By Prosper Shaked, Florida personal injury attorney. Published: November 2, 2026.
Under Florida’s modified comparative negligence rule, your recovery is reduced by your share of the fault for your own injury. If you were more than 50 percent at fault, you recover nothing, and at exactly 50 percent you still recover half. The act applies the rule to negligence cases filed after March 24, 2023, whatever the date of the crash, though whether it can reach a crash before that date is not settled; it does not apply to a medical negligence claim. For a crash after March 24, 2023, the deadline to file a negligence case is two years from the crash, not four. When an adjuster says my client was partly at fault, I test that against the crash report, the witnesses, the cameras and the data from every car in the crash where I can get access before I take a position, and if the evidence puts my client over the line, I say so.
Key terms
The five terms this article uses
Adjuster. The person at the insurance company who handles your claim, decides what the company offers and, often, is the one who tells you that you were partly at fault. The adjuster works for the insurer, not for you.
Modified comparative negligence. The rule that reduces an injured person’s recovery by his own share of the fault and, in Florida’s version since 2023, bars any recovery when that share is more than 50 percent.
The 50 percent bar. The limit added to section 768.81 in 2023: a person found more than 50 percent at fault for his own harm recovers no damages. At exactly 50 percent, the recovery is cut in half.
Statute of limitations. The deadline to file a lawsuit. For an ordinary negligence claim, the kind a crash or a fall produces, section 95.11 sets it at two years if the claim accrued after March 24, 2023. It is four years for one that accrued before.
Accrual. The point at which a claim arises and the deadline starts to run. For a crash, a negligence claim accrues on the date of the crash.
What is comparative negligence, and what changed on March 24, 2023?
Comparative negligence is the rule for how your own share of the fault for an injury affects what you can recover. The law does not ask only whether you were at fault; it asks how much of the fault was yours, and it reduces what you recover by that share. The reduction applies to both kinds of damages, economic, such as medical expenses and lost income, and noneconomic, for the injury your own fault contributed to.
Florida adopted comparative negligence in Hoffman v. Jones in 1973, wrote it into section 768.81 in 1986, and the 2023 act added the bar. Until 2023, a share of fault reduced a recovery but never barred it, however large the share. That is what lawyers call the pure rule.
The 2023 act is chapter 2023-15, Laws of Florida, signed and effective on March 24, 2023. It added a new subsection to section 768.81. The statute now says that a party found “greater than 50 percent at fault for his or her own harm may not recover any damages.” That limit is what makes Florida’s rule modified. Up to 50 percent, the reduction works the way it always did; past 50 percent, the claim is gone.
The same act, often called HB 837, also shortened the deadline to file a negligence case, covered below, and changed what a jury hears about your medical bills.
How does the 50 percent bar work?
A verdict has two parts, and the first one is where comparative negligence does its work. The jury first decides what percentage of the fault belongs to each person involved, including you. If your share is more than 50 percent, the jury is told not to consider damages at all, and that is the end of the case. If it is 50 percent or less, the jury then puts a number on your damages without any reduction for your own fault, the full cost of the injury, and the judge does the arithmetic. Under section 768.81, the judgment is your damages reduced by your own percentage: a $100,000 verdict with 20 percent of the fault on you becomes an $80,000 judgment, and if your percentage is more than 50, there is no judgment in your favor at all.
To see the effect in dollars, assume a case with one injured person and one defendant, and $100,000 in damages before any reduction for fault; hypothetical figures, not a real case.
If the jury finds you 20 percent at fault, your award is reduced by 20 percent, and you recover $80,000. If it finds you exactly 50 percent at fault, you recover $50,000, because the bar applies only to more than 50 percent. At 50 you are not over the line, so the ordinary reduction cuts the award in half. If it finds you 60 percent at fault, you recover nothing. In a case filed before the act, that same finding would only have reduced the award; in a case governed by the new rule, it erases it.
That is why the line can decide the case. The bar is a cliff, not a slope: at 50 percent you keep half of your damages, and at any share above 50 you keep none of them. A few points of fault, argued one way or the other, can decide whether you recover anything at all.
Here is the example I use when I explain this. A motorcycle rider is doing 85 miles per hour on the interstate in a 55 zone when a truck changes lanes into him, and the injuries are catastrophic. Under the old rule I would take that case: even with the rider 90 percent at fault, the 10 percent that belonged to the truck driver was worth pursuing, because 10 percent of a catastrophic injury is still a great deal of money. Today, unless the evidence gives me a realistic path to keeping that rider at 50 percent or less, I do not take it: on those facts he is almost certain to be put over the line, and once he is, the law gives him nothing, however bad his injuries.
The percentage itself is decided by the jury or the judge at trial, or negotiated if the case settles. How fault is proved is its own subject.
Who does the 50 percent bar apply to?
The act says the bar applies to a negligence case filed after March 24, 2023, whatever the date of the crash. Although the act uses the filing date, applying the new bar to an injury that happened before it took effect raises a separate constitutional question: whether doing so would take away rights that had already accrued. If your crash happened before March 24, 2023 and your case was filed after, my position is that the old rule, which only reduced your recovery, still governs your claim, and I argue it that way. When the deadline to file runs out is a different question, answered in the next section.
“Negligence” here is broad. The statute’s definition reaches claims based on negligence, strict liability, products liability and professional malpractice, whatever a party calls them.
One kind of case is written out of the bar itself. A claim for personal injury or wrongful death arising out of medical negligence under chapter 766 is not under the bar. It stays under the pure rule: a patient found partly at fault has the recovery reduced by that share, but not barred.
Not wearing a seat belt is one of the most common ways an insurance company’s adjuster argues a driver’s own fault. Under section 316.614, not wearing one is not negligence in itself and does not by itself prove negligence, but it may be considered as evidence of comparative negligence. The belt also has to be connected to the injury: section 768.81 reduces damages only for harm that your own fault caused. So the question is what the belt would have changed, not only whether it was buckled.
The same rule applies to a negligence claim for a fall on someone else’s property. If you are found partly at fault for the fall, your share reduces the recovery the same way, and more than 50 percent ends it.
An injury on a boat or a cruise ship is usually governed by maritime law, which has its own rules on shared fault.
How long do you have to file a negligence case now?
For an ordinary negligence claim, the kind a crash or a fall produces, section 95.11 gives you two years to file suit if the claim accrued after March 24, 2023. Under section 95.031, a claim accrues when its last element occurs, and in a crash the last element is the injury, so the two-year clock starts on the day of the crash. The deadline was four years before the act. The act applies the change only to a claim that accrues after March 24, 2023, so a claim that accrued before that date keeps four years.
The two dates do different jobs. The deadline turns on the date of the crash, while the 50 percent bar turns on the date the case is filed. A crash in 2022 that is filed in time keeps the four-year deadline, and although the act puts a case filed after March 24, 2023 under the bar, that is the contested point explained above.
Medical malpractice and wrongful death claims generally already had two-year deadlines before 2023, and they have their own timing rules, which this change did not replace.
The shorter window matters to me because two years is less time to finish treating, to know what the injury will cost, and to build the file before a lawsuit has to be filed.
What should you do if the adjuster says you were partly at fault?
Do not treat it as a verdict. The adjuster is the insurance company’s claims handler, and when the adjuster tells you that you were partly at fault, that is the insurance company’s negotiating position, not a finding. But take it seriously, because under this rule every point of fault that sticks is a percentage off your recovery, and more than 50 is the whole case. If the adjuster’s statement stands unanswered, the insurer’s offers in your car accident claim will start from that position. An adjuster’s number is not the last word. Tested against the evidence, there is often a good chance of getting under the 50 percent line, and when the damages are high the insurer carries a real risk at trial, which is why a case like that usually resolves in a settlement long before a jury ever decides the percentage.
When an adjuster tells me my client was partly at fault, I do not argue about it; I check it. In a car case that means the crash report, every witness I can reach, any camera that may have caught the crash and, where the drivers’ accounts conflict, a download of the event data recorder from every car in the crash where I can get access, usually more than one, so that my client’s version is tested against the evidence that actually exists. When the evidence lines up with the account, I take a firm position, and the allegation is a negotiating point, not a finding. When it does not line up, that is a concern, and how much of one depends on the circumstances. If the evidence puts my client near or over the 50 percent line, I sit down with the client and say so, because it may not make sense to pursue a case the rule will not let him win.
Frequently asked questions
Does Florida bar recovery at 50 percent or 51 percent fault?
It is more than 50 percent. Under section 768.81, you lose your recovery only if your share of fault is greater than 50 percent. At exactly 50 percent you are not over the line: your damages are reduced by half, and you recover the other half. Any share above 50 percent bars recovery entirely.
My crash was before March 24, 2023, and I have not filed. Which rules apply?
Two different rules, set by two different dates. Because your crash happened before March 24, 2023, your claim accrued before the act, so the old four-year deadline applies, counted from the date of the crash. A case you file now is filed after March 24, 2023, so the act says the 50 percent bar applies to it; whether that holds for a crash before the act is not settled, and my position is that the old rule governs your claim. Four years from a crash before that date is running out or has run out, so check the exact date of the crash now.
I was not wearing a seat belt. Can I still recover?
Not wearing a seat belt does not end your claim by itself. Under section 316.614, not wearing one is not negligence in itself and does not by itself prove negligence, but it may be considered as evidence of comparative negligence. It can raise your share of the fault, and that share reduces your damages for the injury the belt can be tied to. The claim is barred only if your total share, with everything else counted, goes over 50 percent.
Does the 50 percent rule apply to a slip and fall?
Yes. A claim for a fall on someone else’s property is usually a negligence claim, so the same rule applies. Your recovery is reduced by your share of the fault, and if you are found more than 50 percent at fault, you recover nothing. Like a car case, a fall case filed after March 24, 2023 is under the bar, subject to the same question about injuries before the act explained above, and a fall after that date has the two-year deadline.
Does the 50 percent rule apply to a boat or cruise injury?
Not necessarily, because a boat or cruise injury is usually governed by maritime law, which has its own rules on shared fault. Those rules, not the Florida statute this article explains, decide how your own share of fault counts.
If an adjuster has told you that you were more than 50 percent at fault, do not take that as the answer: tested against the evidence, a case the adjuster calls lost can often still be brought, and I will tell you plainly whether yours can. You can reach me through my attorney page or the form on this page.
Reviewed by Prosper Shaked, Florida personal injury attorney, who represents injured people in car, truck and motorcycle accident, premises liability, medical malpractice and wrongful death cases from his office in North Miami Beach.
Law cited: section 768.81, Florida Statutes (2026); section 95.11; section 95.031; section 316.614; chapter 2023-15, Laws of Florida (HB 837), sections 9, 28 and 30; Hoffman v. Jones, 280 So. 2d 431 (Fla. 1973). Checked against the 2026 Florida Statutes on November 2, 2026.