Miami medical malpractice lawyer

Which Florida laws apply to a Miami medical malpractice 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 medical malpractice page, with the statute text linked.

Florida medical malpractice runs through chapter 766: a presuit investigation, a corroborating affidavit from a qualified expert under § 766.203, notice of intent, and a 90-day presuit period before suit can be filed. That process is the same statewide and is explained on the Florida medical malpractice page.

What is not the same is who you are suing. If the provider is a state agency or its agent, § 768.28 caps recovery at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident, requires its own written notice, and bars naming the employee personally. In Miami-Dade County that question turns on which institution treated you — and the answer is frequently counterintuitive. The deadline is generally two years from discovery with a four-year outside limit under § 95.11(5)(c), and where someone has died § 768.21(8) sharply restricts who may recover.

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.

Why the institution decides the value of a Miami malpractice claim

Before the medicine, the question is whether the defendant is a government.

Section 768.28(5) says the state and its agencies and subdivisions are not liable to pay a claim or judgment by any one person exceeding $200,000, or exceeding $300,000 for all claims arising out of one incident. A judgment can be entered for more, but the excess may be paid only by further act of the Legislature — a claim bill, which is a political process and not a legal remedy.

Section 768.28(9) also bars naming the employee personally for conduct within the scope of their employment, absent bad faith or malicious purpose or wanton and willful disregard. The exclusive remedy is against the entity.

In Miami-Dade this is not an abstract question. Jackson Memorial is operated by the Public Health Trust of Miami-Dade County, a county entity, and the Jackson system includes Jackson South, Jackson North, Holtz Children’s and Ryder Trauma — the county’s Level I trauma center, which receives a large share of its most serious injuries. Meanwhile Baptist Health, Mount Sinai and the HCA hospitals are private and carry no cap, and the Miami VA is federal and outside Florida law altogether.

None of this makes a capped case not worth bringing. It changes what the case is: how it is staffed, what it costs to work up, whether additional non-governmental defendants belong in it, and what a realistic outcome looks like. Knowing it at the start is the difference between a plan and a disappointment.

How a private medical school’s physicians end up inside the cap

This is the provision that surprises people, and it matters more in Miami than almost anywhere.

Section 768.28(10)(f) provides that a nonprofit independent college or university chartered in Florida that owns or operates an accredited medical school — and its employees or agents — is considered an agent of a teaching hospital while acting within the scope of and pursuant to the guidelines in an affiliation agreement or contract.

A teaching hospital for this purpose is one owned or operated by the state, a county or municipality, a public health trust, a special taxing district or another governmental entity with health care responsibilities — including a not-for-profit entity running such a facility as an agent of the state or a political subdivision under a lease or contract.

But the paragraph attaches conditions, and conditions can fail. The contract must require the college or university to indemnify the teaching hospital up to the chapter’s limits. It must state that the relevant parts of the school are acting on behalf of a public agency under § 119.011(2). And the teaching hospital or medical school must notify each patient, or their legal representative, that the exclusive remedy for a covered injury is an action under § 768.28 — a requirement that can be satisfied by posting a conspicuous notice.

So the affiliation agreement is a document to obtain and read, not a fact to accept. Whether the physician was acting within its scope, and whether the notice condition was met, are questions with answers.

The notice a claim against a public provider needs, and when

A malpractice claim against a governmental provider carries two separate presuit tracks, and missing either one ends it.

Chapter 766 requires the investigation, the corroborating expert affidavit under § 766.203, the notice of intent, and the 90-day presuit period.

Section 768.28(6) requires its own written notice to the appropriate agency — and, except for claims against a municipality or county, to the Department of Financial Services. The claim generally must be presented within 3 years after it accrues, and within 2 years for wrongful death.

Then a waiting period. Failure to make final disposition within 6 months is deemed a final denial — but for medical malpractice and wrongful death claims that period is 90 days, and the limitations period is tolled while it runs. Under § 768.28(14) suit must be brought within 4 years of accrual, with exceptions for malpractice and wrongful death actions.

This is why identifying the defendant early is not a formality. Treating a public provider as a private one for the first eighteen months is how a good case becomes a time-barred one.

What to gather, and the one place Florida law favors the patient

Start with the complete chart, not the discharge summary. Request the full record including nursing notes, medication administration records, vital sign flow sheets, imaging and the actual images rather than the reports, and any electronic record audit trail showing who accessed what and when.

Then use Amendment 7. Article X, section 25 of the Florida Constitution gives patients a right of access to records of adverse medical incidents made or received by a health care facility or provider. It reaches material that would otherwise sit behind peer-review privilege, and it is among the strongest tools available in these cases.

And check licensure and discipline. The Florida Department of Health license verification system shows a practitioner’s license status and public discipline, and AHCA publishes facility-level information. A pattern is sometimes already on the record.

Do all of it before memories and staffing change. Residents rotate, travel nurses leave, and systems get upgraded. The chart is permanent; the people who can explain it are not.

Where the Miami office is, and how to get there

DAPENALAW is at 5975 Sunset Drive, Suite 102, South Miami, FL 33143, open Monday to Friday, 08:30 to 17:00. The direct number is (305) 662-4323.

The office is on Sunset Drive in South Miami, a few blocks west of US-1 and close to the South Miami Metrorail station, with parking on site. A first conversation can happen by phone or video, and home and hospital visits are available when someone cannot travel.

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 Sunset Drive office serves Miami-Dade generally, and most often South Miami, Coral Gables, Westchester, Kendall, Coral Terrace, Olympia Heights, West Miami, Sweetwater, Glenvar Heights, Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay, Coconut Grove, Little Havana, Hialeah and Doral.

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