as failure to do so essentially guarantees that your case will be thrown out of court and dismissed. This means you will forfeit your right to seek damages for your injuries, regardless of how serious they may be.

Have you or someone you love fallen victim to a personal injury and need more clarification on whether or not personal injury recovery limits will affect your case? The dedicated and experienced Florida attorneys at Glover Law Firm, PLLC are ready to hear your story and provide you unmatched legal guidance.

Find comfort in knowing that the Ocala accident lawyer at Glover Law Firm, PLLC is here to help you if you need any more clarification about your particular personal injury case. As complex as these types of claims can be, our expert personal injury lawyers have the legal knowledge and experience necessary to earn your full compensation from the negligent parties that caused you harm.

Plus, we’ll make sure to provide you the information you need through clear and straight communication.

Contact us today at 352-484-0775 for a free case evaluation from one of our Ocala personal injury lawyers today.

Jessica

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