Fatal Car Accident Claim Lawyer in Jacksonville, FL Evidence, Liability and Loss Claims

The claim belongs to the estate, and only one person files it

Section 768.20 assigns the action to the decedent's personal representative, who recovers on behalf of the survivors and the estate together. Section 768.21 opens by requiring that every potential beneficiary, the estate included, be identified in the complaint with each relationship pleaded. A sibling who has been fielding the adjuster's calls has no authority from that fact alone.

Who gets appointed follows an order. Section 733.301 puts the will's nominee first in a testate estate, then a person chosen by a majority in interest of those entitled to the estate, then a devisee. Where there is no will, preference runs to the surviving spouse, then to a person selected by a majority in interest of the heirs, then to the heir nearest in degree. The Fourth Judicial Circuit posts probate self-help material that includes an affidavit of heirs. The Duval County Clerk sets formal administration at $401 and summary administration at $346 for an estate of $1,000 or more.

How the crash report is built, and who may read it for sixty days

Under section 316.066, a Florida Traffic Crash Report, Long Form must be completed and submitted to the department within 10 days after the officer finishes investigating a crash involving death or injury. That report carries the vehicles, the parties and passengers, witnesses, the officer's badge number and agency, and the insurers for each party.

Then the statute closes it. Crash reports revealing personal information about the people involved are confidential and exempt from public records for 60 days after filing. The same subsection makes them immediately available to the parties, their legal representatives, their licensed insurance agents, their insurers, law enforcement, victim services programs, and government agencies. A grieving relative who is not a party to the crash can be told no at the counter while an insurer already holds a copy.

What this county's numbers say about the crash that killed someone

FDOT District Two's 2024 Duval crash facts record 38,584 crashes, 154 fatalities, and 498 serious injuries against a county population of 1,055,159. Impaired driving is tied to 53 deaths, pedestrians and bicyclists to 51, intersections to 38, and motorcycle and scooter riders to 37.

The city's Vision Zero Action Plan reviewed 2018 through 2023 and counted 921 deaths across 196,453 crashes, with 211 of the dead on foot. Sixty percent of the severe pedestrian and bicycle crashes happened at night, and drugs or alcohol figured in 54 percent of fatal vehicle crashes. None of that assigns blame in one case. It does explain why lighting, crossing design, and speed evidence matter on a Springfield or Mandarin street.

Two years, and the 2023 change that produced them

Section 95.11 lists an action for wrongful death, and an action founded on negligence, in the two-year column. Negligence used to sit in the four-year column. Chapter 2023-15 moved it, and the statutory note confirms the amendments apply to causes of action accruing after the March 24, 2023 approval date of that act. Deaths before and after that date can sit under different rules, so write the exact date down.

Above half the fault, the recovery disappears

The same 2023 act added subsection (6) to section 768.81. A party found more than 50 percent at fault for their own harm now recovers nothing, where the old rule merely reduced the award. Below that line, contributory fault still diminishes economic and noneconomic damages proportionately.

Defense lawyers also work the absent-party rules. To put a driver or contractor who was never sued on the verdict form, a defendant must affirmatively plead that party's fault and then prove it at trial by a preponderance of the evidence. Fault evidence about an absent company is not admitted automatically, so the pleading requirement is worth checking early.

When the other vehicle or the road belongs to a government body

Section 768.28 waives immunity only so far. Payment is limited to $200,000 for any one person and $300,000 for everyone injured in the same incident, and anything above that can be paid only by a further act of the Legislature, the process known as a claim bill. A wrongful death claim must be presented in writing to the Department of Financial Services within 2 years, while claims against a municipality or county go to the agency itself. In a death case, ninety days of silence counts as a denial, and the limitations period is tolled while the claim sits.

Those figures nearly changed. HB 145 in the 2026 session would have raised them, passing the House 104 to 7 and the Senate 36 to 0, then clearing a concurrence vote of 108 to 1 before the Governor vetoed it on June 30, 2026. The older limits therefore still govern.

Coverage, and how the state's fee schedule applies to a death case

Section 627.4137 gives a written request real force. Within 30 days a liability insurer must supply a sworn statement naming itself and each insured, stating the limits, disclosing any coverage defense it believes it has, and attaching the policy. Excess and umbrella coverage is included, and the statement must be amended when new facts surface.

Florida's fee rule for these cases is a published sliding scale rather than one flat number, with a lower first tier while the matter resolves before an answer and a court-approval route for anything above the schedule. Under section 768.26, the representative pays fees and litigation expenses out of the recovery, deducted from each survivor's award and the estate's award in proportion. The pricing page here lays the tiers out line by line.