Area we serve · Miami-Dade County
Car accident lawyer in Princeton
When the injured person is a child, almost everything changes
A crash in Princeton is a Miami-Dade County claim under the same Florida law as anywhere else: fourteen days to get initial care, the permanent injury threshold, two years to sue. What is local is who is in the car. Princeton went from 10,090 residents in 2000 to 39,308 in 2020, and 51.8% of its 11,145 households include a child under 18 — more than half. When the injured person is a child, two things most parents are never told come into play: the deadline does not politely wait until the child turns 18, and a parent cannot simply sign a settlement away once the money passes $15,000. The statutes are on the Florida car accident page. What follows is about a child’s claim.
01 What a crash here actually looks like
A sawmill town that became one of the fastest-growing places in the county
Princeton almost quadrupled in twenty years. 10,090 residents in 2000, 22,038 in 2010, 39,308 in 2020. In 1960 there were 1,719 people here. It is now the largest community in this part of the county and it is still filling in, across 11,557 housing units with 3.6% vacant.
More than half its households have children. 51.8% of the 11,145 households include a child under 18, the median age is 34.5, and only 9.6% of residents are 65 or over. Of the population, 71.6% is Hispanic or Latino and 17.81% is non-Hispanic Black.
The name is a hundred and twenty years old and has nothing to do with the place. Princeton was a depot on the Florida East Coast Railroad in the 1900s, named by a resident, Gaston Drake, after his alma mater. A sawmill ran here until the local timber gave out in 1923.
What has replaced the timber is traffic. US-1, the Dixie Highway, runs northeast to southwest through it; the Homestead Extension of Florida’s Turnpike forms the eastern edge, with access at Exit 9 at State Road 989. Goulds is north, Naranja southwest, and the streets between them were built for a community a quarter of this size.
A child’s deadline does not wait for the child to grow up.
02 What nobody tells you
Two rules that only apply when the claimant is a child
The first is the deadline, and most people have it backwards. Florida does not simply pause the clock because the injured person is a minor. Under § 95.051(1)(i) the limitations period is tolled for minority only during a period when a parent, guardian or guardian ad litem does not exist, has an interest adverse to the minor, or cannot act — and in every case the action must be begun within 7 years of the occurrence. Where a parent exists and can act, the ordinary deadline runs. Waiting for a child to turn 18 is how a good claim disappears.
The second is the settlement, and it surprises people at the end rather than the beginning. Under § 744.387(2) a child’s natural guardians may settle a claim on the child’s behalf without a bond only where the settlement does not exceed $15,000 net to the child. Above that, a legal guardianship is required, and § 744.387(3)(b) says the court shall require the appointment of a guardian of the property where there is none.
And once a lawsuit has been filed, no settlement of a child’s claim is effective at all unless the court approves it. That is § 744.387(3)(a), with no dollar threshold attached. It is a protection rather than an obstacle — but it means a child’s case has a procedural ending that an adult’s does not, and it is planned for from the start rather than discovered at the end.
The child’s medical coverage usually comes from the household. Personal Injury Protection follows the policy rather than the person, so a child injured as a passenger, on a bicycle or as a pedestrian is normally covered by a resident relative’s auto policy, and the fourteen-day deadline for initial care applies to them exactly as it does to an adult.
Princeton is unincorporated, so the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office works the crash, and the Florida Highway Patrol may work US-1 or the Turnpike. If the road itself is the defendant, § 768.28 applies, with written notice to the agency and — where the defendant is the state or Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise rather than the county — to the Florida Department of Financial Services as well. A case here is filed in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit.
03 The roads
Where the claims actually come from
US-1, the Dixie Highway, running northeast to southwest through the community: the corridor that carries local traffic, Keys traffic and freight at once, with commercial driveways between the signals.
The Homestead Extension of Florida’s Turnpike, along the eastern edge, with access at Exit 9 at State Road 989 — so a community of nearly forty thousand funnels toward a small number of interchanges.
The new residential streets, built for the subdivisions that took this place from ten thousand people to thirty-nine thousand, where intersections are young, sight lines are still filling in with landscaping, and drivers are unfamiliar.
The school approaches, in a place where more than half of households have a child under 18, so arrival and dismissal are the heaviest two hours of the day on streets with children walking on them.
The construction entrances, because a community still being built keeps commercial and heavy vehicles turning off arterials into residential streets at hours when children are using them.
04 What to do now
The things that can only be done in the first two weeks
A checklist, not advice about your own case. None of it requires hiring anyone.
Get the child seen within fourteen days
Personal Injury Protection pays nothing at all if the first treatment falls outside fourteen days — not a reduced amount, nothing — and the rule is the same for a child as for an adult. A child who says they feel fine is not a medical opinion.
Do not wait for the child to turn 18
Section 95.051(1)(i) tolls the limitations period for minority only where no parent or guardian exists, where one has an adverse interest, or where one cannot act — and even then the action must be begun within 7 years of the occurrence. Where a parent can act, the ordinary deadline is running now.
Work out which household policy covers the child
PIP follows the policy rather than the person. A child hurt as a passenger, on a bicycle or on foot is usually covered under a resident relative’s auto policy, and establishing which one in the first week prevents weeks of denied bills.
Document what the child could do before
School attendance, sports, sleep, handwriting, behavior. A child cannot describe a change in their own functioning the way an adult can, so the comparison has to come from the people around them, recorded while the memory is fresh.
Ask the county for the report
Princeton is unincorporated, so the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office wrote it unless it happened on US-1 or the Turnpike, where the Florida Highway Patrol may have.
Pull your own declarations page
Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, and whether it stacks. Florida does not require any driver to carry bodily injury liability, so your own policy is often the ceiling — for the child as much as for you.
Do not give the other insurer a recorded statement
You are not required to, and that includes letting them interview the child. The answer given in the first week gets quoted back for the next two years.
05 The kinds of claim this covers
What a young, fast-growing community produces
Miami-Dade County recorded 60,000 traffic crashes in 2024, injuring 29,359 people and killing 272, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, and the county’s Vision Zero program counts about 99 pedestrian deaths a year. No published count exists for Princeton alone. What a community that grew from ten thousand to thirty-nine thousand produces is the local part.
Car accidents
The ordinary case, with one difference: in more than half of these households there is a child in the back seat, and a child’s claim within the same crash is handled on its own track with its own deadline and its own ending.
Pedestrian accidents
School-age children walking in a community whose streets are younger than its population. These cases turn on how fault is divided, and more than half the fault means recovering nothing at all — which is argued very differently when the person crossing was nine.
Truck accidents
Construction and freight traffic moving through a community still being built, on the same streets as everything else. A commercial vehicle triggers a long-form crash report under § 316.066(1)(a) regardless of injury, and brings federal driving and inspection records with it.
Uninsured drivers
Florida requires no bodily injury liability coverage at all. When the at-fault driver has nothing, a child’s claim moves to the household’s own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, and whether that coverage stacks across vehicles can decide what is available.
06 Also for Princeton
The other matters this office takes from here
Injury work is most of this practice. The rest run from the Homestead office, each with its own page and its own fee terms.
Family law
Divorce, time-sharing, support, property and protective orders in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit. Where 51.8% of households have a child under 18, time-sharing and support are most of what comes through the door.
Immigration
Removal defense, bond, asylum, family petitions and citizenship. Which court holds a case is decided by the file rather than by the address on it.
Property insurance claims
11,557 homes, many of them new enough that a denial is argued as a construction or workmanship question rather than as wear. Notice of the claim is due within one year of the date of loss.
Criminal defense
Bond and release conditions, DUI, drug charges, theft and domestic violence, after an arrest by the Sheriff rather than by a city department.
07 How this works
The consultation, the documents, and what it costs
The first conversation is with Jose A. Dapena, not with an intake department. On an injury matter it is free and commits you to nothing, and it can happen by phone.
The Homestead office is at 100 NE 15th Street, Suite 210, about six miles southwest. There is parking on site.
Fees differ by practice and are stated before anything is signed. Injury work is contingent, normally payable only if there is a recovery, with costs governed by the written agreement. Family and immigration are hourly, with payment plans and separate government filing fees. Criminal is a flat fee set by the charges and the scope, with no payment plans. The free consultation is an injury term and does not travel to the others.
08 Who you deal with
Jose A. Dapena
Admitted to The Florida Bar in 1998, number 152358, and admitted to the United States District Courts for the Southern, Middle and Northern Districts of Florida.
Before representing injured people he was in-house counsel for a Personal Injury Protection carrier, reviewing claims on the insurer’s behalf: the same analysis a claim meets now, learned from the other side of the file.
09 The law behind this
- Fla. Stat. § 95.051(1)(i) Minority does not simply pause the clock
The period is tolled for minority only while no parent, guardian or guardian ad litem exists, one has an interest adverse to the minor, or one cannot act — and the action must be begun within 7 years of the occurrence in any event.
- Fla. Stat. § 744.387 Settling a child’s claim
Natural guardians may settle without a bond only up to $15,000 net to the child; above that a legal guardianship is required, and the court shall require a guardian of the property where none exists. Once a lawsuit is filed, no settlement is effective without the court’s approval.
- Fla. Stat. § 627.736 Personal Injury Protection
80% of medical expenses and 60% of lost wages up to $10,000, and the fourteen-day deadline for initial care. It follows the policy rather than the person, so a child is normally covered under a resident relative’s policy.
- Fla. Stat. § 768.81 Fault
Damages are reduced by your share of the fault, and more than 50% of the fault bars recovery entirely.
- Fla. Stat. § 95.11 Deadlines
Two years to sue on most negligence claims accruing on or after March 24, 2023, and two years on a wrongful death claim.
10 Official resources
- FLHSMV crash portalWhere a crash report is requested, whichever agency wrote it
- Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office recordsThe agency that patrols unincorporated Princeton
- Miami-Dade Clerk of the CourtsWhere a guardianship for a child’s settlement is opened
- Florida Highway PatrolThe agency that may work US-1 or the Turnpike
- Eleventh Judicial CircuitThe court a Miami-Dade case is filed in
Questions
My child was hurt. Do we have until they turn 18 to do something?
No, and this is the most costly misunderstanding in a child’s case. Section 95.051(1)(i) tolls the limitations period for minority only while no parent, guardian or guardian ad litem exists, while one has an interest adverse to the child, or while one cannot act — and in every case the action must be begun within 7 years of the occurrence. Where a parent exists and can act, the ordinary deadline is running from the date of the crash.
Can I just settle my child’s claim myself?
Up to a point. Under § 744.387(2) a child’s natural guardians may settle without a bond where the settlement does not exceed $15,000 net to the child. Above $15,000, a legal guardianship is required, and where none exists the court shall require a guardian of the property to be appointed. Once a lawsuit has been filed, no settlement of a child’s claim is effective unless the court approves it, with no dollar threshold at all.
My child was riding a bicycle and we have no car insurance on them. Who pays?
Personal Injury Protection follows the policy rather than the person, so a child injured on a bicycle or on foot is normally covered under the auto policy of a resident relative. Establishing which household policy responds is a first-week task, because the fourteen-day deadline for initial care applies to a child exactly as it does to an adult.
The insurer wants to interview my child. Do we have to agree?
No. You are not required to give the other driver’s insurer a recorded statement, and that includes an interview of a child. A child’s account of a sudden event is unreliable in ways that get used later, and the first week’s answers get quoted back for the next two years.
Who writes the crash report in Princeton?
The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, because Princeton is unincorporated. On US-1 or the Turnpike the Florida Highway Patrol may work it instead. Whichever agency wrote it, the report is requested through the FLHSMV crash portal.
Which hospital would my child be taken to?
For a serious injury a child is normally taken to Nicklaus Children’s rather than to an adult trauma center. Homestead Hospital is the nearest emergency department and is not a trauma center; Jackson South Medical Center on SW 152nd Street is the nearest trauma center and is Level II.
Is there an office in Princeton?
No. The Homestead office is at 100 NE 15th Street, Suite 210, about six miles southwest, and it serves all of south Miami-Dade.
Where would my case be heard?
In the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, which covers all of Miami-Dade County. Most injury claims are resolved without a lawsuit — though a child’s settlement may still need a guardianship or a court approval to be effective.
How long do I have?
Fourteen days to get initial care for Personal Injury Protection to pay anything, and two years to sue on most negligence claims. For a child, assume the same two years rather than a pause until 18: § 95.051(1)(i) tolls for minority only in narrow circumstances, with a 7-year outer limit in every case.
Talk to Jose A. Dapena about a crash in Princeton
If a child was hurt, the deadline and the settlement rules are both worth understanding in the first weeks rather than the last. The Homestead office is six miles away and the first conversation about an injury costs nothing.