A woman slips on a puddle of spilled juice at a Publix in Plantation. She fractures her wrist. The store manager tells her they just mopped the area 30 minutes earlier and didn’t see any spill. She files a claim. Her case gets dismissed before it even reaches a jury. Why? Florida Statute §768.0755 requires her to prove the store either knew about the juice or that it sat there long enough that they should have known through reasonable inspection. Thirty minutes after a mop pass? A judge will likely rule that’s not enough time for constructive notice. That’s how specific Florida premises liability law is — and how quickly cases can collapse if you don’t understand the technical requirements.
Property owners in Florida owe visitors different levels of care depending on why you’re on the premises. If you’re a customer, tenant, or anyone invited onto property for business purposes, you’re an invitee. Owners must inspect regularly, fix hazards promptly, and warn you of dangers they know about. If you’re a social guest — a licensee — they only have to warn you about hidden dangers they actually know about. Trespassers get almost no protection unless the property has something likely to attract kids, like an unfenced pool. The law doesn’t care how badly you’re hurt. It cares why you were there.
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What You Have to Prove in a Florida Premises Liability Case
Four elements. Miss one and your case dies.
- The property owner owed you a duty of care. That depends on your visitor status.
- They breached that duty by failing to inspect, maintain, warn, or fix a hazard.
- That breach directly caused your injury — no breaks in the chain of causation.
- You suffered actual damages: medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering.
Here’s what catches people off guard. Since March 24, 2023, when House Bill 837 took effect, you cannot recover anything if a jury finds you more than 50% at fault. Not a reduced amount. Zero. The old rule let you recover even if you were 99% responsible. That’s gone. Defense attorneys across Broward County are now pushing comparative negligence arguments in every slip-and-fall case. They’ll argue you weren’t paying attention, you were texting, you were wearing the wrong shoes. If they can get you over 50%, they win.
The statute of limitations is now two years from the date of injury. It used to be four. That’s a massive change. If you fell in a Walmart parking lot in January 2024, you have until January 2026 to file suit. Not 2028. People who wait thinking they have four years are going to lose valid claims.
How the Slip and Fall Law Actually Works
Florida Statute §768.0755 governs slip and fall cases in business establishments. It’s one of the most plaintiff-unfriendly statutes in the country. You must prove the business had actual or constructive notice of the substance you slipped on.
- Actual notice means an employee saw it or created it.
- Constructive notice means it was there long enough that the business should have discovered it through reasonable inspection.
Say you slip on a grape in the produce section at Whole Foods. You need evidence that grape was on the floor long enough to be dirty, scuffed, or otherwise show it wasn’t just dropped seconds before you walked by. A pristine grape? You lose. A smashed, blackened grape with footprints on it? That’s constructive notice. Stores know this. They document cleaning rounds, keep logs, and train employees to photograph spills immediately after incidents. They’re building the defense before you even leave the store.
Some businesses try to escape liability by arguing the hazard was “open and obvious.” If a reasonable person would have seen the danger using normal senses, the property owner’s duty may be reduced or eliminated. But Florida courts prefer letting juries decide whether something was truly obvious rather than dismissing cases at summary judgment. A wet floor sign doesn’t automatically shield a business from liability if the hazard is worse than the sign suggests or if the sign is placed where no one would see it.
Negligent Security Claims in Apartment Complexes and Hotels
Negligent security is its own category of premises liability. If you’re assaulted in a parking garage, robbed at an apartment complex, or attacked in a hotel hallway, the property owner may be liable if they failed to provide adequate security measures despite knowing about prior criminal activity on the premises.
House Bill 837 changed the game for multifamily properties. If an apartment complex installs entry and exit cameras with retrievable footage, dusk-to-dawn lighting in common areas, deadbolt locks on exterior doors, and working window locks, Florida law presumes they are not negligent. That presumption can be overcome, but it shifts the burden. Plaintiffs now have to show the security measures were inadequate despite being in place, which is a much harder case to prove.
Florida Statute §768.0701 lets juries assign fault to the criminal who committed the assault or robbery. Before 2023, criminals couldn’t be included in the fault allocation if they weren’t parties to the lawsuit. Now they can. If a jury decides the criminal was 80% at fault and the property owner was 20% at fault, the owner only pays 20% of the damages. This dramatically reduces potential verdicts in negligent security cases.
You still have a case if the property owner knew about prior similar crimes and did nothing. A Coral Springs apartment complex with three armed robberies in six months that refuses to hire security or fix broken gate locks? That’s a viable claim. But you need documentation: police reports, incident logs, complaints to management. Vague claims about a “bad area” won’t cut it.
Claims Against Government Property
Slip and fall on a sidewalk owned by the City of Fort Lauderdale? You’re dealing with sovereign immunity. Florida Statute §768.28 waives immunity in some cases but caps damages at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident. You also have to provide written notice to the government entity within three years of the incident, and you can’t file suit until six months after giving notice unless the claim is denied earlier.
Government entities often argue they had no notice of the defect. A cracked sidewalk? They’ll say no one reported it and their last inspection didn’t flag it. You need photos with metadata showing the date, witness statements, and ideally prior complaints from other residents. The notice requirement is strictly enforced. If you miss the three-year window, your claim is dead no matter how badly you’re injured.
Why Summary Judgment Is More Common Than You Think
Defense attorneys file motions for summary judgment in almost every premises liability case. They argue there’s no genuine dispute of material fact and they’re entitled to judgment as a matter of law. If the hazard was open and obvious, if there’s no evidence of notice, or if the plaintiff can’t establish causation, the case gets dismissed without a jury ever hearing it.
A Broward County judge will grant summary judgment if the evidence is so one-sided that no reasonable jury could find for the plaintiff. That happens more than it should because plaintiffs show up without the right evidence:
- No photos of the hazard
- No witness statements
- No proof the substance was on the floor long enough for constructive notice
- Just testimony that they fell and got hurt
I see cases get dismissed at summary judgment that might have survived if the plaintiff had taken photos immediately, obtained the incident report, and identified witnesses before leaving the property. Once you leave, evidence disappears. Stores clean up spills. Security footage gets overwritten. Witnesses forget details. You have one chance to document what happened, and it’s in the minutes right after the fall.
Pool Drownings and Attractive Nuisance
Florida doesn’t play around with pool safety. If you own a pool, it must be fenced with a self-closing, self-latching gate at least four feet high. If a child drowns in your unfenced pool, you’re facing a wrongful death lawsuit and possibly criminal charges.
The attractive nuisance doctrine applies when a property owner knows or should know that children are likely to trespass because of something dangerous and appealing on the property: pools, trampolines, construction equipment. The owner has a duty to take reasonable steps to protect kids even if they’re technically trespassing. That duty doesn’t extend to older children or adults who should know better, but for young kids, property owners can’t just throw up their hands and claim “not my problem.”
Apartment complexes and hotels with pools face claims when guests drown, especially if there’s no lifeguard, no depth markings, or inadequate fencing. If the pool area is accessible after hours despite a posted closing time, that’s a breach of duty. If the gate lock is broken and a child wanders in, the property owner is liable.
You Cannot Delegate Core Safety Duties
Property owners sometimes think they can avoid liability by hiring a contractor to maintain the premises. A landlord hires a cleaning company to mop the floors in a commercial building. Someone slips. The landlord points at the cleaning company and says, “Not my fault.” Florida law says otherwise. Core safety duties are non-delegable. You can hire someone to perform the work, but you remain responsible if they fail to do it properly. That means plaintiffs can sue both the property owner and the contractor. The owner can’t escape liability just because they outsourced maintenance.
This comes up constantly in commercial leases. A tenant slips in a common area that the landlord is contractually responsible for maintaining. The landlord claims the property management company was supposed to handle it. Doesn’t matter. The landlord is still on the hook.
What to Do Right After a Premises Liability Injury
- Get medical attention immediately. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Same day if possible. Insurance companies and defense attorneys will argue your injury wasn’t serious if you waited to seek treatment.
- Photograph everything: the hazard, the surrounding area, your injuries, your shoes, the lighting conditions. Take wide shots and close-ups. If there’s a wet floor sign, photograph its location relative to where you fell. If there’s no sign, photograph that too.
- Get names and phone numbers of anyone who saw what happened. Store employees often disappear when you ask for their information, but customers usually cooperate.
- File an incident report with the property owner or manager before you leave. Make sure you get a copy. If they refuse to give you one, note the name of the person who took the report and follow up in writing within 24 hours requesting a copy.
- Do not give a recorded statement to the property owner’s insurance company without talking to an attorney first. They will ask leading questions designed to get you to admit comparative fault. Every answer you give can be used to argue you were more than 50% at fault.
Many businesses will try to avoid creating any documentation of the incident. Force them to.
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The Real Cost of Waiting
Most people think they can handle a premises liability claim on their own by calling the property owner’s insurance company and explaining what happened. By the time they realize the insurance company isn’t offering a fair settlement, the two-year statute of limitations is halfway gone. Evidence has disappeared. Witnesses have moved. The property owner has had time to build a defense.
Insurance adjusters are not your friends. Their job is to pay as little as possible. They will lowball you, delay the process, and hope you give up or accept a nuisance settlement that doesn’t come close to covering your medical bills. If your case has any complexity — disputed liability, comparative negligence issues, significant damages — handling it yourself is a mistake.
The earlier an attorney gets involved, the better the outcome. We preserve evidence, identify all potentially liable parties, and deal with the insurance company’s games. If you’re sitting on a premises liability injury hoping the property owner will do the right thing, you’re wasting time you don’t have.
