Area we serve · Miami-Dade County
Car accident lawyer in University Park
The FIU campus, and why the defendant changes everything
A crash on the streets of University Park is an ordinary Miami-Dade claim: fourteen days to get initial care, the injury threshold, two years to sue. A crash on the Florida International University campus is not. The Modesto A. Maidique Campus, 342 acres of it, sits inside this area, and the university is run by a board of trustees that § 768.28 treats as a state agency. That means a shorter path to a dead claim: written notice has to go to the university and to the Florida Department of Financial Services before a lawsuit exists, and the money is capped at $200,000 per person. Most people injured on a campus road or in a campus garage are never told any of that. The statutes are on the Florida car accident page. What follows is about the defendant.
01 What a crash here actually looks like
A place the census stopped counting, and a campus that did not shrink
University Park is a neighborhood that lost its census identity. It was a census-designated place of 26,538 people in 2000 and 26,995 in 2010, covering 4.1 square miles. The Census Bureau deleted the CDP before the 2020 count and folded its territory into Westchester, so there is no 2020 population figure for University Park at all. The name is still what people here use, and the mail still carries it.
What the name actually marks is the campus. FIU’s Modesto A. Maidique Campus — 342 acres at 11200 SW 8th Street, renamed in 2009 for a former president — holds all of the university’s colleges and schools and, by the university’s own account, about 87% of its student population out of a student body FIU puts above 54,000.
That is a daily population the size of a small city, arriving and leaving twice a day. It arrives by car, by Metrobus, on a bike and on foot, through a handful of entrances off two arterials, into garages where the whole conflict is a pedestrian and a car at low speed in a confined space.
And then there is the spring. The Fair Expo Center at 10901 Coral Way sits directly south of the campus at Tamiami Park. The Miami-Dade County Youth Fair runs about three weeks there every spring — the fair’s own count puts it above 500,000 guests — and the grounds host more than 80 shows and events across the rest of the year.
A claim against a university is not a claim against a driver.
02 What nobody tells you
If the university is the defendant, the clock is not the one you were told about
FIU is a state agency for these purposes. Section 768.28(2) lists state university boards of trustees by name in its definition of a state agency. A claim for a crash on a campus road, a fall in a campus garage, or an injury caused by a university vehicle or a university employee runs against the FIU Board of Trustees under that statute, not against a private company.
That means written notice first, to two places. The claim has to be presented in writing to the university and, because the defendant is the state rather than a city or county, also to the Florida Department of Financial Services. Three years to give that notice, but two years on a wrongful death claim. The agency then has six months to respond before a lawsuit can be filed. Damages are capped at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident.
The campus has its own police force, and it is a state agency too. Under § 1012.97 the university’s officers are declared law enforcement officers of the state, with full arrest powers on or within 1,000 feet of university property and beyond that under mutual aid agreements. So the report on a campus crash is frequently an FIU Police report rather than a Sheriff’s or Highway Patrol one — and the agency that wrote the report is often the first clue to who the defendant is.
Off campus, it is the ordinary mix. The streets of University Park are unincorporated, so the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office works them. SW 8th Street is US-41, a state road, and the Florida Highway Patrol may work that. The Homestead Extension of Florida’s Turnpike runs along the west. Sweetwater, with its own police department, begins just north across 8th Street.
A University Park case is filed in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit. Most injury claims are resolved with the insurer before any lawsuit is filed — but a claim against the university cannot even be filed until the notice has gone out and the six months have run.
03 The roads
Two state roads, a turnpike, and 342 acres of private drives
SW 8th Street, US-41, along the north: the campus’s main frontage, a six-lane state road with the campus entrances on one side and apartments, shopping and student housing on the other. People cross it on foot all day.
SW 107th Avenue, State Road 985, along the east: a six-lane divided state arterial that locals and the signs both call FIU Avenue. It runs from Kendall up to the Dolphin Expressway in Doral and carries the campus’s east-side traffic.
The Homestead Extension of Florida’s Turnpike, along the west, operated by Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise — which is a state agency, with the same notice requirement as the state itself.
The campus drives and garages, which are not public roads. A collision in a parking garage often produces no agency report at all, and the only record is a campus incident report and whatever the garage cameras kept.
Coral Way, SW 24th Street, and the Tamiami Park and Fair Expo Center entrances to the south, where three weeks of fair traffic each spring puts pedestrians, rideshare drop-offs and overflow parking onto a road that was not built for it.
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 seen within fourteen days
Personal Injury Protection pays nothing at all if the first treatment falls outside fourteen days — not a reduced amount, nothing. The student health center is not a substitute for the emergency department when there is any question about a head, neck or back injury.
Work out whether you were on campus
The property line decides the defendant, the notice requirement and the deadline. A crash on SW 8th Street is one claim; a crash fifty yards inside a campus entrance is a different one with a government notice attached to it.
Get the report, and note who wrote it
FIU Police on campus and within 1,000 feet of it, the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office on the unincorporated streets, the Florida Highway Patrol on US-41. On a garage collision ask for the campus incident report, because there may be nothing else.
Ask about the cameras the same week
A campus garage and a campus entrance are both covered by cameras that overwrite. A written request made in the first days is the difference between video and no video, and nobody preserves it on your behalf.
Check whether your car is still an out-of-state car
Florida requires security for a vehicle physically present in the state more than 90 days in the preceding 365 — whether it is driven or not, under § 627.733(2). A car driven down for the fall semester is past that line before Thanksgiving, and an out-of-state policy with no Florida PIP is a problem that only shows up after a crash.
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.
Do not give the other insurer a recorded statement
You are not required to. The answer given in the first week gets quoted back for the next two years.
05 The kinds of claim this covers
A campus produces claims a neighborhood does not
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 University Park alone. What a 342-acre state campus adds is the local part.
Car accidents
On the arterials it is the left turn and the campus entrance. On the campus itself it is low-speed, high-frequency and frequently unreported, and the question of who owns the road decides what kind of claim it is.
Pedestrian accidents
Tens of thousands of people crossing between a campus and the housing and shopping across a six-lane state road, plus the garages where a pedestrian and a car share a lane by design. These cases turn on how fault is divided, and more than half the fault means recovering nothing at all.
Bicycle accidents
A student body of more than 54,000 moves around a 342-acre campus on bicycles and scooters, then rides out onto arterials built for cars. A cyclist has the rights of a driver on the road and almost none of the protection.
Hit-and-run
A garage collision with nobody at the scene and no agency report is the common version here. When no other insurer is ever identified, the claim becomes an uninsured motorist claim on your own policy, and those policies require prompt written notice.
06 Also for University Park
The other matters this office takes from here
Injury work is most of this practice. The rest run from the South Miami office, each with its own page and its own fee terms.
Immigration
Removal defense, bond, asylum, family petitions and citizenship. A university neighborhood brings student and work visa questions alongside the family ones, and which court holds a case is decided by the file rather than by the address on it.
Property insurance claims
A neighborhood built out around the campus decades ago is now at the age where the original roof and the original plumbing reach the end at once, and the insurer calls that wear rather than a covered loss. Notice of the claim is due within one year of the date of loss.
Family law
Divorce, time-sharing, support, property and protective orders in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit.
Criminal defense
Bond and release conditions, DUI, drug charges and theft. An arrest made by a university police officer under § 1012.97 is a state arrest like any other, and a felony arrestee is delivered to the county sheriff.
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 Miami office is at 5975 Sunset Drive, Suite 102, in South Miami, about six miles east. 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. § 768.28 Claims against a state university
Subsection (2) includes state university boards of trustees in the definition of a state agency. Written notice to the university and to the Florida Department of Financial Services, three years to give it and two on a wrongful death claim, six months for the agency to respond, and caps of $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident.
- Fla. Stat. § 1012.97 University police
University officers are declared law enforcement officers of the state, with authority on or within 1,000 feet of university property and beyond it under mutual aid agreements.
- 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.
- Fla. Stat. § 627.733 Out-of-state cars
Subsection (2) requires Florida security for a vehicle physically present in the state more than 90 days during the preceding 365 days, whether it is operated or not.
- 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
- FIU Police DepartmentThe agency that works a crash on or near the campus
- Florida DFS Division of Risk ManagementThe state bureau that handles liability claims against state agencies and universities
- Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office recordsFor a crash worked by the Sheriff on the unincorporated streets
- Eleventh Judicial CircuitThe court a Miami-Dade case is filed in
Questions
Does University Park still exist?
As a neighborhood, yes, and the name is in daily use. As a census place, no — the Census Bureau deleted the University Park CDP before the 2020 count and merged its 4.1 square miles into Westchester. That is a statistical change, not a legal one: the area is unincorporated Miami-Dade either way, and nothing about a claim turns on it.
I was hit on the FIU campus. Is that different?
Yes, and the difference is the deadline. The university is run by a board of trustees that § 768.28 treats as a state agency, so written notice has to be presented to the university and to the Florida Department of Financial Services before a lawsuit can be filed, the agency gets six months to respond, and damages are capped at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident. A claim that would have been straightforward against a private driver becomes a claim with a procedure attached to it.
Who writes the crash report on campus?
FIU’s own police department, which under § 1012.97 is a state law enforcement agency with authority on university property and within 1,000 feet of it. Off campus the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office works the unincorporated streets and the Florida Highway Patrol may work US-41. Whichever agency wrote it, the report is requested through the FLHSMV crash portal.
There was no police report — it happened in a parking garage.
That is common, and it makes the first week matter more. Ask the university for the campus incident report, and make a written request for the garage video while it still exists, because those systems overwrite on their own schedule. A photograph of the position of the cars, taken before anyone moves them, is worth more than a description written later.
My car is registered in another state. Does Florida insurance law apply to me?
If the car has been physically present in Florida more than 90 days in the preceding 365 days, § 627.733(2) requires Florida security for it — and that counts presence, not driving. A car brought down for the fall semester crosses that line during the term. If the out-of-state policy carries no Florida Personal Injury Protection, the medical coverage everyone assumes is there may not be.
Which hospital would I be taken to?
HCA Florida Kendall, on SW 40th Street a few miles south, is the Level I trauma center for the west and south of Miami-Dade; Ryder at Jackson Memorial is the county’s other Level I center. A child is normally taken to Nicklaus Children’s rather than to an adult trauma center.
Is there an office in University Park?
No. The office is at 5975 Sunset Drive, Suite 102, in South Miami, about six miles east, and it serves all of 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.
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. If the university or another state agency is the defendant there is a separate clock in front of that one: written notice within three years, or within two on a wrongful death claim, to the agency and to the Florida Department of Financial Services both, and six months for the agency to respond.
Talk to Jose A. Dapena about a crash in University Park
If it happened on the FIU campus, the notice deadline is the first thing worth checking. The South Miami office serves all of Miami-Dade, and the first conversation about an injury costs nothing.