Legal Pearls: Florida Leaves Physician-Friendly Malpractice Law in Effect

The Law

For the second year in a row, efforts to amend a 1990 Florida law, deemed by critics as the “free kill” statute, has stalled in legislature. Critics claim the law eliminated a big consequence to health care practitioners—large cash payouts to surviving family members—in the event of botched medical treatments or surgeries.

Bipartisan attempts to overturn the law have failed again after the Senate Judiciary Committee postponed consideration of a bill, which would have allowed parents of adult children to claim pain and suffering damages in medical malpractice cases. A related bill would have allowed adult children to sue over the deaths of parents in medical malpractice cases.

On February 1, 2022, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Danny Burgess, halted the progress of the bill, saying it was not yet “ready for prime time.” Burgess called the 2 bills too broad as written but believes that changes could be made. “There’s truly a gap that could be filled,” he said. “What we were trying to do with the amendment is to narrowly tailor the issues where there has been a financial reliance or dependency or an adult child with a disability. What we didn’t want to do is open the floodgate.”

It is worth noting that Florida is the only state that treats wrongful death suits differently based on whether they stem from medical malpractice. In wrongful death suits that arise from negligence, breach of contract, or anything other than medical malpractice, state law allows claims to be brought by surviving family members.