Homestead slip and fall lawyer

Which Florida laws apply to a Homestead slip and fall claim

The rules are the same across Florida, so they are written out in full on one page rather than repeated here. They are explained on the statewide slip and fall page, with the statute text linked.

The short version, because people need it before they click: § 768.0755 requires proof that the business had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition and should have acted. Constructive knowledge is shown either by the condition existing long enough that ordinary care would have found it, or by it occurring with regularity.

Subsection (2) leaves the common-law duty of care intact, which matters where staff created the hazard. A fall in rented housing runs on § 83.51 instead, and a fall on public property on § 768.28. In South Dade there is a third route nobody expects: a fall inside Everglades or Biscayne National Park is a federal claim and runs on the Federal Tort Claims Act, not on any Florida statute. Under § 768.81 fault is apportioned and bars recovery above 50%, and the Florida deadline is two years.

What follows is the part that is specific to Miami-Dade County — where these claims arise, where you will be treated, which courthouse the case goes to, and how the records are obtained.

Five settings, five different sets of rules

Almost every other slip and fall page treats this as one kind of case. In South Dade it is five. A supermarket on US-1 is a business premises under § 768.0755. An apartment in Leisure City is rented housing under § 83.51. A city sidewalk is governmental, under § 768.28, with a notice requirement before anything is filed. A u-pick field is a business premises even though it looks like farmland. And a visitor center inside a national park is not governed by Florida law at all.

The regimes do not merely differ in detail. They differ in what has to be proved. Under § 768.0755 the burden is knowledge of the hazard. Under § 83.51 it is a statutory duty to maintain, which does not require proving the landlord knew about the specific defect in the same way. Getting this wrong at the start means investigating for the wrong facts for months.

Which is why the first question is boring and decisive: who owned that ground, and who was responsible for maintaining it. In a shopping plaza the answer is frequently not the store — it is a property management company for the common areas and the parking lot, and the store only for inside its own doors.

Two national parks have their main entrances here

Everglades National Park’s main entrance is in Homestead and Biscayne National Park’s headquarters is at Convoy Point. Between them they draw a large share of South Dade’s visitor traffic onto federal land — boardwalks, docks, boat ramps, trails and visitor centers.

A fall there is not a Florida premises case. It is a claim against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act, and the procedure is unrecognizable if you are expecting a state lawsuit. A written administrative claim goes to the agency first. The agency has six months to act on it. Only after a denial can a suit be filed, and then within six months of that denial. There is no jury.

It also has a hard front-end deadline of its own. The administrative claim has to be presented within two years of the injury, and presenting it is not optional — a suit filed without it gets dismissed regardless of how good the underlying facts are.

And the discretionary-function defense is real. The government routinely argues that how it chose to design, sign or maintain a trail was a policy judgment and therefore immune. That is an argument to be met with evidence about what the park’s own maintenance standards required, which is why the records request matters more here than almost anywhere.

It exists for days, and then it does not

Most falls in a store are recorded, and most recordings are gone before anybody asks. Retention on a retail system is commonly measured in days or a few weeks, and overwriting is automatic rather than deliberate.

A written preservation demand is what stops it. It has to go to an entity that can act on it — the store’s risk management or its registered agent, not a shift manager — and it has to describe the camera, the date and the window. A phone call to the store does not do this.

The useful footage is usually not the fall. It is the twenty minutes before it, because that is what shows how long the condition was there and who walked past it. A clip that begins when you hit the floor proves the fall nobody was disputing and nothing about knowledge, which is the element the statute actually puts on you.

Ask for the incident report number before you leave. There is no police report in a fall case. The store’s own report is the closest equivalent, and its existence is harder to deny when you have its number.

Packing houses, fields and the two-track problem

South Dade has working agriculture, and a fall on it is frequently two claims at once. If you were working, the first track is workers’ compensation against your employer. This office does not handle workers’ compensation cases. What it does handle is the second track — the claim against everybody on that property who is not your employer.

That second track is where the recovery usually is. A packing house may be operated by one company, owned by another, and have equipment maintained by a third. A grower, a labor contractor and a property owner can all be different entities with different insurance, and § 440.11 protects only your employer.

The order these are started in matters. The two tracks have different deadlines and the comp carrier will assert a lien against anything recovered from the third party. Handling them in the wrong sequence does real damage, and it is a reason to ask early rather than after one of them is resolved.

A u-pick field is a different case again. Somebody picking strawberries on a weekend is a business visitor on a business premises, and § 768.0755 applies in full — uneven rows, irrigation lines and wet ground included.

Homestead Hospital, and the gap that is really a transport problem

A fall injury in this area is first recorded at Homestead Hospital, at 975 Baptist Way, or at an urgent care on US-1. That first record is what fixes the date and the mechanism, and it is worth being precise with whoever writes it.

Say that you fell, and say on what. A chart that reads "left hip pain" with no mechanism is a chart an insurer will later use to argue the injury had nothing to do with the premises. One sentence about a wet floor or a broken step changes that.

Serious injuries leave the area. An orthopedic or neurosurgical referral from South Dade usually means Baptist in Kendall or Jackson, and the follow-up that does not happen because the drive is an hour each way reads in the file as a recovery. Where that is the reason, tell the treating doctor so the record says so.

Falls are where pre-existing conditions get fought hardest. A prior back or knee problem is not a defense, but it will be used as one, and the honest version — this is what was wrong before, this is what is different now — is far stronger than a chart that pretends there was no history.

Where the Homestead office is, and how to get there

DAPENALAW is at 100 NE 15th Street, Suite 210, Homestead, FL 33030, open Monday to Friday, 08:30 to 17:00. The direct number is (786) 900-0184.

The office is at 100 NE 15th Street in downtown Homestead, a short drive from the Florida Turnpike and from US-1, and minutes from the South Dade Justice Center where many of these cases are heard. It is the closest office for Florida City, the Redland, Leisure City and Naranja.

You do not have to come in. The first conversation can be by phone or video, documents are handled electronically, and where an injury makes travel difficult the meeting happens where you are. The Homestead office is the closest one for Homestead, Florida City, Leisure City, Naranja, Princeton, Goulds, the Redland, Silver Palm and the area around Homestead Air Reserve Base. The Sunset Drive office in South Miami is usually the shorter drive from Kendall, Cutler Bay and the rest of the county.

More about the Homestead office · All three offices