HB 837 cut the limitations period for most Florida negligence claims from four years to two, and moved the state to a modified comparative fault standard where a plaintiff found more than 50 percent at fault recovers nothing at all. Both changes moved field investigation from useful to load-bearing.
When case value turns on a fault percentage, the evidence that sets that percentage gets gathered in the first week by somebody standing at the scene. That’s the work. Here’s what a personal injury investigator in Miami is actually doing on your file, on either side of the caption.
The 51 Percent Bar Made Scene Work Decisive
For causes of action accruing after March 24, 2023, Statute 768.81 bars recovery entirely when a plaintiff is found more than 50 percent at fault in most negligence actions, with medical negligence carved out. A file that used to be worth 70 percent of its value at a 30 percent fault finding is now worth zero at 51.
Everything that moves fault a few points is worth documenting. Sight lines at the intersection and whether the left turn is protected. The actual height of the curb. Whether the signage was visible from the approach or obscured by a hedge that’s since been trimmed. How long a spill sat on the floor before anyone reported it, which is the whole constructive notice fight in a premises case.
The math runs the same direction for the defense, which is why the insurance defense firms we work with have been ordering more field work since 2023 than they did before. A four-point shift in a comparative fault argument used to change a number. Now it can end a case.
What a Personal Injury Investigator in Miami Documents in Week One
The two-year limitations period under Statute 95.11(4)(a) is the legal deadline. The real deadline is far shorter, because most private surveillance systems in Miami overwrite in 7 to 30 days and gas station and convenience store recorders often run 14.
Send the preservation letter, then don’t rely on it. Somebody has to walk into the store that week and ask the manager, in person, whether the camera over the register also covers the lot. A letter addressed to a corporate legal department rarely reaches the person who knows the DVR password before the overwrite runs.
The rest of what perishes fast:
- Skid marks, gouge marks, and fluid stains, which survive a few South Florida rains at most
- Broken gates, burned-out lights, and missing signage, all of which get repaired the week after an incident
- Witnesses, who move, change numbers, and in a meaningful share of Miami cases leave the country. The recorded statement taken in week one is the one you’ll still have in year two.
- Vehicle damage, once the car goes to salvage
Canvassing a corridor like NW 7th Avenue or Bird Road means walking into fifteen businesses and asking each one where the cameras point. Half will tell you they don’t have any and be wrong about it. That’s not a task you can send by email.
Negligent Security Cases and Statute 768.0706
HB 837 also created Statute 768.0706, which gives multifamily residential property owners a presumption against liability for third-party criminal acts when they substantially implement a list of security measures. Verifying whether a property actually did is field work with a measurable checklist.
The statute’s list includes items like a security camera at each entry and exit with retained recordings, lighted parking lots and walkways and common areas from dusk to dawn, a deadbolt in each dwelling unit door, locking devices on windows and sliding doors, locked gates at pool fences, a peephole in doors without a window, and a crime deterrence and safety training program for employees, along with a crime prevention through environmental design assessment. Confirm the current statutory list before building a case theory on it.
Every one of those items is something a person can go verify. Foot-candle readings with a light meter at 11 p.m., not at noon. Photographs of the gate latch. Measuring the deadbolt. A public records request to the City of Miami Police Department or Miami-Dade for the call history at that address, which establishes prior similar crimes and foreseeability.
In the negligent security files we’ve worked since the statute took effect, the gap is almost always identical. The property has cameras. The cameras aren’t recording, or retention is seven days, or the unit covering the breezeway has been dark for a year. Substantial implementation is a factual question, and proving the answer takes somebody on site with a light meter, not a request for production.
Covert Surveillance, and Knowing When to Stop
Covert surveillance on a bodily injury claimant earns its cost when there’s a specific inconsistency to test: a claimed restriction that conflicts with a job, a hobby, a second business, or something already posted publicly. Blanket surveillance ordered without a hypothesis usually produces footage that helps the plaintiff.
Six hours of a claimant sitting in a folding chair is evidence for the other side, and it’s discoverable. An investigator worth hiring will call the adjuster after day one and say the file doesn’t support three more. That call costs us money and it’s the right one every time.
Plaintiff firms should run the same review on their own client before the defense does. The defense will find the 2019 fishing photo, the tagged shot from someone else’s account, the Strava upload, the event RSVP, and the business review left from a phone at a location the client said they couldn’t drive to. Better to find it in month one and build around it.
Anything gathered has to survive authentication later, which is a separate discipline worth understanding before you order the first session. We wrote up how covert video gets documented for Florida courts because it’s the question that decides whether the footage is an asset or an expense.
Plaintiff Background Checks and Prior Claims
A background review on a bodily injury plaintiff looks for prior litigation, prior injury claims, prior treating providers, and inconsistencies in employment or income history. Most of it comes from Miami-Dade Clerk records, the statewide court portal, and the Southern District of Florida docket.
The pattern that changes files is repetition. The same treating clinic appearing across fourteen unrelated suits. The same chiropractor, the same letter of protection template, the same referral chain. Statute 768.0427 now imposes disclosure requirements around letters of protection and limits evidence of medical damages to amounts actually payable, which made the provider relationship a live issue rather than background color.
A word on compliance. If a background report gets used for employment purposes it becomes a consumer report under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, with a full permissible-purpose and disclosure regime attached. Litigation work product generally sits outside that, and the line is real. An investigator who can’t tell you where it falls shouldn’t be handling plaintiff background checks.
Hiring a Personal Injury Investigator in Miami: Scope and Cost
Field investigation is billed hourly plus mileage and expenses. Plaintiff firms advance it as a case cost against recovery. Defense firms and carriers bill it to the file. Nobody should be quoting you a flat rate on a case they haven’t read.
Scope the first assignment narrowly. Scene documentation and a witness canvass in week one, a written report, then a decision about what else the case needs. Open-ended retainers on files nobody has evaluated yet are how investigation budgets get spent on nothing. The report from that first assignment should tell you whether to keep going, and it should say so plainly when the answer is no.
Talk to a Coral Gables PI Before the Evidence Is Gone
We’ve been the field extension of South Florida personal injury and insurance defense firms since 1985. Our office is in Coral Gables, we cover Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach, and every client works directly with the investigator on the file. The broader litigation support work runs from intake through trial preparation.
Call (305) 278-8700 with the date of loss and the address. If footage exists at that location, the clock started the day it happened.
Travis Wasser is a licensed Florida investigator and the owner of Wasser Investigations Inc., Florida Agency #A3200002. He is a summa cum laude criminal justice graduate of Florida International University, a member of the Florida Association of Licensed Investigators, and the second generation to run the agency his father founded in 1985. Nothing here is legal advice.