Losing someone you love to a preventable medical mistake is a pain nothing prepares you for. The person who was supposed to help them — a doctor, a nurse, a hospital — failed them, and the consequences can never be undone. Florida law recognizes that harm. It gives surviving family members the right to hold the responsible providers accountable and to seek meaningful justice for what was taken.
The Alvarez Law Firm handles medical wrongful death cases across Florida. Alex Alvarez — a former Miami-Dade police detective and Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer — brings three decades of investigative and trial experience to every case. Herb Borroto, M.D., J.D. reviews the medical records with a physician’s eye. We will meet you where you are, and we will carry the legal fight so your family can grieve.
A medical wrongful death case is a lawsuit filed by surviving family members when a healthcare provider’s negligence caused a patient’s death. In Florida, these cases are governed by the Florida Wrongful Death Act (Florida Statutes §§ 768.16–768.26) and are subject to the state’s specific medical malpractice rules.
Wrongful death is a specific kind of lawsuit. It is not the same as a personal injury lawsuit, and it is not the same as a criminal case. The people who bring the lawsuit are the surviving family members — not the person who died. The goal is to hold the responsible provider or institution accountable and to recover the kinds of compensation Florida law recognizes for families who have lost someone to negligence.
There are two related but different kinds of claims that often arise from a fatal medical error: a wrongful death claim, brought on behalf of eligible surviving family members to compensate them for their losses (loss of support, loss of companionship, mental pain and suffering, and certain expenses); and a survival action, brought on behalf of the deceased person’s estate to recover damages the deceased could have recovered if they had lived — including certain expenses and, depending on the timing, pain and suffering endured before death. Florida’s rules limit which of these is available in medical malpractice cases and who can collect what. An experienced lawyer can explain what applies to your family.
No lawsuit can bring your loved one back. But a wrongful death case can do three things that matter. It can provide the financial resources a family needs after the loss of a parent, spouse, or child. It can force a hospital or provider to acknowledge what went wrong, put systems in place, and protect the next family. And it can give you the answers that the medical record alone will never give you.
Florida law is specific about who is eligible to bring a wrongful death claim. The lawsuit is filed by the personal representative of the deceased person’s estate, but the claim is brought on behalf of the eligible surviving family members ("survivors") defined by statute. Who qualifies depends on the facts of each family.
Florida requires that every wrongful death action be filed by the personal representative of the deceased person’s estate. This is the person appointed by the probate court to manage the estate — often a spouse, an adult child, or another family member. The personal representative acts on behalf of all eligible survivors and the estate.
A husband or wife who outlives their spouse has the clearest claim under Florida’s Wrongful Death Act. A surviving spouse can recover for loss of companionship, loss of protection, and mental pain and suffering from the date of the injury forward, in addition to loss of support and services.
Children can recover for loss of parental companionship, instruction, and guidance, and for mental pain and suffering, in certain circumstances. Florida’s rules on adult children in medical malpractice wrongful death cases are specific and have been the subject of active legal change. We will walk you through what applies to your family.
Parents of a deceased child may be able to recover for mental pain and suffering from the date of injury, with specific rules depending on whether the child was a minor, and depending on the surviving-relatives situation. These rules also have specific features in medical malpractice cases.
Under the Florida Wrongful Death Act, certain other blood relatives and adoptive siblings who were partly or wholly dependent on the deceased for support or services may qualify as survivors. Whether they qualify in a specific case depends on dependency and relationship.
Separate from the survivors, the estate can recover certain categories of damages under the Wrongful Death Act — including medical and funeral expenses paid by the estate, and in some cases lost earnings of the deceased. An experienced lawyer sorts out what the estate versus the survivors can recover.
No law can measure what a family loses when someone is taken by a preventable medical error. What we can do is explain what Florida law recognizes as harm, and what compensation it allows surviving families to seek — so the responsible providers are held accountable.
Before anything else, there is the person. A spouse’s partner. A child’s parent. A parent’s child. There is no dollar value on that. The legal system cannot restore it. What the law can do is require the party whose negligence caused the death to face the consequences — and to provide the resources the family needs to continue on without them.
When the person who worked, who supported the household, or who cared for children and parents is suddenly gone, the financial hole is immediate. Florida’s Wrongful Death Act recognizes loss of support and services as compensable, along with lost earnings the deceased would have provided.
The law recognizes that surviving spouses, children, and parents lose more than a paycheck. They lose the person who was their partner, their guide, their protector, their parent. Florida’s Wrongful Death Act allows certain survivors to recover for loss of companionship, protection, instruction, and guidance — real harms that the law takes seriously.
Grief is not just an emotional experience. It is a legally recognized harm. Certain eligible survivors may recover for mental pain and suffering. The exact categories of survivors who can recover mental pain and suffering in medical malpractice wrongful death cases depend on Florida’s specific statutory rules and recent legal developments, which we will explain clearly during your consultation.
Medical wrongful death cases arise from every kind of medical malpractice. Below are the most common categories we handle at The Alvarez Law Firm. If your loved one died under any of these circumstances, contact us for a free confidential consultation.
Fatal outcomes during or after surgery — from wrong-site surgery, retained instruments, uncontrolled bleeding, organ perforation, or failure to respond to post-op complications. Surgical deaths are often preventable and frequently traceable to a specific breakdown in the operating room or post-op monitoring. See our surgical errors page.
Deaths from anesthesia errors — improper dosing, failure to review the patient’s history, inadequate monitoring during the procedure, or delayed response to complications. Anesthesia deaths often involve brain injury from oxygen deprivation, cardiovascular collapse, or allergic reactions that were not caught in time.
The death of a mother or an infant caused by medical negligence during pregnancy, labor, or delivery. Maternal deaths can result from undiagnosed preeclampsia, postpartum hemorrhage, or failure to act on warning signs. Infant deaths can result from untreated fetal distress, delayed C-section, or neonatal care failures. See our birth injuries page.
Deaths that follow a missed or delayed diagnosis in the emergency room — missed heart attack, missed stroke, missed sepsis, missed aortic catastrophe, or premature discharge of a patient who was still in danger. ER deaths are among the most preventable fatal errors in American medicine. See our emergency room errors page.
Deaths caused by prescribing, dispensing, or administering the wrong drug or the wrong dose — including opioid overdoses, sedation deaths, blood thinner complications, and fatal drug interactions. Medication-related deaths are often preventable at multiple steps in the chain. See our medication errors page.
Deaths that follow a missed or delayed diagnosis — most commonly cancer, heart disease, stroke, pulmonary embolism, and sepsis. When a diagnosis is missed or delayed and the patient dies of a condition that would have been treatable with earlier care, the fatal outcome is often tied directly to the diagnostic error. See our misdiagnosis page.
Deaths from infections a patient picked up inside a hospital or nursing facility — including MRSA, C. difficile, and sepsis — when those infections resulted from broken infection-control practices, understaffing, or failure to recognize and treat signs of infection in time.
The first thing we want families to know is this: you do not have to carry the legal fight by yourself. Our job is to carry it for you. Your job is to take care of yourself and your family.
Alex Alvarez has spent over three decades fighting for victims of preventable harm. Before law school, he was a Miami-Dade police detective and Officer of the Year (1987). That investigative background — the instinct to find every document, every witness, every record — is what medical wrongful death cases demand. Institutions are slow to share what they know. Providers are often unwilling to admit what went wrong. Records sometimes have to be pulled out of them.
We pair that investigative discipline with Herb Borroto, M.D., J.D., who brings a physician’s understanding to the medical record. Together we reconstruct what happened, we identify everyone whose negligence contributed, and we press the case with both medical and legal weight behind it. And throughout, we handle families with the care they deserve.
We request the complete medical record — not just the summary. That means every note, every order, every lab, every image, every nursing entry, every timestamp. Hospitals are required to produce these records, but they will often only send the bare minimum unless the request is made properly. We know what to ask for.
Every wrongful death case we take is reviewed by Herb Borroto, M.D., J.D. with a physician’s eye, then evaluated by outside board-certified specialists in the relevant field. We do not guess about standard of care. We get the medicine right.
Florida requires wrongful death actions to be filed by the personal representative of the estate. That means the estate has to be opened in probate court, and the personal representative has to be appointed. We coordinate with probate counsel so this is not one more burden for your family to figure out.
We know this is the hardest thing your family has ever faced. We listen. We explain things in plain language. We do not push you to make decisions on our timeline. We keep you informed without flooding you with legal paperwork you do not need to see. Our job is to fight — your job is to heal.
In Florida, medical malpractice wrongful death cases are generally governed by the same two-year limitations rule as other medical malpractice cases, with the clock typically running from the date of death.
The general four-year statute of repose also applies, and can function as an outer deadline in many situations. Certain facts — including fraud, concealment, or intentional misrepresentation — can extend these deadlines. Because wrongful death cases interact with probate, statute of limitations, and Florida’s medical malpractice pre-suit rules all at once, the timeline is fact-specific.
Florida also requires a 90-day pre-suit investigation and notice period before a medical malpractice wrongful death lawsuit can actually be filed. That process takes time. It is almost always necessary to start the investigation months before the statutory deadline.
If your family has lost someone to a medical error, even recently, please reach out when you are ready. The consultation is free, completely confidential, and carries no obligation. We will meet you on your timeline — but the legal clock runs on its own, and we want to make sure it does not cost you your right to hold the responsible providers accountable.
"We know this is not a normal legal call. Reach out when you are ready. We will meet your family with the patience this moment deserves."
The information above is a general overview and not legal advice. Statutes of limitations can vary based on the specific circumstances of your case. Contact our office for a personalized assessment of your filing deadlines.
Below are answers to the most common questions we hear from families considering a medical wrongful death case in Florida.
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Browse the full library of medical malpractice litigation guides.
Start here — overview of medical malpractice litigation.
Why The Alvarez Law Firm has been fighting medical negligence since 1995.
Free case review — no fees unless we recover money for you.
Plain-English guides on med mal litigation, statutes, and procedure.
All the medical-error categories we handle, in one place.
Wrong-site surgery, retained instruments, anesthesia errors, and more.
Cerebral palsy, HIE, brachial plexus, and other delivery-related injuries.
Cancer, stroke, sepsis, and heart attack misdiagnosis cases.
Wrong drug, wrong dose, dangerous interactions, prescribing errors.
Triage failures, missed diagnoses, and discharge errors in the ER.
Plain-English read on the difference and how the question gets answered.
The 2-year clock, the 4-year outer limit, fraud and child exceptions, and the 90-day pre-suit notice.
Health insurance, subrogation, hospital liens, and Letters of Protection during a malpractice case.
The records that decide the case, your right of access under HIPAA and Florida law.
No lawsuit can bring back someone you love. What it can do is hold the providers accountable, protect the next family, and provide the financial resources your family needs after a preventable loss. That work deserves a firm that treats your family with the care this moment demands.
Your consultation is 100% free, completely confidential, and carries no obligation. We handle medical wrongful death cases on a contingency basis — No Fees Unless We Recover Money for You.
The factual claims on this page are drawn from the following authoritative sources. This page is for general information and is not legal or medical advice.
