North Miami Beach Accident Lawyer

The Perazzo Law Firm keeps its principal office in North Miami Beach, at 16666 NE 19th Ave #110, North Miami Beach, FL 33162. This page is written for people who live, work, drive, or were hurt in this city, and it covers every kind of injury claim the firm handles — not one narrow category. It is long on purpose. Florida injury law changed substantially in 2023, and the parts that changed are precisely the parts that decide whether a claim is worth pursuing. In the event of an accident, contact the personal injury lawyers in Miami at the Perazzo Law Firm.

If you would rather talk than read, the firm offers a free case evaluation and takes injury cases on a contingency basis: no attorney’s fee is charged unless a recovery is obtained. Case costs and expenses are handled separately and are explained in the written fee agreement before anything is signed.

Most injury websites split a city into a dozen thin pages — one for car crashes, one for slips, one for dog bites. That structure serves search engines, not the person reading. In practice, the facts of an incident rarely announce which category they belong to. A fall in a parking garage can be a premises case, a negligent security case, or a workers’ compensation matter, depending on who owned the garage, who maintained the lighting, and who employed the person who fell.

A single reference page for North Miami Beach lets those distinctions sit side by side, which is how a lawyer actually evaluates a file. Read the section that fits your situation, then read the sections on deadlines, comparative fault, and insurance — those apply to nearly every claim regardless of how the injury happened.

The Firm’s North Miami Beach Office and the Area It Serves

The office address is 16666 NE 19th Ave #110, North Miami Beach, FL 33162. North Miami Beach is a municipality in northeastern Miami-Dade County. Cases arising here are Florida cases, governed by Florida statutes and, when litigation is filed, by the courts of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County.

Being physically based in the city matters in unglamorous, practical ways: records custodians, adjusters, defense counsel, and court personnel for a North Miami Beach matter are all working inside the same county system. Consultations can be arranged in person, by phone, or by video, and the firm handles matters in English and Spanish.

Related pages on this site cover the wider region: the Miami service area overview and the Miami personal injury practice page both sit one level above this one.

Florida’s Two-Year Filing Deadline and What Starts the Clock

Florida shortened the limitations period for general negligence claims in 2023. Under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(4)(a), an action founded on negligence must be commenced within two years. That provision applies to causes of action accruing after the amendment took effect on March 24, 2023; claims that accrued before that date are governed by the older four-year period. If you are unsure which side of that line your incident falls on, treat it as urgent rather than assuming the longer window.

Two years is the outer wall, not a schedule. Evidence degrades long before the deadline arrives. Surveillance video is frequently overwritten on a rolling cycle measured in days or weeks. Vehicles get repaired or scrapped. Witnesses move. A claim filed on the last available day with none of that preserved is a weaker claim than the same claim investigated in month one.

Different claim types carry different clocks. Wrongful death actions run under § 95.11(4)(c). Medical negligence has its own limitations and repose structure under § 95.11(4)(b). Claims against a governmental entity carry a separate presuit notice requirement discussed further down this page. Products, contract, and intentional-tort theories can each run on their own timeline within the same incident.

The 51% Bar: How Modified Comparative Negligence Works Now

Florida used to follow pure comparative negligence, meaning a plaintiff found 80% at fault could still recover 20% of their damages. That changed with the 2023 amendments to Fla. Stat. § 768.81. Florida now applies modified comparative negligence: a claimant found to be more than 50% responsible for their own harm recovers nothing at all.

Below that line, the old arithmetic still governs — damages are reduced in proportion to the claimant’s share of fault. A person 30% responsible for a collision recovers 70% of proven damages.

The practical consequence is that fault percentage is no longer just a discount. It is a cliff. An adjuster who can push a claimant’s share from 45% to 55% eliminates the case rather than trimming it, and that incentive shapes how liability is investigated and argued from the first recorded statement onward. Medical negligence claims are treated differently under the statute and are not subject to the same bar.

Personal Injury Protection: What the First $10,000 Actually Does

Fla. Stat. § 627.736 requires personal injury protection coverage on registered private passenger vehicles in Florida. PIP is no-fault coverage: it responds regardless of who caused the crash, and it is the first payer for most people injured in a motor vehicle collision here.

What it pays is narrower than most people expect. The statutory benefit is $10,000, and within that figure PIP covers 80% of reasonable and necessary medical expenses and 60% of lost income. It does not pay for pain, suffering, inconvenience, or loss of capacity to enjoy life. Those categories only become available through a liability claim against the at-fault party, and only if a threshold discussed below is met.

Because the medical benefit is capped and paid at 80 cents on the dollar, a genuinely serious injury exhausts PIP quickly. What happens after exhaustion — health insurance, letters of protection, medical payments coverage, or the client’s own resources — is a strategic decision with consequences at settlement, not a clerical one.

The 14-Day Rule and the Emergency Medical Condition Determination

Two provisions inside § 627.736 defeat more claims than any other technicality in Florida motor vehicle practice.

First, initial services and care must be lawfully rendered within 14 days of the motor vehicle accident for PIP to pay for them. A person who feels sound at the scene, waits three weeks for symptoms to settle, and then seeks care can find the entire PIP benefit unavailable.

Second, the full $10,000 is only reachable if a qualifying provider determines that the injured person had an emergency medical condition. Without that determination, the benefit is limited to $2,500. The determination has to come from a provider within the categories the statute names, and it has to appear in the record.

Neither rule is intuitive, and neither is explained by the person who calls from the insurance company. The general guidance that fits every fact pattern is the boring one: if you were hurt, call 911 when the situation warrants it and get evaluated promptly by a medical professional. Do not self-diagnose, and do not let a fourteen-day window close while you wait to see whether the pain resolves.

The Permanent Injury Threshold for Pain and Suffering

Florida’s no-fault structure comes with a trade-off. Under Fla. Stat. § 627.737(2), a person injured in a motor vehicle crash may recover non-economic damages — pain, suffering, mental anguish, loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life — only if the injury consists in whole or in part of one of the following:

• significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function;
• permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, other than scarring or disfigurement;
• significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement; or
• death.

This threshold is a medical question resolved by medical proof. Whether a treating physician places a permanency opinion in the record, and how that opinion is worded, frequently determines whether the largest damages category in the case exists at all. It does not apply to injuries that are not motor-vehicle related — a fall on a commercial property, for example, carries no such threshold.

Optional Liability Coverage and the Uninsured Motorist Safety Net

Bodily Injury Liability Coverage Is Optional in Florida

This surprises almost everyone. Florida’s financial responsibility framework requires registered owners of private passenger vehicles to carry PIP and property damage liability. It does not require bodily injury liability coverage as a condition of registration for ordinary private passenger vehicles.

So a driver can be entirely at fault for a serious collision and carry no coverage at all for the harm they caused. The consequence for the injured person is that the first question in a serious case is not “who was at fault” but “what coverage exists, and where else can it be found.” That search runs through the at-fault driver’s policy, any employer or vehicle-owner policy, resident-relative policies, commercial policies, and the injured person’s own uninsured motorist coverage.

Under Fla. Stat. § 627.4137, a liability insurer must disclose specified coverage information upon written request from a claimant. That request is one of the first letters that should go out in any case with meaningful injuries.

Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage

Fla. Stat. § 627.727 requires that uninsured motorist coverage be offered with every auto liability policy issued in Florida, but it permits the insured to reject it or select lower limits in writing. Many people have rejected it without remembering that they did.

UM coverage steps in when the at-fault driver has no liability insurance, or has too little to cover the harm. It is first-party coverage — the claim is made against your own insurer — which changes the tone of the process and introduces its own duties and defenses. Stacked and non-stacked forms behave differently across multiple vehicles on one policy, and the difference can be substantial.

Checking the declarations page of every household policy is a routine early step. It is common for the meaningful money in a case to sit in a policy the injured person did not think was relevant.

Car, Rideshare, and Delivery Vehicle Collisions

Ordinary passenger-vehicle crashes are the most common matters the firm sees, and the framework above — PIP first, threshold for pain and suffering, comparative fault, hunt for coverage — governs nearly all of them. The site’s Miami car accident page covers the mechanics in more depth.

Rideshare and app-based delivery collisions add a coverage layer. Coverage generally turns on the driver’s status in the app at the moment of the crash: offline, available and waiting, en route to a pickup, or carrying a passenger or order. Each phase can trigger a different policy or a different limit, and the app data establishing which phase applied is held by the platform, not the driver. Preserving that record early matters. See the Uber and Lyft pages for that analysis.

Commercial Truck and Box-Truck Collisions

A collision involving a tractor-trailer, box truck, or other commercial vehicle is a different species of case from a two-car crash. Interstate motor carriers operate under federal safety regulations governing driver qualification, hours of service, vehicle inspection, and maintenance records. Those records are retained on schedules set by regulation, and some of them can lawfully be discarded once the retention period passes.

That timing is why a preservation letter to the carrier and its insurer is one of the earliest documents in a truck file. Electronic logging device data, telematics, dash camera footage, and post-crash drug and alcohol testing records are all time-sensitive in a way that ordinary passenger-vehicle evidence is not. Liability may extend beyond the driver to the motor carrier, the trailer owner, a broker, a shipper, or a maintenance contractor. The Miami truck accident page develops this further.

Motorcycle Collisions and the PIP Gap

Motorcycles occupy an odd position in Florida’s insurance scheme. The PIP requirement in § 627.736 applies to motor vehicles as the statute defines them, and motorcycles are not within that definition. A motorcyclist injured in a crash therefore typically has no PIP benefit to draw on, and correspondingly is not bound by the § 627.737(2) permanency threshold in the same way an occupant of an insured automobile is.

That combination cuts both ways. There is no automatic first-dollar medical coverage, so health insurance and medical payments coverage carry more weight from day one. But the threshold that limits non-economic damages in automobile cases does not operate the same way here. Rider-bias defenses — the suggestion that speed or lane position must have contributed — are common and are met with physical evidence, not argument. See the Miami motorcycle accident page.

Pedestrian and Bicycle Injuries

Pedestrians and cyclists struck by vehicles frequently have access to PIP through their own auto policy or a resident relative’s policy even though they were not in a car at the time. That is a benefit many injured pedestrians never claim because nobody tells them it exists.

On liability, Fla. Stat. § 316.130 sets out the rights and duties of pedestrians, and § 316.2065 governs bicycle operation and treats a bicycle rider as having the rights and duties applicable to a driver of a vehicle, with stated exceptions. Both statutes are routinely invoked by defense counsel to build a comparative fault argument. Under the 51% bar, that argument is now existential rather than merely reductive, which is why the physical evidence — sight lines, signal timing, lighting conditions, point of impact — deserves attention immediately. Related: bicycle claims and pedestrian claims.

Slip, Trip, Fall, and Premises Liability Claims

Falls on a Transitory Foreign Substance Under Section 768.0755

Florida makes falls on business premises harder to prove than most people assume. Fla. Stat. § 768.0755 provides that when a person slips and falls on a transitory foreign substance in a business establishment, the injured person must prove the business had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition and should have taken action.

Constructive knowledge is shown by circumstantial evidence — that the condition existed long enough that the business should have discovered it in the exercise of ordinary care, or that it occurred with regularity and was therefore foreseeable. In practice that means inspection logs, sweep sheets, employee schedules, and video. All of it is in the possession of the defendant, and video in particular is often on a short retention cycle.

Not every fall is a § 768.0755 case. A fall caused by a structural defect, a missing handrail, an unmarked step, or inadequate lighting is analyzed under ordinary premises liability principles rather than the transitory-substance statute. Classifying the case correctly at the outset changes what must be proven. More at the Miami slip and fall page.

Negligent Security and Other Premises Claims

Property owners and possessors owe duties to people lawfully on the premises, and those duties extend in some circumstances to protecting against foreseeable criminal acts by third parties. Negligent security claims turn on foreseeability and on whether the security measures in place were reasonable in light of it.

Florida’s 2023 legislation also added a framework at Fla. Stat. § 768.0706 under which owners of multifamily residential properties who implement specified security measures and complete a crime prevention assessment may obtain a presumption against liability for criminal acts by third parties. Whether that presumption applies to a given property is a fact question that has to be investigated, not assumed.

Other premises matters — falling merchandise, inadequate maintenance, swimming pool incidents, dangerous conditions in common areas — are evaluated on the traditional duty, breach, causation, and damages framework, with the claimant’s own conduct assessed under the comparative fault rules described above.

Dog Bites and Animal Attacks

Florida is a strict liability state for dog bites. Fla. Stat. § 767.04 makes the owner of a dog liable for damages to a person bitten while in a public place or lawfully in a private place, regardless of the dog’s former viciousness or the owner’s knowledge of it. There is no “one free bite” rule here.

The statute carries exceptions. It reduces liability in proportion to the bitten person’s own negligence, and it provides a defense where the owner has displayed an easily readable sign including the words “Bad Dog” in a prominent place, subject to a carve-out for children under six.

Homeowners and renters insurance is the usual source of recovery, though many policies contain breed exclusions or animal-liability limits. Injuries from animals other than dogs, and injuries caused by a dog without a bite — a knockdown, for instance — are analyzed under ordinary negligence rather than § 767.04. See the dog bite page and the general animal attack page.

Medical Negligence and the Presuit Requirements

Medical malpractice in Florida is procedurally distinct from every other injury claim. Before suit may be filed, Fla. Stat. § 766.203 requires a presuit investigation and a written medical expert opinion corroborating reasonable grounds to believe negligence occurred. Section 766.106 then requires notice of intent to initiate litigation and a 90-day presuit investigation period during which the defendant’s insurer evaluates the claim.

These are not formalities. Failure to satisfy them can end a claim on procedural grounds regardless of its merit. The expert opinion requirement also means a medical negligence case carries real cost before a complaint is ever filed.

The limitations structure is separate as well: § 95.11(4)(b) sets a two-year period running from the incident or from discovery, subject to a four-year statute of repose with narrow exceptions. Because § 768.81 treats medical negligence claims differently from other negligence actions, the 51% bar does not apply to them in the same manner.

Nursing Home and Assisted Living Facility Claims

Residents of Florida nursing homes have statutory rights under Fla. Stat. § 400.022, and residents of assisted living facilities have parallel rights under § 429.28. Claims for violation of those rights carry their own presuit notice and procedural requirements under § 400.0233 and § 429.293 respectively.

The proof in these cases is documentary before it is anything else: care plans, medication administration records, staffing schedules, incident reports, wound care notes, and state survey history. Facilities are regulated and inspected, which means an evidentiary trail exists that has no equivalent in an ordinary negligence case. See the nursing home page.

Boating and Waterway Injuries

Northeastern Miami-Dade sits on the water, and boating injuries are a recurring category here. These matters can be governed by Florida law, by federal admiralty and maritime law, or by both, and the choice is not always obvious. Maritime law brings its own doctrines and, in some circumstances, different limitations periods and damages rules.

Florida’s vessel operation statutes appear in Chapter 327, including requirements for accident reporting and duties following a collision. Passenger injuries on commercial vessels, personal watercraft incidents, and diving or towed-watersport injuries each raise distinct liability and coverage questions. The Miami boating page covers this practice area.

Wrongful Death Claims Under the Florida Wrongful Death Act

When negligence causes death, the claim is governed by the Florida Wrongful Death Act, Fla. Stat. §§ 768.16–768.26. The action is brought by the personal representative of the decedent’s estate — not by family members individually — on behalf of the estate and of the statutory survivors.

Section 768.21 defines who may recover and what each category of survivor may recover. Different survivors are entitled to different elements: lost support and services, loss of companionship and protection, mental pain and suffering for certain survivors, medical and funeral expenses paid by a survivor or the estate, and the estate’s lost earnings and prospective net accumulations.

Opening an estate and having a personal representative appointed in probate is a prerequisite step that takes time. Because § 95.11(4)(c) sets a two-year period for wrongful death actions, that probate step should not be deferred. Related: Miami wrongful death claims.

Claims Against a City, County, or State Agency

If the responsible party is a governmental entity — a municipality, a county department, a school board, a transit authority, a state agency — Fla. Stat. § 768.28 controls. It waives sovereign immunity in limited circumstances and imposes conditions that have no counterpart in a private claim.

Two of those conditions matter most. First, § 768.28(6) requires that the claim be presented in writing to the appropriate agency and, in most cases, to the Department of Financial Services, before suit is filed, and it sets a presentment deadline separate from the ordinary limitations period. Second, the agency has a statutory period to respond, during which suit cannot be filed.

Section 768.28(5) also caps the amount recoverable from a governmental entity per person and per incident absent a legislative claim bill. Because those caps and the presentment mechanics are set by statute and have been amended over time, the operative figures and deadlines should be confirmed against the current text of the statute for any specific claim. What does not change is the consequence of missing presentment: the claim is barred no matter how strong it is.

Where a North Miami Beach Case Is Filed and Tried

Venue for a Florida civil action is governed by Fla. Stat. § 47.011, which permits suit in the county where the defendant resides, where the cause of action accrued, or where the property in litigation is located. For an incident occurring in North Miami Beach, that ordinarily means Miami-Dade County.

Within Miami-Dade, the dividing line between county court and circuit court is jurisdictional amount. Under Fla. Stat. § 34.01, county courts have jurisdiction over actions at law in which the matter in controversy does not exceed $50,000, exclusive of interest, costs, and attorney’s fees. Above that figure, the case belongs in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit.

Miami-Dade civil practice includes mandatory mediation in most personal injury cases before trial. A substantial majority of injury claims resolve before a jury is selected — but the settlement value of a case is set in large part by how credibly it could be tried, which is why case preparation does not wait for the mediation date.

How Medical Damages Are Proven After the 2023 Amendments

One of the least publicized but most consequential 2023 changes is Fla. Stat. § 768.0427, which governs the evidence admissible to prove the amount of past and future medical damages in a personal injury or wrongful death action.

In broad terms, the statute limits recovery of past medical expenses by reference to amounts actually paid rather than amounts billed, with different rules depending on whether the claimant had health coverage and whether care was furnished under a letter of protection. Where a letter of protection is used, the statute requires disclosure of the letter and of specified information about the referral and billing relationship.

The practical effect is that decisions made in the first months of treatment — whether to bill health insurance, whether to treat under a letter of protection, which providers to see — now directly affect what can be claimed at the end. This is a change in Florida practice that predates 2023 case strategy entirely, and it is a reason to get legal guidance before the treatment path is set rather than after.

Liens, Health Insurance, and What Actually Reaches the Client

A settlement figure is not a net figure. Before funds are disbursed, several categories of claim may attach.

• Medicare has statutory recovery rights as a secondary payer under federal law, and conditional payments must be identified and resolved.
• Florida Medicaid asserts a third-party recovery right under Fla. Stat. § 409.910. The scope of that right was addressed by the United States Supreme Court in Gallardo v. Marstiller, 596 U.S. 420 (2022), which held that a state Medicaid program may seek reimbursement from settlement funds allocated to future medical care, not solely from amounts allocated to past care.
• ERISA health plans may assert reimbursement rights whose enforceability depends on plan language and on whether the plan is self-funded.
• Medical providers treating under a letter of protection expect payment from the recovery.

Lien resolution is genuinely part of the case, not paperwork after it. Reductions are often available, and the difference between a resolved lien and an unresolved one can exceed the difference between two settlement offers.

What to Do in the First Days After an Injury

General guidance, applicable regardless of how the injury happened:

• Call 911 if anyone is hurt or the situation warrants it, and seek medical attention promptly. Delay creates both a health risk and a records gap that the defense will use.
• Report the incident. For motor vehicle crashes, Fla. Stat. § 316.065 addresses the duty to report, and § 316.027 imposes duties on drivers involved in crashes causing injury or death. For a fall or an injury on a property, ask that an incident report be created and request a copy.
• Photograph everything while it exists. The condition, the vehicles, the scene, the footwear, the visible injuries. Conditions get repaired and injuries heal — the photograph is the only version that survives.
• Get names and contact information for witnesses. Investigators and adjusters rarely find them later.
• Notify your own insurer as your policy requires, and understand that cooperation duties to your own carrier are different from anything you owe the other side’s carrier.
• Be careful with recorded statements. You are generally under no obligation to give a recorded statement to the other party’s insurer, and those statements are used to establish comparative fault.
• Do not post about the incident on social media. Posts, photographs, and check-ins are routinely obtained and used to argue that an injury is less limiting than claimed.

Crash reports themselves are addressed by Fla. Stat. § 316.066, which makes them confidential and exempt from public disclosure for a stated period after the report is filed, with access allowed to parties involved and their representatives.

Working With the Firm: Fees, Costs, and Language

The firm handles personal injury matters on a contingency fee basis. No attorney’s fee is charged unless a recovery is obtained. Case costs and expenses — records, filing fees, expert fees, deposition transcripts — are a separate category from the attorney’s fee, and how they are handled is set out in the written fee agreement that is reviewed and signed before representation begins. Ask about costs specifically; it is the part of the arrangement people most often overlook.

Contingency fee agreements in Florida are governed by the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar, which set out required terms and a client’s right to cancel within a stated period after signing. You are entitled to a copy of everything you sign.

Consultations and case handling are available in English and Spanish. Spanish-language information about the firm’s practice areas is available at the firm’s Spanish-language section.

Questions People in North Miami Beach Commonly Ask

Do I have a case if I was partly at fault?

Possibly. Under § 768.81 as amended, you may recover if you are found 50% or less at fault, with damages reduced by your percentage. If you are found more than 50% at fault, you recover nothing. Fault allocation is contested, not obvious, and your own initial impression of fault is frequently wrong in both directions.

The insurance company already offered me money. Should I take it?

An early offer is made before the medical picture is complete and before anyone knows what the future cost of the injury will be. Accepting it typically requires signing a release that ends the claim permanently. There is no way to reopen it if the injury turns out to be worse than it appeared at week three.

How long does an injury case take?

It varies with the injury and with whether liability is disputed. A case generally should not be settled before the treating physicians can say whether the condition is permanent, because that opinion drives both the § 627.737(2) threshold and the damages model. Cases that resolve pre-suit move faster than cases that require filing, discovery, and mediation.

What if the at-fault driver had no insurance?

Then the analysis turns to your own uninsured motorist coverage under § 627.727, to any other policy that might respond, and to whether any other party bears responsibility. Because bodily injury liability coverage is not mandatory in Florida, this situation is common rather than exotic.

Do I have to go to court?

Most injury claims resolve without a trial. Filing suit is a step in negotiation as often as it is a path to a verdict, and Miami-Dade practice routes most cases through mediation before trial. Whether your personal appearance is required at any given stage depends on the stage.

I was hurt at work. Is that a personal injury case?

Workers’ compensation is generally the exclusive remedy against an employer under Fla. Stat. § 440.11. But an on-the-job injury caused by someone other than the employer or a co-employee — a negligent driver, a property owner, a contractor on the same site, a defective product — can support a separate third-party liability claim alongside the compensation claim.

What does it cost to talk to someone?

The initial case evaluation is free. If the firm takes the case, it is handled on contingency, with no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery. Costs and expenses are addressed separately in the written agreement.

Talk to a North Miami Beach Injury Lawyer

The Perazzo Law Firm is located at 16666 NE 19th Ave #110, North Miami Beach, FL 33162. If you were injured in North Miami Beach or elsewhere in Miami-Dade County, you can request a free case evaluation through the firm’s contact page. There is no attorney’s fee unless a recovery is obtained.

Two things are worth doing today regardless of whether you hire anyone: get evaluated by a medical professional, and preserve whatever evidence still exists. Both get harder every week that passes.

This page provides general information about Florida law and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every case turns on its own facts, and statutes are amended — the provisions cited here should be confirmed against their current text. The hiring of a lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely on advertisements.