What Are Florida's Personal Injury Damage Caps?

Personal Injury Damage Caps in Florida

Florida does not cap compensatory damages in a standard personal injury case.

Your medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering can be awarded in full, whatever the evidence supports.

The exceptions are narrow: punitive damages are capped by statute, and claims against government entities hit a hard $200,000 ceiling.

Even Florida's medical malpractice caps are gone, struck down by the state supreme court.

What limits most Florida recoveries is not a statute. It is insurance coverage, fault percentages, and how well the damages were documented.

This page covers what is capped, what is not, and where the real ceilings hide.

Which Damages Are Capped in Florida?

One table answers most of the question:

Damage Type	Cap in Florida	Authority
Economic (medical bills, lost wages, future care)	No cap	No statute limits them
Pain and suffering (standard negligence)	No cap	No statute; juries decide
Pain and suffering (medical malpractice)	No cap (caps struck down)	McCall (2014), Kalitan (2017)
Punitive damages	3x compensatory or $500,000 (greater of), with exceptions	§ 768.73
Claims against government entities	$200,000 per person / $300,000 per incident	§ 768.28

Everything below unpacks the rows that decide real cases.

No Cap on Pain and Suffering in Standard Injury Cases

A Florida jury deciding a car crash, fall, or negligence case faces no statutory ceiling on non-economic damages. Pain, disability, disfigurement, and lost enjoyment of life are valued on the evidence, and verdicts rise with the severity of what was taken.

This was not always guaranteed. In 2003, Florida capped non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases. The Florida Supreme Court struck the wrongful death cap in Estate of McCall v. United States in 2014, then extended the ruling to personal injury cases in North Broward Hospital District v. Kalitan in 2017, holding the caps violated equal protection.^[1] No general cap has replaced them.

Even the sweeping 2023 tort reform left this alone. HB 837 shortened deadlines and tightened fault rules, but it did not cap what a jury can award for suffering. Cap proposals surface in Tallahassee most sessions and have not passed.

One Florida-specific gate applies to car accidents: pain and suffering requires a permanent injury under the serious-injury threshold before the at-fault driver owes it at all. That is a door to get through, not a ceiling on what is behind it.

The Punitive Damages Cap: Three Times Compensatory or $500,000

Punitive damages punish conduct rather than compensate loss, and Florida controls them at both ends.

To plead them at all, § 768.72 requires a reasonable evidentiary showing, and winning them requires clear and convincing proof of intentional misconduct or gross negligence. The award is then generally capped by § 768.73 at three times compensatory damages or $500,000, whichever is greater.^[2]

The cap moves when the conduct gets worse. Wrongdoing motivated by unreasonable financial gain can raise the ceiling to four times compensatory or $2 million. A defendant who acted with specific intent to harm faces no cap. And a drunk driver's punitive exposure is not capped at all, which is one reason DUI injury cases are valued differently from ordinary crashes.

Most injury claims never involve punitive damages. When the facts support them, they change the insurer's math from the day the motion is filed, and our full guide to punitive damages in Florida covers the pleading gate, the tiers, and the exceptions in depth.

The $200,000 Cap When the Government Injured You

The one hard compensatory cap in Florida law protects government defendants. Under § 768.28, a claim against the state, a county, a city, a school board, or a public hospital district is capped at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident, no matter what a jury awards.^[3]

A verdict above the cap is not worthless. The excess can be pursued through a claims bill, a private act the Legislature must pass to authorize payment. Families have recovered millions this way, and many more have waited years and recovered nothing beyond the cap.

These numbers were set in 2010, and the Legislature has twice voted to raise them, in 2025 and again in 2026. Both bills were vetoed. The caps stand at $200,000 and $300,000, and any accident involving a government vehicle, building, or employee has to be valued with that ceiling in mind.

Government cases also carry their own presuit notice requirements and timelines, covered on our page about sovereign immunity claims in Florida.

Where Florida Recoveries Actually Hit Their Limit

Statutory caps decide fewer Florida cases than three practical ceilings that get far less attention.

Insurance Policy Limits

Florida does not require drivers to carry bodily injury liability coverage at all. A catastrophic injury caused by a minimally insured driver is limited by the coverage that exists, not by any statute. Finding every policy, including UM/UIM, umbrella, and employer coverage, is where these cases are won. Our page on Florida's minimum insurance requirements explains the gap.

The 51 Percent Fault Bar

Since HB 837, a plaintiff found more than 50 percent at fault recovers nothing, and every percentage point below that reduces the award. A $500,000 case at 30 percent fault pays $350,000. The fault fight is a damages fight in disguise, detailed on our Florida comparative negligence page.

The Serious-Injury Threshold in Car Cases

No-fault law bars pain and suffering against the at-fault driver unless the injury is permanent within a reasonable degree of medical probability, involves significant scarring, or worse. Passing the serious-injury threshold is what separates a PIP-only claim from a full recovery.

Documentation is the answer to all three. The claim that proves permanence, keeps fault where it belongs, and finds every layer of coverage is the claim that reaches full value. That work is what our personal injury lawyers throughout Florida do on every serious case.