Your Options After a Slip and Fall in Florida

If you have been hurt in a slip and fall in Miami, you generally have four basic options for how to proceed. Each one has trade-offs, and the right choice depends on the strength of your case, the severity of your injuries, your financial situation, and your tolerance for the time and uncertainty of litigation. This page lays out the four options clearly so you can make an informed decision.

Option One — Do Nothing

You can decide to simply move on. No claim, no lawyer, no demand letter. You absorb the medical bills (or run them through your health insurance with whatever co-pays and deductibles apply), miss whatever work you miss, and live with whatever permanent effects the fall left you with. For minor injuries that resolve quickly with no out-of-pocket cost, this is often the right call — the time and stress of pursuing a claim may not be worth the small recovery.

If you take this option, do it deliberately. Do not just delay until Florida's two-year statute of limitations runs and the option to pursue a claim disappears by accident.

Option Two — Accept the Insurance Company's Initial Offer

Some Florida property owners' insurance carriers will offer a quick settlement within days or weeks of a fall. The offers are typically small — a few hundred to a few thousand dollars — and come with a release that bars any future claim. Accepting an early offer can make sense if you have very minor injuries, no significant medical bills, and want to close the matter quickly.

The risk is that real injuries are often not fully diagnosed until weeks or months after a fall — rotator cuff tears, herniated discs, and concussions all can take time to fully present. Once you sign a release, you cannot reopen the case to add complications that emerge later. Quick offers should generally be reviewed by a lawyer before acceptance.

Option Three — Hire a Lawyer to Negotiate Pre-Suit

For most Florida slip and fall cases, the best path is to hire a personal injury lawyer who handles these cases on a contingency basis (no fee unless we recover) and to negotiate with the insurance carrier without immediately filing suit. The process generally goes like this:

• The lawyer sends a preservation-of-evidence letter and conducts the early investigation
• You complete your medical treatment to maximum medical improvement
• The lawyer prepares a comprehensive demand letter and sends it to the carrier
• The carrier responds with an offer; the lawyer counters; and the parties negotiate
• If a fair settlement is reached, the case resolves without litigation

Pre-suit negotiation is faster and less expensive than litigation. It works well in cases where liability is clear, the medical record is strong, and the carrier is willing to offer reasonable value. It does not work in cases where the carrier denies liability, denies causation, or insists on lowball offers.

Option Four — File Suit and Litigate

If pre-suit negotiation fails — or if the case requires depositions and discovery to develop the constructive-knowledge evidence required by Florida § 768.0755 — the next option is to file a lawsuit and litigate. The litigation process generates additional evidence (particularly through depositions of the property owner's employees) that often substantially increases the case's value, but it also takes time. Florida slip and fall cases that go through litigation typically take 18–36 months to resolve, and most settle at or after court-ordered mediation rather than going to trial.

The decision to file suit is one we make jointly with you, after the pre-suit response is in and we can evaluate whether the carrier is negotiating in good faith.

Florida's Statute of Limitations Is the Backstop

Whichever option you choose, the two-year statute of limitations on slip and fall cases (for falls occurring on or after March 24, 2023) is a hard deadline. If you do not either settle the case or file suit within two years, the option to pursue the claim is gone. The clock starts on the date of the fall — not the date you discovered how serious the injury was, and not the date the insurance carrier denied your claim.

If you have been hurt in a fall in Miami-Dade, Broward, or Monroe County and want an honest evaluation of your options, contact the Law Offices of Albert Goodwin. Call 786-522-1411 or email [email protected] for a free consultation.