Someone we love died because of another person's negligence in Broward. What can our family do?

What should we do in the first days, and what can wait?

Most of it can wait. Planning the funeral and being with your family come first, and no court, insurer, or police agency needs a decision from you in the first week. A few things are worth protecting early, though, because they are hard to get back later:

• Keep every paper. Hospital and ambulance bills, the funeral home contract, receipts, and anything an insurer mails you.
• Do not sign anything from an insurance company or give a recorded statement, even if the adjuster is kind and the offer is meant to help with funeral costs.
• Ask that the vehicle, phone, or other physical items not be repaired, sold, or thrown away. Your loved one cannot tell what happened, so those items often have to.
• Write down names. Witnesses, the officer or deputy who came, the case number, and the agency: Fort Lauderdale Police, the Broward Sheriff's Office, another city's department, or the Florida Highway Patrol on I-95, I-595, the Turnpike, or the Sawgrass Expressway. Crash reports are requested through the Florida Crash Portal, and we can request it for you.

Who in our family does Florida law count as a survivor?

Florida's Wrongful Death Act uses a specific list, and it surprises families in both directions. A spouse is always a survivor. So are the children, including adult children, and the parents. Beyond that, other relatives by blood, and adopted brothers or sisters, count only if they relied on your loved one, partly or entirely, for support (Fla. Stat. § 768.18).

A partner who was never married to your loved one is not on that list for their own losses, however long the two of you were together. That is hard to hear, and we will say it gently and early so nobody is misled. Children you had together are survivors in their own right, and a partner can still be appointed personal representative and bring the claim on the children's behalf.

Being a survivor and being able to recover a particular kind of loss are two different questions. An adult child, for example, is a survivor, but whether that child can recover for grief depends on whether a spouse survived. We walk through each person in your family on the first call.

Why does one person, the personal representative, bring the case for everyone?

The law wants one claim, not five competing ones. The personal representative files it, deals with the insurers, and later asks the court to approve how any recovery is shared among the survivors and the estate (Fla. Stat. § 768.20). If your loved one left a will, it usually names someone. If not, a family member, often the spouse or an adult child, asks the probate court to appoint them.

When your loved one lived in Broward, that usually happens in the probate division of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit at the Broward County Courthouse, 201 SE 6th St, about a block from our office at 110 SE 6th St. Opening the estate is part of the work we do on the case; families do not have to hire a separate firm or figure out the filings alone.

If your loved one was visiting South Florida, a cruise passenger, or someone who spent winters here and the rest of the year elsewhere, a Florida claim may still be possible, and where the estate should be opened is something we sort out at the start. Relatives who live out of state can do most of this by phone and email.

What kinds of deaths in Broward County lead to these claims?

The claim exists whenever a death was caused by someone else's carelessness that would have supported an injury case had your loved one survived. In Broward, families come to us after:

• Crashes on I-95, I-595 and the interchange where they meet, Florida's Turnpike, and the Sawgrass Expressway, including crashes with tractor-trailers headed to and from Port Everglades.
• People on foot or on bicycles struck on US 1 / Federal Highway, A1A along the beach, Broward Blvd, Sunrise Blvd, or Oakland Park Blvd.
• Collisions at the street crossings where Brightline trains run through downtown on the Florida East Coast tracks.
• Boating and personal watercraft accidents on the Intracoastal, the New River, and the inlets, and drownings in pools that were not properly fenced or watched.
• Falls and security failures at condo buildings, hotels, and parking garages, and medical negligence in a hospital or nursing home.
• Crashes involving a Broward County Transit bus, a school bus, a city vehicle, or a sheriff's vehicle, which carry their own notice rules (see the deadline section below).

How long does our family have, and why should we not wait the full two years?

The general rule is two years counted from the date of death (Fla. Stat. § 95.11). Several things make the real timeline shorter. The estate has to be opened and a personal representative appointed before the lawsuit can be filed. If a government body may be responsible, such as the county, the city, or the school district, Florida requires written notice before suit under Fla. Stat. § 768.28(6). If the death followed medical care, the presuit steps in Chapter 766 take months, and Fla. Stat. § 768.21(8) narrows which survivors may claim grief damages.

Evidence fades too. Video from a business on Federal Highway or a condo lobby is often recorded over, and witnesses move away, especially in a county with so many visitors. Calling early does not commit your family to anything; it just keeps your options open.

What does a Florida wrongful death claim pay for, and who receives it?

Florida divides the recovery by person rather than paying one lump sum to the family (Fla. Stat. § 768.21). In plain terms:

• Every survivor can recover the support and household services your loved one would have provided, from the day of the injury forward, with interest on past losses, plus what they would have provided in the future.
• A surviving spouse can also recover for the loss of companionship and protection, and for their own mental pain and suffering.
• Children who are minors, and adult children too when there is no surviving spouse, can recover for the loss of a parent's companionship, instruction, and guidance, and for their own mental pain and suffering.
• Parents can recover for their mental pain and suffering when the child who died was a minor; when the child was an adult, parents can recover it if there are no other survivors.
• Whoever paid the medical or funeral bills can recover those costs.
• The estate itself can recover the earnings your loved one lost between the injury and death and, in some cases, what they likely would have saved over a normal lifetime, which the statute calls net accumulations.

Missteps that quietly weaken a family's case

Grief makes these easy to fall into, and none of them make anyone a bad parent, child, or spouse. They are simply worth knowing about:

• Accepting an early check. Money offered before the estate is open and the survivors are identified is rarely the full value, and the release that comes with it can end everyone's claim, not just the signer's.
• Each relative calling the insurer separately. Different versions of events in different calls get used against the family later. Let one person, and the lawyer, speak for everyone.
• Posting about the accident online. Comments, photos, and guesses about what happened are read by the other side.
• Letting the car be scrapped or the scene go unrecorded. Photos, the vehicle, and nearby business video may be the only witness that cannot be cross-examined.
• Assuming the two-year clock is generous. Probate, government notice, or medical presuit can take a large part of it before a lawsuit can even be filed.
• Guessing who qualifies. Whether an adult child, a parent, or a partner can recover a given loss depends on who else survived; ask before deciding someone has no claim.