Fort Lauderdale Catastrophic Injury Lawyer
An injury this serious does not end when the hospital discharges you. It sets the terms for the rest of your life. We can take it from here. Call 954-522-5800 for a free consultation. You pay us nothing unless we win. Our Fort Lauderdale personal injury lawyers have taken these cases across Broward County since 1993.
Catastrophic Injury claims in Fort Lauderdale
The insurer will make an early offer that looks large next to the bills you have seen so far. Meanwhile nobody has costed the surgeries still ahead, the equipment, the changes the house needs, or the work you will never do again. Putting a real number on decades rather than months is our job, and we start the day you call.
Broward produces these injuries on I-95 and I-595, on the roads feeding the port, and on construction sites across a county that is building constantly. Serious trauma runs to Broward Health Medical Center, whose first-hours record fixes severity better than anything gathered later. One local feature changes the shape of a case: Broward Health and Memorial Healthcare System are public hospital districts rather than private companies, so a claim about the care itself carries notice requirements and a statutory cap that a claim about the injury does not. Establishing which of the two you have comes early.
Broward catastrophic injury claims are filed in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit. Serious trauma here runs to Broward Health Medical Center, and both Broward Health and Memorial are public hospital districts, which changes any claim involving the care itself. Most claims must be filed within two years.
What to do after a catastrophic injury in Fort Lauderdale
- Do not let anybody settle anything yet. Offers arrive early in these cases and they arrive while nobody knows the outcome. A spinal cord injury has not declared itself at three weeks, an amputation has not been through revision surgery, and a burn has not been through grafting. A release signed now cannot be reopened when the picture becomes clear, and in this practice the gap between the early number and the real one is the widest on this site.
- Keep every receipt, from the first day. Parking at the hospital, the hotel near it, the flights for family, the wheelchair hired, the ramp built, the door widened, the childcare paid for. These add up to a great deal and almost nobody keeps them, because in the first weeks nobody is thinking about a claim. Start a folder or a photo album on a phone and put everything in it.
- Photograph the home before it is adapted. Steps, doorway widths, the bathroom, the height of everything. Once a house is adapted there is no record of what it was, and the cost of adapting it is part of the claim. The same applies to a vehicle: photograph it before it is replaced.
- Write down what a normal day used to be. What they did for work, what they did on a Saturday, who they cared for, what they had planned. It sounds sentimental and it is evidence: the loss in these cases is measured against a life, and the detail of that life is only available from the people who lived it. Write it down early, because it gets harder to remember accurately as the new normal takes over.
- Get the treating team talking to one another. A catastrophic injury is usually managed by several specialists who do not speak to each other, and the claim needs one coherent picture rather than five partial ones. Somebody has to gather it. That is work a firm does, and starting it early is what makes a life care plan credible later.
Where catastrophic injuries happen in Fort Lauderdale
What produces these injuries in Broward is the road network, the construction and the water, in that order.
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The interstate and the big surface roads
Where speed turns a collision into a life-changing one.
- I-95 and I-595, where closing speeds leave nothing survivable about a mistake
- Heavy vehicles on the roads feeding the port
- Motorcycle and scooter riders struck by vehicles that did not see them
- Pedestrians struck at speed on roads with no separation
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Construction sites
A county building constantly, and falls from height are the recurring catastrophic event.
- Falls through unguarded openings and from scaffolding
- Crush injuries from machinery and unsecured loads
- Electrocution and arc flash on site
- A general contractor, subcontractors and an equipment supplier, each separately insured
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Trauma care and the records it produces
Broward Health Medical Center takes the serious injuries, and its records fix the timeline.
- A documented first-hours record, which is the strongest evidence of severity
- Broward Health and Memorial as public hospital districts rather than private companies
- A claim about the care itself, which carries notice requirements and a cap
- A claim about the injury, which does not
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The waterways and the marine industry
A working marine economy alongside recreational water.
- Propeller and crush injuries on and around vessels
- Yard and dock work, with equipment and lifting failures
- Near-drowning events causing lasting oxygen deprivation injury
- Marine employers, where a different body of law may apply entirely
What causes them
- High-speed and highway collisions, particularly where a heavy vehicle was involved
- Motorcycle and scooter riders struck by a vehicle that did not see them
- Pedestrians and cyclists struck at speed on a road with no separation
- Falls from height on a construction site, including through an unguarded opening
- Machinery and equipment failures at work and on industrial premises
- Electrocution and arc flash injuries
The injuries this practice exists for
Spinal cord injury
The level of the injury decides almost everything about the rest of a life: what movement remains, whether breathing is independent, what equipment is needed and how much care. Those are medical questions with documented answers, and the value of the case follows them rather than the other way round.
What people underestimate is the equipment and the replacement cycle. A power chair, a hoist, an adapted vehicle and a modified bathroom all wear out and are bought again, and a life care plan prices every cycle across a lifetime.
Amputation and limb loss
Prosthetics are replaced every few years, cost more with each generation of technology, and are not the whole of it. Phantom pain, skin breakdown at the socket, the load transferred to the remaining limb and the revision surgeries that follow are all part of what is being valued.
Severe burns
Among the most painful injuries there are and among the longest to treat. Grafting, contracture release and reconstruction continue for years, and scarring is a separate head of loss under Florida law rather than being folded into pain and suffering.
What Florida law requires you to prove
The deadline and the share of the blame
Most claims from an incident on or after March 24, 2023 carry two years under Fla. Stat. § 95.11. Fault is divided under Fla. Stat. § 768.81, and since 2023 somebody found more than half responsible recovers nothing at all. In a case worth this much, a few percentage points of blame is worth a great deal of money, which is why liability is fought as hard as damages.
Finding enough coverage to matter
The defining problem in this practice is not proving the case, it is finding policies large enough to pay it. That means every possible defendant, every layer of excess coverage, and the underinsured motorist coverage on the injured person’s own side. The detail sits on our Florida catastrophic injury page.
The full statutory detail, and the parts that differ by claim type, sit on our statewide catastrophic injury page rather than being restated in every market.
How we prove it in Broward County
In a case this size the work splits in two: proving what happened, and finding enough coverage to pay for it.
- The trauma record from the first hours, which fixes severity better than anything later
- Every possible defendant identified, including employers, owners, contractors and manufacturers
- A written coverage disclosure from each, including any excess layer above the primary policy
- Underinsured motorist coverage on your own side, which people regularly do not know they have
- Photographs of the home and vehicle before either is adapted
- Every receipt from day one, including travel, accommodation, hired equipment and paid help
- A written account of what a normal day used to be, taken early
- The treating specialists gathered into one coherent picture rather than five partial ones
Photograph the house before it is adapted. Once a bathroom is rebuilt and a doorway widened there is no record of what was there, and the cost of that work is part of the claim.
Who would handle your case
Being hurt in Fort Lauderdale is hard enough without working out the legal side on your own. The trial lawyers below have handled catastrophic injury claims across Florida since 1993, and one of them will take yours from the first call to the last check. They will tell you what your case is worth and why, and they will be straight with you about the parts that are hard.
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Richard P. Pravato Founding & Managing Attorney Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by The Florida Bar since 2004, and by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Injury cases exclusively since 1996. Full profile → -
Brett J. Yonon Senior Trial Attorney Selected to Florida Super Lawyers in 2024 and 2025. Nearly two decades in Florida courts, including a $3.5 million funeral home negligence verdict. Full profile →
What the insurer does in a catastrophic case
A catastrophic claim is handled differently from the first day, because the carrier knows what it is worth before you do.
- A fast offer, before the outcome is known
- The most common move in this practice and the most expensive to accept. The offer is priced on what is known at three weeks, and what decides the value is known at two years. Nothing about waiting damages a claim, and a release signed early cannot be reopened.
- The policy limits are all there is
- Sometimes true and frequently the beginning rather than the end. There may be an excess layer above the primary policy, an employer vicariously liable, a contractor, a vehicle owner, a product manufacturer, or underinsured motorist coverage on your own side that nobody mentioned. A written coverage disclosure is requested rather than a figure quoted on a call.
- These future costs are speculative
- They are projections, which is not the same thing. A life care plan is built by a professional from what the treating doctors say is needed, priced at what those items cost, and brought to a present figure by an economist. It is evidence, and it is met with evidence rather than with the word speculative.
What a claim can include
A life care plan, which is usually the largest number
Every item of care, therapy, medication, equipment, adaptation and support across a lifetime, costed by a professional working from the treating doctors and brought to a present figure by an economist.
Lost earning capacity
The difference between the working life somebody had and the one now available to them, established with vocational and economic evidence rather than asserted.
Home and vehicle adaptation
Ramps, widened doorways, bathrooms, lifts and an adapted vehicle, including the replacement cycle rather than the first purchase alone.
Why Wolf & Pravato in Fort Lauderdale
A Broward catastrophic injury claim is filed in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit at the Broward County Courthouse, and this firm has been on West Commercial Boulevard since 1993. Where the value turns on a life care plan rather than on liability, assembling the treating team into one picture is work that has to be done locally and early.
Richard Pravato has been Board Certified in Civil Trial law by The Florida Bar since 2004. The Bar lists 861 lawyers in the state holding it against a membership over 109,000. What it means in practice is that the other side knows the file can go in front of a jury, and files that can go to trial are priced differently from files that cannot.
The first conversation is free. We are paid out of the recovery or not at all, and if we do not think there is a claim worth bringing we will tell you that rather than take it.
Fort Lauderdale catastrophic injury questions
They offered a settlement already and it sounds like a lot of money.
It usually arrives early and it is priced on what is known at three weeks. In this practice the outcome is not clear for a year or more, and a release signed now cannot be reopened when it becomes clear. Nothing about waiting damages the claim. This is the practice where settling quickly most often turns out to have been a fraction of the case.
The at-fault driver had almost no insurance.
That is the defining problem in these cases and it is rarely the end of it. There may be an employer, a vehicle owner, a contractor, a manufacturer, an excess layer above the primary policy, or underinsured motorist coverage on your own policy that nobody has mentioned. A written coverage disclosure from every party is requested rather than a figure taken over the phone.
What counts as a catastrophic injury?
There is no single statutory definition for every purpose, but in practice it means an injury that permanently and substantially changes what a person can do: spinal cord injury and paralysis, amputation, severe burns, serious traumatic brain injury, and injuries requiring lifelong care. What matters legally is the permanence and the scale of future need.
The insurance policy is too small to cover this. Is that the end?
It is the beginning of the search rather than the end. Umbrella and excess layers, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage across household vehicles, commercial policies, and additional responsible parties can all add coverage. In some circumstances an insurer that mishandles a claim exposes itself beyond the policy limit.
The questions that come up on every kind of claim, deadlines, fees, recorded statements and fault, are answered on our Florida injury claim FAQ.
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Tell us what happened
A lawyer will listen, tell you what Florida law does with those facts, and be straight with you about whether it is worth bringing. We are at 2101 W Commercial Blvd, Suite 1500, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309.