Miami Medical Malpractice Lawyer | The Perazzo Law Firm

A Miami medical malpractice lawyer handles a claim that Florida law treats differently from every other injury case. Before you can file suit, Florida’s Chapter 766 requires a pre-suit investigation, a corroborating written opinion from a qualified medical expert, and a formal notice of intent to initiate litigation served on each prospective defendant — which then triggers a 90-day pre-suit period before a lawsuit is permitted. Miss a step and the case can be dismissed on procedure, never on the merits. The Perazzo Law Firm represents patients and families across Miami-Dade County. Call (786) 529-7411 for a free case evaluation.

Most people who suspect something went wrong in a hospital or a doctor’s office start from the same place: a bad outcome, a vague explanation, and a stack of records nobody has offered to explain. That is not yet a case. What turns it into one is a specific, statutory process — and the deadline to complete that process is running from a date you may not realize has already passed.

Medical Malpractice Is Not an Ordinary Negligence Case

In a car crash case, a jury decides what a reasonable person would have done. In a medical negligence case, that question is off the table. Under Fla. Stat. § 766.102(1), the claimant must prove that the provider’s conduct fell below “that level of care, skill, and treatment which, in light of all relevant surrounding circumstances, is recognized as acceptable and appropriate by reasonably prudent similar health care providers.”

Three consequences follow, and they explain nearly everything that makes these cases hard:

The standard is set by the profession, not by common sense. What a lay person considers obviously careless may be within an accepted standard — and what looks unremarkable to a patient may be a clear breach.
A qualified medical expert is required, not optional. Chapter 766 makes expert corroboration a gate you pass before filing, not evidence you develop later.
A bad outcome is not, by itself, malpractice. Medicine carries known risks. The question is whether the care deviated from the prevailing professional standard and whether that deviation caused the harm.

This is also why the honest answer to “do I have a case?” is often “we need the records first.” Anyone who tells you otherwise before reading the chart is guessing.

Florida’s Chapter 766 Pre-Suit Process, Step by Step

This is the part that decides whether a claim survives. Florida built a mandatory screening process into Chapter 766, Florida Statutes, that must be completed before any medical negligence lawsuit may be filed. It is not a formality. Courts dismiss non-compliant claims, and by the time a defect is caught, the limitations period has often expired.

Stage	What it requires	Authority
Pre-suit investigation	Reasonable investigation to determine grounds for a good-faith belief that negligence occurred	§ 766.104
Expert corroboration	A verified written medical expert opinion supporting reasonable grounds for the claim	§ 766.203
Notice of intent	Formal notice to each prospective defendant, with the expert opinion attached	§ 766.106
90-day pre-suit period	No lawsuit may be filed; both sides investigate; limitations tolled	§ 766.106
Records exchange	Medical records produced on request, at reasonable charge	§ 766.204
Informal discovery	Unsworn statements, records, written questions, examinations	§ 766.205
Response	Reject the claim, offer settlement, or offer voluntary binding arbitration	§ 766.106, § 766.207
Court review	Judge may review whether pre-suit was properly conducted	§ 766.206

1. The pre-suit investigation and the good-faith requirement

Under Fla. Stat. § 766.104, no medical negligence action may be filed unless the attorney has made a reasonable investigation giving rise to a good-faith belief that grounds exist for an action. In practice this means obtaining the complete chart — not the summary, not the discharge paperwork, the complete record — and having it reviewed by someone qualified to say whether the care deviated from the standard.

2. The corroborating written medical expert opinion — § 766.203

Fla. Stat. § 766.203(2) requires the claimant’s pre-suit investigation to be corroborated by a verified written medical expert opinion confirming that reasonable grounds exist to believe a health care provider was negligent and that the negligence caused injury. That opinion must accompany the notice of intent.

The defense side has a mirror obligation: under § 766.203(3), a prospective defendant who rejects the claim must corroborate that rejection with a verified written medical expert opinion of its own. Very few claimants know this, and it matters — a rejection unsupported by an expert opinion is not a neutral event.

3. Who actually qualifies as a medical expert — § 766.102

Not every physician can corroborate a Florida claim. Fla. Stat. § 766.102 ties the expert’s qualifications to the defendant’s role. Broadly:

Where the defendant is a specialist, the expert must specialize in the same specialty — or in a similar specialty involving the evaluation, diagnosis, or treatment of the condition at issue and possessing prior experience treating similar patients.
Where the defendant is a general practitioner, the expert must have devoted substantial professional time in the preceding years to active clinical practice, teaching, or clinical research in general practice.
Where the defendant is another health care provider — a nurse, a technician, a facility — the statute sets its own qualification track.

Getting this wrong is one of the most common reasons a Florida medical malpractice claim collapses at the threshold. An excellent expert in the wrong specialty is a disqualified expert.

4. The notice of intent to initiate litigation — § 766.106

Before filing, the claimant must serve each prospective defendant with a notice of intent to initiate litigation for medical negligence under Fla. Stat. § 766.106(2), by certified mail, return receipt requested. Each prospective defendant is served separately — the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, the hospital, the physician group, the facility. Leaving a party out of the notice can leave that party out of the case.

5. The 90-day pre-suit period — and what it does to your deadline

Service of the notice starts a 90-day pre-suit investigation period. During those 90 days, no lawsuit may be filed against the noticed defendant. In exchange, § 766.106 tolls the statute of limitations for 90 days as to all prospective defendants, and provides that after the earlier of the defendant’s rejection or the end of the 90 days, the claimant has 60 days, or the remainder of the limitations period, whichever is greater, in which to file.

Read that sentence twice, because it is the single most misunderstood mechanic in Florida medical malpractice practice. The 90-day period is not free time added to your deadline — it is a suspension paired with a short filing window on the far side of it. Claimants who serve notice with only weeks left on the clock routinely lose the ability to develop the case before it must be filed.

6. Medical records and pre-suit informal discovery — §§ 766.204, 766.205

Fla. Stat. § 766.204 makes copies of the medical records relevant to the claim discoverable and requires that they be furnished on request at a reasonable charge. Failure to provide the requested records within the statutory window constitutes a waiver of that party’s right to pre-suit informal discovery — a real consequence for stonewalling.

Fla. Stat. § 766.205 then opens an informal discovery channel that does not exist in an ordinary injury claim: unsworn statements, production of documents and things, physical and mental examinations, and written questions — all before a lawsuit is on file. Used well, this is where a claim is either substantiated or honestly abandoned.

7. The response: reject, settle, or arbitrate

At or before the end of the 90 days, the insurer or self-insurer must respond in one of three ways: reject the claim, make a settlement offer, or make an offer to arbitrate in which liability is admitted and damages are determined by arbitration under Fla. Stat. § 766.207. Each path carries different consequences for damages and fees, and the arbitration option in particular should never be accepted or refused without understanding what it trades away.

Finally, Fla. Stat. § 766.206 lets the court review whether the pre-suit investigation was properly conducted on either side, with dismissal or striking of a pleading available as a remedy.

Suspect malpractice at a Miami-Dade hospital or medical office? Call (786) 529-7411 or request a free case evaluation. No fee unless we recover compensation for you.

Deadlines: Two Years From Discovery, Four Years on the Outside

The Miami Personal Injury Lawyer, Jonathan Perazzo, knows that Florida’s limitations rule for medical malpractice sits in Fla. Stat. § 95.11 and works on two clocks at once. In plain language:

Two years from the time the incident was discovered, or should have been discovered with the exercise of due diligence.
Four years from the date of the incident, as an outer limit — a statute of repose that can cut off a claim even if the injury was never reasonably discoverable in time.
A narrow extension where fraud, concealment, or intentional misrepresentation of fact prevented discovery of the injury, subject to its own outer cap.
A separate protection for children, so that the repose period does not bar an action brought on a young child’s behalf within the period the statute specifies.

Two mechanisms can buy time, and both must be used deliberately. Fla. Stat. § 766.104(2) provides that on petition to the clerk and payment of the filing fee, an automatic 90-day extension of the statute of limitations shall be granted to allow the reasonable investigation to be completed. And as described above, the notice of intent tolls the period for the 90-day pre-suit window under § 766.106.

For context, Florida’s general personal-injury negligence deadline is two years under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5). Medical malpractice does not simply borrow that rule — it has its own discovery-based structure and its own repose period, which is exactly why treating a suspected malpractice claim like a routine injury claim is dangerous. If the incident is more than a couple of years old, the deadline question should be the first thing an attorney examines, not the last.

Types of Medical Malpractice Claims We Handle in Miami

Surgical Errors

A surgical malpractice claim is rarely about a difficult operation going badly. It is about a deviation the profession itself would not accept: operating on the wrong site or the wrong patient, leaving a foreign object behind, damaging an adjacent structure through inadequate technique, or failing to recognize and respond to a known post-operative complication such as hemorrhage, sepsis, or an anastomotic leak. Proof usually lives in the operative report, the anesthesia record, the nursing notes, and the timing of the response.

Anesthesia Errors

Anesthesia claims turn on monitoring and airway management. Typical theories include inadequate pre-anesthetic assessment of comorbidities, failure to review medication and allergy history, dosing errors, esophageal or failed intubation, and failure to recognize falling oxygen saturation quickly enough to prevent hypoxic brain injury. Because anesthesia care is documented minute by minute, the record is often unusually informative — if it is obtained before it is summarized for you.

Misdiagnosis and Failure to Diagnose

The mechanism here is not “the doctor was wrong.” It is that the provider failed to include a serious condition in the differential diagnosis, failed to order the indicated test, or failed to act on a result that was already in the chart. Cancer, heart attack, stroke, pulmonary embolism, sepsis, and meningitis dominate this category because delay converts a treatable condition into a permanent or fatal one. The claim is about the lost opportunity the delay caused.

Medication and Pharmacy Errors

Medication claims can arise at prescribing, dispensing, or administration: the wrong drug, the wrong dose, the wrong route, a look-alike or sound-alike substitution, a missed contraindication, or a dangerous interaction with a drug already on the patient’s list. Liability may extend beyond the prescriber to the pharmacy or facility whose systems were supposed to catch the error.

Birth Injury

A birth injury lawyer in Miami is usually looking at labor and delivery management: interpretation of fetal heart monitoring, the decision and timing of a cesarean section, management of shoulder dystocia, improper use of forceps or vacuum extraction, failure to recognize preeclampsia or infection, and resuscitation in the immediate post-delivery period. Injuries include hypoxic-ischemic brain injury, cerebral palsy, and brachial plexus injuries such as Erb’s palsy.

Florida birth injury claims carry an extra layer that no other malpractice claim has. Under Fla. Stat. §§ 766.301–766.316, the Florida Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Plan — commonly called NICA — provides an administrative compensation system that is the exclusive remedy for qualifying birth-related neurological injuries, replacing the civil lawsuit. Whether a case falls inside or outside the Plan depends on statutory criteria including the infant’s birth weight, whether the injury was caused by oxygen deprivation or mechanical injury during labor, delivery, or immediate post-delivery resuscitation in a hospital, whether the impairment is permanent and substantial in both mental and physical terms, and whether the delivering physician was a participating provider. The statute also imposes notice obligations on participating providers toward obstetrical patients. Families are sometimes told a case is “a NICA case” and simply accept it. That determination deserves independent review, because it decides whether a lawsuit exists at all.

Emergency Room Errors

Emergency care claims typically involve failure to triage appropriately, premature discharge of a patient with red-flag symptoms, missed fractures or bleeds on imaging, or failure to admit or transfer. Florida applies a more demanding standard to certain emergency medical care: under the Good Samaritan Act, Fla. Stat. § 768.13, a provider rendering emergency care in circumstances the statute describes is not liable absent a showing of reckless disregard — a materially higher bar than ordinary negligence. Whether that heightened standard applies to a particular encounter is one of the first questions in any ER case.

Failure to Obtain Informed Consent

Florida’s medical consent law, Fla. Stat. § 766.103, addresses consent obtained in accordance with an accepted standard of practice and in a manner that gives a reasonable person a general understanding of the procedure and the medically acceptable alternatives and substantial risks. An informed-consent claim asserts that the patient agreed to a procedure without being given information a reasonable person would have wanted before deciding. In a county as linguistically diverse as Miami-Dade, consent discussions conducted without a qualified interpreter — or relayed through a family member — are worth examining closely.

Hospital and Vicarious Liability

Identifying the right defendant is half the work. Many physicians who treat you inside a hospital are independent contractors, not employees, which the hospital will point out immediately. Florida law nonetheless recognizes theories that can reach the institution — apparent agency, where the hospital held the provider out as its own and the patient reasonably relied on that appearance; direct corporate negligence in credentialing, staffing, supervision, or policy; and vicarious liability for the nurses and technicians the hospital does employ. Sorting employment relationships out early determines who must receive a notice of intent.

Nursing Home and Long-Term Care Neglect

Pressure injuries, falls, dehydration, malnutrition, medication errors, and untreated infection in a long-term care setting are governed partly by their own statutory framework, and the analysis of whether a claim proceeds under Chapter 766 or under Florida’s resident-rights provisions is fact-specific. See our nursing home abuse lawyer page for how those claims differ.

Where malpractice results in death, the claim proceeds under Florida’s Wrongful Death Act through the decedent’s personal representative. See our Miami wrongful death lawyer page, and read the damages limitation described below before assuming what a family may recover.

Proving the Claim: Duty, Breach, Causation, Damages

Every Florida medical negligence claim has to establish four elements, and the third one is where most cases are actually won or lost.

Duty. A provider-patient relationship existed, creating a duty to meet the prevailing professional standard of care.
Breach. The care fell below what reasonably prudent similar health care providers would accept under the circumstances — proven through a qualified expert, not through hindsight.
Causation. The breach, more likely than not, caused the injury. Defendants rarely argue the care was perfect; they argue the underlying disease or condition would have produced the same outcome anyway. Defeating that argument usually requires reconstructing what would have happened had the correct step been taken at the correct time.
Damages. Actual harm — medical costs, lost earnings, disability, disfigurement, pain and suffering, or death.

Damages in a Florida Medical Malpractice Case

Florida recognizes economic damages (past and future medical and rehabilitative expense, life care costs, lost income and lost earning capacity, out-of-pocket losses) and non-economic damages (pain, suffering, disability, disfigurement, mental anguish, loss of capacity to enjoy life). Punitive damages are available only in narrow circumstances and, under Fla. Stat. § 768.72, may not even be pleaded until the court permits it based on a proffer of evidence.

Three structural rules materially affect what a Florida claim is worth:

The statutory caps on non-economic damages were held unconstitutional. Florida’s caps at Fla. Stat. § 766.118 were struck down as applied to wrongful death medical negligence in Estate of McCall v. United States, 134 So. 3d 894 (Fla. 2014), and as applied to personal injury medical negligence in North Broward Hospital District v. Kalitan, 219 So. 3d 49 (Fla. 2017).
Comparative fault reduces recovery. Under Fla. Stat. § 768.81, a claimant’s own share of responsibility proportionally reduces damages. The greater-than-50-percent recovery bar added in 2023 is written not to apply to actions arising out of medical negligence under Chapter 766 — so in a malpractice case the patient’s own fault generally reduces the recovery rather than eliminating it. Expect the defense to press it anyway: non-compliance with instructions, missed follow-up, delayed reporting of symptoms.
Florida sharply limits some wrongful death recoveries. Under Fla. Stat. § 768.21(8), adult children and the parents of adult children generally cannot recover non-economic damages in a medical negligence wrongful death case where the decedent left no surviving spouse and no minor children. Repeal legislation has been introduced in recent sessions, but the provision remains in effect. Families are frequently blindsided by this. It should be discussed at the first meeting, not after a case is built.

No lawyer can tell you what your case is worth before the records are reviewed, the experts weigh in, and the extent of permanent impairment is known. Anyone who quotes you a figure at the first phone call is selling something. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome; results vary with the facts of each case.

Amendment 7: Your Constitutional Right to Adverse Incident Records

Florida voters amended the state constitution to give patients a right most people never hear about. Article X, Section 25 of the Florida Constitution — known as Amendment 7, and implemented at Fla. Stat. § 381.028 — gives patients a right of access to records made or received in the course of business by a health care facility or provider relating to any adverse medical incident.

That is a meaningful lever. Facilities generate internal incident reports and review materials that were, before Amendment 7, largely shielded from patients. Knowing what to request, and pressing when a facility resists, can reveal that an institution already identified internally what it never explained to the family. Separately, Florida licensure and disciplinary records for physicians are maintained by the Florida Department of Health, and hospitals and other facilities are licensed and regulated by the Agency for Health Care Administration — both are public-record channels worth checking.

What to Do If You Suspect Medical Malpractice in Miami

Address the medical emergency first. If the condition is worsening, call 911 or get to the nearest emergency room. Nothing on this page outranks getting care.
Get an independent second opinion. A different provider, at a different practice, evaluating the current condition — both for your health and because it creates a contemporaneous record.
Request your complete medical records in writing. Ask for the entire chart: physician and nursing notes, orders, medication administration records, imaging and imaging reports, lab results, operative and anesthesia records, and discharge documentation. Not a summary.
Write down the timeline while it is fresh. Dates, times, symptoms you reported, who you told, what you were told back, and who was in the room.
Keep every document. Bills, explanation-of-benefits statements, discharge instructions, prescriptions, appointment records, and messages through the patient portal.
Do not sign a release, waiver, or settlement without review. A risk-management call offering to “take care of the bill” in exchange for a signature is a settlement negotiation.
Do not post about it publicly. Social media becomes defense exhibits, and it can undercut both the medical narrative and the damages claim.
Contact a medical malpractice attorney early. The pre-suit investigation, records retrieval, and expert review described above take real time — time the limitations and repose clocks do not pause for.

How a Miami Medical Malpractice Claim Moves

Free case evaluation. We listen to what happened and identify which records are needed and which deadlines are in play.
Records retrieval and chronology. The complete chart is obtained and assembled into a timeline that can be reviewed by a physician.
Expert review under Chapter 766. A qualified medical expert evaluates whether the care met the standard and whether any deviation caused the injury. If the answer is no, we tell you — that is not a failed case, it is an honest one.
Notice of intent served on each prospective defendant, with the corroborating verified written expert opinion.
The 90-day pre-suit period, including records exchange and informal discovery, and the insurer’s response.
Filing suit, if the claim is rejected or the response is inadequate — within the post-notice filing window the statute allows.
Litigation and trial preparation. Formal discovery, depositions of the treating providers, expert disclosure, mediation, and preparation for trial in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County.

Why Miami Families Work With The Perazzo Law Firm

Chapter 766 is handled as a build, not a formality — records, chronology, and expert review before a notice of intent goes out.
Attorney Jonathan Perazzo works on your case personally. Cases are not handed off and forgotten.
Admitted in Florida, Georgia, and Texas.
Bilingual representation — English and Español, which matters when the underlying records and consent conversations were not in your first language.
No fee unless we recover compensation for you. Fee and cost arrangements are set out in a written agreement before representation begins.
Free case evaluation, available 24/7.
Straight answers about the deadline problem at the first call, including whether the repose period is already a concern.

Related reading: medical malpractice lawyer (statewide overview) · Miami personal injury lawyer · Miami wrongful death lawyer · nursing home abuse lawyer.

Miami Medical Malpractice FAQs

How long do I have to file a medical malpractice claim in Florida?

Florida’s medical malpractice limitations rule, found in Fla. Stat. § 95.11, generally allows two years from the time the incident was discovered or should have been discovered with the exercise of due diligence, subject to an outer four-year statute of repose measured from the incident itself. A narrow extension applies where fraud, concealment, or intentional misrepresentation prevented discovery, and separate protection exists for claims brought on behalf of young children. Because the discovery date is often disputed and the repose period can bar a claim outright, the deadline analysis should be done immediately rather than assumed.

What is a notice of intent to initiate litigation?

It is the formal pre-suit notice required by Fla. Stat. § 766.106, served by certified mail on each prospective defendant before a medical negligence lawsuit may be filed. It must be accompanied by the corroborating verified written medical expert opinion required under § 766.203. Service of the notice starts a 90-day pre-suit investigation period during which no lawsuit may be filed against that defendant, and it tolls the statute of limitations for those 90 days. Each provider you intend to sue must be noticed separately.

Do I need a medical expert before I can sue in Florida?

Yes. Fla. Stat. § 766.203 requires the claimant’s pre-suit investigation to be corroborated by a verified written medical expert opinion confirming that reasonable grounds exist to believe negligence occurred and caused injury. Fla. Stat. § 766.102 then controls who is qualified to give that opinion, generally requiring the expert to practice in the same specialty as the defendant, or in a similar specialty involving the same condition, with relevant prior experience. Using an expert who does not meet the statutory qualifications is one of the most common ways a Florida claim fails before it starts.

Is a bad outcome the same as medical malpractice?

No. Medicine involves genuine risk, and serious complications occur even when care is appropriate. Under Fla. Stat. § 766.102(1), the question is whether the provider’s care fell below the level of care, skill, and treatment recognized as acceptable and appropriate by reasonably prudent similar health care providers. A claim also requires proof that the deviation caused the harm, which is frequently the hardest element because the defense will argue the underlying illness or injury would have produced the same result regardless.

Are there caps on medical malpractice damages in Florida?

Florida’s statutory caps on non-economic damages in medical negligence cases, set out at Fla. Stat. § 766.118, were held unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court in Estate of McCall v. United States, 134 So. 3d 894 (Fla. 2014), for wrongful death claims, and in North Broward Hospital District v. Kalitan, 219 So. 3d 49 (Fla. 2017), for personal injury claims. Other rules still limit recovery, including comparative fault under Fla. Stat. § 768.81 and the wrongful death restriction in Fla. Stat. § 768.21(8). No outcome or amount can be promised in any case.

My adult child died from medical negligence. Can I bring a claim?

This is one of the most painful questions in Florida law. Fla. Stat. § 768.21(8) generally bars parents of an adult child, and adult children of a decedent, from recovering non-economic damages in a medical negligence wrongful death case where there is no surviving spouse and no minor children. Repeal legislation has been introduced in recent sessions but has not become law, so the provision remains in effect. Economic damages and claims by other categories of survivors may still exist, and whether the case is governed by this provision depends on the specific family circumstances — which is why it should be reviewed rather than assumed.

What is NICA, and does it block a birth injury lawsuit?

NICA is the Florida Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Plan, created under Fla. Stat. §§ 766.301–766.316. For birth injuries that meet the statutory criteria, the Plan provides an administrative remedy that is exclusive, meaning a civil malpractice suit is not available for that injury. Whether a particular case qualifies depends on factors including birth weight, whether the injury resulted from oxygen deprivation or mechanical injury during labor, delivery, or immediate post-delivery resuscitation in a hospital, the permanence and substantiality of the impairment, and whether the delivering physician participated in the Plan. A family told their case is a NICA case should have that determination independently reviewed.

What does it cost to hire a Miami medical malpractice lawyer?

The Perazzo Law Firm handles medical malpractice cases on a contingency fee basis: no fee unless we recover compensation for you, and no upfront charge for the case evaluation. Fee and cost arrangements are set out in a written agreement before representation begins, so you know how fees and case expenses are handled before anything moves forward. Medical malpractice cases are expensive to investigate because expert review is required by statute, which is another reason the initial evaluation should happen early rather than near a deadline.

Serving Patients and Families Across Miami-Dade County

The Perazzo Law Firm’s Florida office is in North Miami Beach, and the firm represents injured patients and grieving families throughout Miami-Dade County — including Miami, Miami Beach, Hialeah, Coral Gables, Kendall, Doral, Aventura, North Miami, Homestead, Miami Gardens, Westchester, Little Havana, and the surrounding communities. Florida medical malpractice suits arising in the county are filed in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court in and for Miami-Dade County. Consultations are available in English and Spanish.

Talk to a Miami Medical Malpractice Lawyer

If something went wrong and no one will give you a straight answer, the worst option is waiting to see whether it resolves on its own. Records get harder to assemble. Memories fade. The two-year discovery clock and the four-year repose period keep running while you decide. And the Chapter 766 process that has to be completed before a lawsuit can even be filed takes months of its own.

Free case evaluation — available 24/7
No fee unless we recover compensation for you
Bilingual — English / Español
Handled personally by attorney Jonathan Perazzo

Call (786) 529-7411 or request your free case evaluation.

Attorney advertising. This page is advertising material published by The Perazzo Law Firm, North Miami Beach, Florida. Attorney Jonathan Perazzo is admitted to practice law in Florida, Georgia, and Texas. The information here is general legal information about Florida law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. No result is promised, predicted, or guaranteed; every case is different and outcomes depend on the specific facts, records, expert opinions, and law involved. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome, and results vary. Statutory and constitutional citations are provided at the section level for reference and are subject to legislative and judicial change; consult an attorney about your specific situation.