Jacob Ogles
A teenager suffered brain damage after a school bus collided with his vehicle while riding to school. A swimmer drowned in a city pool under the watch of lifeguards. A 7-year-old died following medical mistakes made when he was a toddler.
The House heard brief retellings of a series of tragedies befalling Floridians, determined in courts as caused by government negligence. Representatives then passed a series of relief bills allowing the victims or surviving families to be made whole through settlements with public entities, money that in most cases governmental entities were content to pay.
Claims bills allow governments to pay damages in excess of the caps currently put in place by Florida’s sovereign immunity statute. But while these individual cases — some of them high-profile disputes generating public outrage and media attention over years — will soon reach a legal conclusion, the debate whether governments should enjoy financial limits to their liability continues to rage.
The Legislature approved $1 million in damages for Marcus Button and another $200,000 to his mother, Robin. The money will come from Pasco County Schools to compensate for life-altering injuries Marcus Button sustained in a roadway crash nearly two decades ago when he was just 16. A relief bill (SB 8) cleared both the House and Senate on unanimous votes.
“There was a trial where Marcus was awarded $1.3 million. But unfortunately, because of our sovereign immunity process as it stands currently, he’s never received any of those funds,” explained Rep. Alex Andrade, a Pensacola Republican, on the floor.
Another instance gaining wide attention was the death of Peniel “P.J.” Janvier, who drowned at the Scott Rakow Youth Center while a lifeguard on duty failed to intervene. Miami Beach City Commissioners approved a $2 million settlement last year over the death of the 28-year-old in 2002. But to date, his family only received $300,000.
“City employees failed to respond and assist him in his time of need. That’s already obviously settled,” said Rep. Juan Porras, a Miami Republican who carried a claims bill (SB 14) to passage.
Again, the relief drew unanimous support in the House and Senate.
The same goes for a $6.1 million payment (SB 28) to Darline Angervil and her daughter, identified only as “J.R.,” with the South Florida Broward Hospital District; a settlement (SB 20) between Hillsborough County to compensate a teenager listed as “J.N.” for severe injuries sustained in a bicycle accident in 2019; and funds (SB 22) for Eric and Jennifer Miles after the death of their 7-year-old son years after the South Broward Hospital District failed to diagnose a perforated bowel when the child was 17 months old.
Rep. Fiona McFarland, a Sarasota Republican, supported relief in every case landing on the floor. But she lamented that sovereign immunity left every family at the mercy of the Legislature’s whims. She said the claim for the Miles family, carried by Rep. Bruce Antone, an Orlando Democrat, especially touched her as a parent.
“You better believe I’d bring a lawsuit,” McFarland said, given similar circumstances.
“And I would really hope that it would be more than $200,000 that I was able to get in compensation, not only compensatory damages, but I would go for punitive damages too,” she added. “And Rep. Antone said that this case happened in 2017. That is an awful long time to be waiting to be made whole as a family.”
More bills are on the way as well.
Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Miami-Dade independent, presented a bill (SB 10) on the Senate floor Tuesday to award $1.7 million to Sidney Holmes, a Lauderhill man who spent 34 years wrongly imprisoned. Holmes sat in the gallery as the relief bill won unanimous support. The bill approves $1.7 million in damages.
“It’s $50,000 a year for the liberty and freedom we took away from him from the opportunity cost of not being with loved ones, experiencing, tasting and smelling and breathing freedom,” Pizzo said.
Shortly after, the Senate passed legislation (SB 26) from Sen. Joe Gruters, a Sarasota Republican, allowing the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to settle with Kristen and Lia McIntosh, who suffered numerous injuries when a state employee crossed six lanes of traffic and crashed into their vehicle on Interstate 95. The McIntoshes were teenagers at the time and the state employee died in the incident.
Both Senate relief bills now head to the House for final consideration.
McFarland pushed this year for a reform in sovereign immunity caps, and the House passed her bill (HB 301) by a 103-11 vote earlier this month. But the bill appears dead in the Senate.
“I’m going to be back next year, and I hope you remember the point that I’ve made over and over again on all these claims bills,” she said, “because we’re going to have this conversation again.”
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Jesse Scheckner of Florida Politics contributed to this report.
