Miami injury attorney

Civil injury claims from across Miami-Dade are filed at the Circuit Court at 73 West Flagler Street in downtown Miami.

County court matters arising in the far south of the county go to the South Dade Justice Center in Cutler Bay, which is the closer building for Homestead, Florida City and the Redland. A circuit suit is still filed downtown.

Not necessarily. A first conversation happens by phone or video, and documents are handled electronically.

The office is there when meeting in person is better — and for people in the south of the county, the Homestead office is usually the shorter drive.

Yes. The office serves the whole of Miami-Dade, and the case is filed in the county regardless of which municipality the crash happened in.

The municipality matters for one thing: which police agency wrote the report, and therefore where it has to be requested from.

Reports are filed to the state and are available through the Florida Crash Portal operated by FLHSMV. What catches people out is the confidentiality window.

Under Fla. Stat. § 316.066(2)(a), a crash report that reveals personal information about the people involved is confidential and exempt from public disclosure for 60 days after it is filed.

That restriction does not apply to you. Section 316.066(2)(b) lets the parties involved and their legal representatives obtain the report immediately, along with their insurers and certain agencies. So the report can be in hand within days — it simply is not public for two months.

Which agency wrote it decides where a copy ultimately comes from, so it is worth knowing that before requesting.

It depends entirely on where the crash happened, and Miami-Dade has more answers to this than almost any county in the state.

On I-95, the Palmetto, the Dolphin and the other expressways, it is usually the Florida Highway Patrol. Within an incorporated city — Miami, Hialeah, Coral Gables, Miami Beach, Doral, Homestead and many more — it is that city’s police department. In unincorporated areas it is the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office.

The practical consequence is that two crashes a mile apart can produce reports held by two different agencies, requested in two different ways and on two different timelines.

It can change it completely, and it is the first question to ask on any Miami-Dade medical claim.

The Jackson system operates through the Public Health Trust, which makes it a public body. A claim against a public body in Florida is governed by Fla. Stat. § 768.28, which carries a written notice requirement before suit and statutory limits on recovery — $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident.

The deadline changes too. In a death case, notice must be given within two years rather than the three that otherwise applies to a claim under that section.

And it can reach further than the hospital itself: under § 768.28(10)(f), university-employed physicians working there under an affiliation agreement can be covered by the same immunity.

None of this means there is no claim. It means the claim has a different shape, a different ceiling and an earlier deadline, and it has to be identified at the start rather than discovered later.

Miami-Dade has two Level I trauma centers: Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial, and HCA Florida Kendall for the west and south of the county.

A child is usually taken to Nicklaus Children’s rather than to an adult trauma center, and a serious burn goes to a verified burn center — the Miami Burn Center inside Ryder, or the Burn and Reconstructive Center at HCA Florida Kendall.

Where you were taken matters to the claim as well as to the treatment. The records generated in the first hour are usually what proves the injury months later.

No. The county’s long-standing breed restriction was repealed, which surprises people on both sides of a dog bite claim.

It matters less than it sounds, because a Florida dog bite claim does not run on breed in the first place. Fla. Stat. § 767.04 makes an owner liable for a bite regardless of the dog’s former viciousness or the owner’s knowledge of it.

What decides most of these claims is coverage — whether a homeowner’s or renter’s policy responds, and whether it carries a dog exclusion.

It usually changes who wrote the report and how severe the injuries are, rather than the law that applies.

Expressway crashes are typically investigated by the Florida Highway Patrol. They also tend to involve higher speeds and larger vehicles, which means more serious injuries and a greater chance that the at-fault driver’s coverage is not enough.

That last point is why uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage matters so much here, and why accepting the at-fault driver’s limits without notifying a UM carrier first can be a costly mistake.

Two years for most negligence claims accruing on or after March 24, 2023, under Fla. Stat. § 95.11.

Several run much shorter, and they are the ones that catch people. A cruise ticket normally requires written notice within six months and suit within one year. A claim against a city, the county or a state agency carries its own notice requirement. Medical malpractice consumes months in a presuit process before a complaint can be filed at all.

And the PIP rule is shorter than any of them: treatment has to begin within 14 days of a motor vehicle crash for PIP to pay anything.

The first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.

Injury cases are handled on a contingent attorney’s fee, which means no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery. Case expenses are governed by the written representation agreement, including who pays them if there is no recovery, and that is explained before anything is signed.

Yes, and it is one of the few areas where the distinction matters enormously at the outset.

A passenger injured on a cruise is governed by the passage contract: usually six months to give written notice and one year to sue, in a court the ticket names.

A crew member is in an entirely different body of law — the Jones Act, maintenance and cure, and unseaworthiness, with three years rather than one, and frequently an arbitration clause in the employment agreement.

Running one as the other wastes the time that matters, so which of the two you are is the first thing to establish.

Jose A. Dapena. You deal with your attorney directly at every stage rather than through an intake department or a case manager.

He has practiced in Florida since 1998, Florida Bar number 152358, and is admitted in all three Florida federal districts.