Fort Myers Swimming Pool Accident Lawyer
A gate was open or nobody was watching, and a few minutes at a pool turned into the worst day of your life. We can take it from here. Call 833-370-8692 for a free consultation. You pay us nothing unless we win. Our Fort Myers personal injury lawyers have taken these cases across Lee County since 1993.
Swimming Pool Accident claims in Fort Myers
The owner will say somebody should have been supervising, and will mean you. Meanwhile you are at a bedside, being asked about long-term care, and nobody has told you whether the gate, the alarm or the fence met code. Finding out what was required and what was actually there is our job, and we start the day you call.
Southwest Florida combines a high density of residential pools with an enormous network of canals and waterfront property, and the claims reflect both. Pool cases turn on the Chapter 515 barrier requirements and on whether gates and alarms functioned. Waterfront cases turn on different questions: unguarded seawalls, docks without ladders, unlit edges and rental properties marketed to families without any of it disclosed. Vacation rentals are a recurring theme, because the owner and the management company are frequently different parties and the listing itself becomes evidence about what was promised.
Southwest Florida combines a high density of residential pools with an enormous canal network, so drowning claims here are not all pool claims. Pool cases turn on the barrier requirements. Waterfront cases turn on unguarded seawalls, docks without ladders and unlit edges at properties marketed to families.
What to do after a swimming pool accident in Fort Myers
- Photograph the barrier before anybody fixes it. The fence, the gate, the latch, the gap under it, the door from the house, the alarm if there is one. Photograph from a child’s height as well as your own. A pool that was not enclosed properly gets enclosed properly within days of an incident, and the version that existed on the day stops existing. Include something for scale, because heights and gaps are measured rather than described.
- Test the gate on camera. Film the gate closing and latching, or failing to. A self-closing gate that does not swing shut, or a latch a child can reach, is the whole case in eleven seconds of video, and it is the single most persuasive thing a family can produce. Do it before anybody adjusts the hinge.
- Write down who was there and what they were doing. Who was supposed to be watching, who else was in the water, whether a lifeguard or attendant was on duty and where they were standing. Get names and numbers the same day. At a hotel, community or rental pool these people scatter within hours and are extremely hard to find later.
- Take the whole record of what was promised. The listing, the rules posted at the gate, the association bulletin, the booking confirmation, whatever the property said about supervision, hours and safety. Screenshot rather than bookmark, because listings and websites get edited after an incident and the version that persuaded somebody to book is the one that matters.
- Get the neurological picture even if the child seems fine. A child pulled out and resuscitated frequently looks recovered within days, and oxygen deprivation shows up later as problems with attention, memory, behavior or learning. A baseline assessment now is useful medically and is evidence, the deadline runs whether or not anybody has connected the symptoms yet, and having it done commits you to nothing.
Where these happen in Fort Myers
Lee County produces two distinct kinds of these claims, and they run on different questions even where the outcome is identical.
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Residential pools
The statutory questions, and they are specific enough to settle with a tape measure.
- A barrier at least four feet high with no gap, foothold or space underneath
- A gate opening outward, self-closing and self-latching, release out of reach
- Where there is no fence, whether an approved cover, door alarms or a pool alarm was in place
- Whether alarms and gates actually functioned, which is a maintenance question
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Canals, seawalls and docks
Not pool claims at all, and a large share of what this office sees on this coast.
- Unguarded seawalls and canal edges at properties let to families
- Docks with no ladder, so somebody in the water has no way out
- Unlit edges where a drop is invisible after dark
- What the property said about children and about the water
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Vacation rentals
The recurring theme here, because nobody involved lives at the property and responsibility is split before anything happens.
- The listing as it appeared when it was booked, which gets edited after an incident
- What was advertised about fencing, alarms, supervision or a pool being child-safe
- An owner and a management company who are usually different parties
- Whether anybody checked the property against the barrier requirements at all
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Community and resort pools
The coastal cities carry a high concentration of these, with the usual three parties behind them.
- An association, a management company and a maintenance contractor
- Depth markings, drain covers and lighting
- The chemical log, and the injuries that come from a system left unbalanced
- Supervision advertised by a resort, and whether it was provided
What causes them
- A drain or suction outlet without a compliant cover
- Depth markings missing, worn away or wrong for the actual depth
- A broken or missing underwater light, leaving the bottom invisible after dark
- Water chemistry left unbalanced, which burns skin, eyes and airways
- Slippery decking, broken tile and unlit steps around the edge
- Ladders, handrails and diving equipment that were loose, corroded or removed
What a drowning or near-drowning actually does
Head, spinal and diving injuries
Entering water that was shallower than the marking said, striking a step or a wall that was not visible, or a slip on wet decking. Depth markings, lighting and the physical layout are measurable facts, and where the marking was wrong the property cannot argue the swimmer should have known.
A death in the family
A death claim is brought by the personal representative of the estate, and Florida decides by statute which survivors may recover and for what. Opening the estate takes time, so it starts early rather than when it becomes urgent.
Why a near-drowning is usually the more serious outcome
The word makes it sound like the good ending, and in the cases we handle it frequently is not. A child pulled out and resuscitated may live for sixty more years with a hypoxic brain injury, which is a larger claim than a fatality and a far harder life. These cases are valued on decades of care rather than on the incident, which means they need a life care plan and an economist alongside the liability work.
What Florida law requires you to prove
The barrier the law actually requires
Florida’s Residential Swimming Pool Safety Act sets what a residential pool has to have, and it is specific enough to measure. Under Fla. Stat. § 515.29 a barrier must be at least four feet high on the outside, must have no gap or foothold that lets a young child crawl under, squeeze through or climb over, and must sit far enough back from the water that a child who does get past it does not fall straight in. Gates must open outward, be self-closing and self-latching, with the release on the pool side and out of a child’s reach. Most claims involving a young child start with a tape measure against that list.
The alternatives to a fence, and their numbers
A barrier is not the only option. Under Fla. Stat. § 515.27 a residential pool must have at least one approved safety feature: an approved safety pool cover, exit alarms on every door and window giving direct access to the pool rated at a minimum of 85 decibels at ten feet, self-closing and self-latching devices on those doors with the release no lower than 54 inches above the floor, or a pool alarm that sounds when something enters the water. Each of those is a fact somebody can check on the day, which is why the photographs taken in the first week decide so many of these cases.
A trespassing child is still a claim
Florida recognizes that a swimming pool draws young children who cannot appreciate the danger, so an owner can be liable even where the child had no permission to be there. That is the attractive nuisance doctrine and it exists for exactly this situation. What matters is whether the pool was enclosed as the law requires and whether the owner knew or should have known that children were around. "They should not have been on my property" is the first thing said in these cases and it does not end them.
Commercial and community pools answer to more
A hotel, club, condominium or public pool sits under public pool regulation as well as ordinary premises liability: depth markings, drain covers meeting the federal standard, safety equipment, water quality and whatever the property’s own rules promised about supervision and hours. Most claims arising on or after March 24, 2023 carry a two-year deadline under Fla. Stat. § 95.11, and fault is shared under Fla. Stat. § 768.81. Where the pool belongs to a public body, notice and suit conditions under Fla. Stat. § 768.28 apply instead, along with the damages caps.
The full statutory detail, and the parts that differ by claim type, sit on our statewide swimming pool accident page rather than being restated in every market.
How we prove it in Lee County
The most perishable evidence in a Lee County claim is not physical. It is a web page, and it can change in an afternoon.
- Screenshots of the rental listing exactly as it appeared when the property was booked
- The booking confirmation, the house rules and anything sent about the pool or the water
- Photographs and video of the barrier, the gate, the latch and the surrounds, with scale
- Permits, inspection records and code enforcement history for the pool
- Where a canal or dock is involved, the edge, the lighting and the absence of a ladder, photographed
- The owner and the management company identified separately, with their contracts
- Maintenance and chemical logs at a community or resort pool
- A neuropsychological baseline where a child was resuscitated, however well they seem
Take the screenshots today. A listing that promised a fenced pool and was edited the following week is the difference between a duty assumed and a duty denied, and nothing recovers it once it has changed.
Who would handle your case
Being hurt in Fort Myers is hard enough without working out the legal side on your own. The trial lawyers below have handled swimming pool accident 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. Brett Yonon is who this firm puts on a catastrophic injury or a death in the family, and he has tried those cases to verdict. Full profile →
What the insurer says about a pool claim
Every argument in a pool case is some version of the same one: that the family should have been watching. It is the most painful thing to hear and it is not the legal question.
- The parents were not supervising
- Said in nearly every one of these cases, usually within the first week, and it is not the test. The barrier requirements exist precisely because supervision lapses, for a moment, in every family. Florida also divides the blame rather than barring a claim, so even where some responsibility rests with an adult who was present, it reduces a recovery instead of ending it. What decides the case is whether the pool was enclosed the way the law requires.
- The child made a full recovery
- Often what it looks like at three weeks, and frequently not what it looks like at three years. Oxygen deprivation shows up later as difficulty with attention, memory, behavior or learning, and nobody connects it because the discharge note said the child was fine. A neuropsychological baseline taken now is the answer to an argument that will otherwise be made when it can no longer be met.
- An early offer, before anyone knows the outcome
- Offers in near-drowning cases arrive early and small, while a child still appears to have recovered. The deficits that decide what the claim is worth emerge over years, and a release signed now cannot be reopened when they do. This is the practice where settling quickly most often turns out to have been a fraction of the case.
What a claim can include
A parent’s own claim
Florida recognizes claims belonging to the parents of an injured child in defined circumstances, separate from the child’s own. They are regularly left out of an early offer.
What a family may recover after a death
Funeral and medical expenses, lost support and services, and the losses the statute assigns to particular survivors, brought by the personal representative of the estate.
Medical care, past and future
Everything already billed and what the treating physicians say is still ahead, which after oxygen deprivation is usually the far larger half.
Why Wolf & Pravato in Fort Myers
A Lee County pool case is filed in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit at the Lee County Justice Center, and the firm has an office on Colonial Boulevard in Fort Myers rather than a referral arrangement with somebody here. Where an out-of-state family was renting a property owned by one company and managed by another, sorting out who actually held responsibility is local work.
Richard Pravato is one of 861 lawyers Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Civil Trial law, out of a membership over 109,000. The certification is about trial experience rather than advertising spend, and it is the part of a firm’s record that an insurance company checks.
Nothing is charged for the first conversation and nothing is charged at all unless there is a recovery. If we do not think you have a claim, we would rather tell you now than a year from now.
Fort Myers swimming pool accident questions
It happened at a vacation rental. Who is responsible?
Potentially the owner, the management company and the platform’s local operator, depending on who controlled the property and who was responsible for safety compliance. The listing matters, because what it advertised about the pool, the fencing or supervision is evidence about the duty assumed. Screenshots of the listing as it appeared when it was booked are worth taking immediately, since listings get edited after an incident.
There was no pool. My child got into the canal behind the house.
That is still a claim and it is a substantial part of what we handle on this coast. The questions differ: whether the property was let to a family with young children, what barrier existed between the yard and the water, whether the dock had a ladder, what the lighting was like, and what the listing said. Photograph all of it before anything is changed.
We live out of state. Does that make this harder?
It makes some steps slower and none of them impossible, and it is the usual position here. The evidence is in Lee County and so is this office, so the photographs, the records and the local inquiries get handled without the family traveling. What you can do from home is preserve the listing, the booking correspondence and the medical records from wherever the treatment continued.
It happened at a holiday rental. Who is responsible?
Potentially the property owner, the management company and in some circumstances the platform, depending on who controlled the property and what they knew. A short-term rental does not escape the residential pool safety requirements, and the guest was lawfully there.
My child survived but was badly hurt. Is that still a claim?
Yes, and often a substantial one. A non-fatal drowning can cause lasting brain injury requiring lifelong care, and those claims are valued on future medical needs and lost capacity rather than on bills already incurred. The evidence about the barrier and supervision is identical.
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 1825 Colonial Blvd, Fort Myers, FL 33907.