Two years on: what Florida’s move to modified comparative negligence changed
Published
Florida used to reduce a claimant’s recovery by their share of fault and nothing more. Since the 2023 tort reform, a claimant found more than 50% at fault recovers nothing at all. That turns a question of degree into a threshold question, and it changes how seriously an insurer treats a disputed-liability crash.
Before March 2023, Florida applied pure comparative negligence. A claimant 80% at fault for their own injuries could still recover 20% of their damages. The rule was unusual in being almost unlosable on liability alone: fault reduced recovery proportionally, and never eliminated it.
The 2023 reform replaced that with modified comparative negligence and a 50% bar. A claimant found 51% or more at fault now recovers nothing. The practical effect is not a gentle reduction in claim values; it is a cliff. Two claims with apparently similar facts can resolve at a substantial figure and at zero, separated by a single percentage point in an apportionment finding.
This changes insurer behaviour more than it changes the law on paper. Where fault is genuinely contested, an insurer now has a complete defence available rather than a discount to argue for, which makes early evidence — the crash report, independent witnesses, any camera footage — worth more than it used to be. Evidence that establishes the other driver was primarily at fault is no longer just improving the multiplier.
The bar does not apply to medical malpractice claims, which remain under the previous rule. That carve-out matters when a case has both components, such as a crash followed by allegedly negligent treatment, because the same claimant can face different fault rules on different parts of the same loss.
Our Florida calculator applies the 50% bar and reports it as a factor rather than silently reducing the range, because a claimant who is told their estimate is zero deserves to know which rule produced that answer.
This is general information about how injury claims work, not legal advice about your situation. CaseValuation.com is not a law firm.