Florida mom fights ‘free kill’ law after daughter’s death: ‘I see her laying on that floor all the time.’ The troubling insurance rule you must know

She hoped a lawsuit might get her one. But Dawn was over 25, unmarried and had no kids, and under a 36-year-old Florida law, that means Beth can’t collect a cent for her grief. “Unless she had kids or a spouse, there’s nothing I can do,” she told WPTV.

Critics call it the “free kill” law. Lawmakers passed it to rein in malpractice insurance costs, and Florida is the only state that treats grieving families differently depending on whether a death was caused by medical negligence, according to a nonpartisan House staff analysis.

Deaths made up 32% of the 3,619 malpractice claims closed in Florida in 2025, more than any other kind of injury, according to the state’s Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR). Nationwide, a 2023 Johns Hopkins-led study estimated that misdiagnoses alone kill about 371,000 Americans a year and leave another 424,000 permanently disabled.

Dawn’s final days

Dawn had emergency gallbladder surgery at Cleveland Clinic Martin North Hospital in Stuart. Records reviewed by WPTV show her hemoglobin, which carries oxygen in the blood, dropped after surgery. Her doctor confirmed severe sepsis, and her kidney function was getting worse the morning she went home.

The afternoon before she was discharged, Dawn told staff she felt “weak” and “not ready” to go home. She turned down an antibiotic overnight. The next morning she pushed back on leaving again, then agreed to go after talking with a nurse, according to an earlier WPTV report.

Minutes after she got home, she collapsed and went into cardiac arrest. Her mother started CPR. Dawn was pronounced dead about two hours after leaving the hospital.

Dr. Gerald Feigin, a forensic pathologist who reviewed the records for WPTV, said Dawn shouldn’t have been sent home and needed emergency blood transfusions. He also said there’s no way to know for sure whether she would have survived. Cleveland Clinic cited patient privacy laws and wouldn’t comment, and Dawn’s doctors didn’t respond.

Beth asked for an autopsy, but one was never done. A hospital note says the medical examiner released the body without requiring one, and that Beth wanted an autopsy but couldn’t pay for it. By that evening, Dawn’s body had been sent to a tissue bank in Tampa.

What Florida’s ‘free kill’ law does

The rule is a single sentence in Florida’s wrongful death law, and it only kicks in when a death is caused by medical negligence. If your parent dies and you’re 25 or older, you can’t collect for your grief or lost companionship. If your child dies at 25 or older, you can’t collect for your own pain and suffering.

A surviving spouse can still sue, so the families left out are mostly single adults and widowed or divorced parents. They can still get back medical or funeral bills they paid, and the estate can recoup wages lost between the injury and death. What they can’t get is money for the loss itself.

Rep. Dana Trabulsy, R-Fort Pierce, who sponsored the repeal bills, has argued that without those damages, malpractice suits are often too expensive to bring. “It’s completely arbitrary,” Jordan Dulce, a West Palm Beach trial attorney who used to defend hospitals in malpractice cases, told WPTV.

The rule doesn’t apply if a family sues a nursing home or assisted living facility under the state laws covering those facilities.

Some other states limit wrongful death damages more broadly, according to the House analysis. Alabama only allows damages meant to punish the wrongdoer, Alaska won’t let parents collect for grief over a child’s death and Indiana allows it only in narrow cases. But none of them draws the line at medical negligence the way Florida does, so if you live elsewhere, check your own state’s rules.

Born from an insurance crisis

Florida passed the rule in 1990, when supporters argued sky-high malpractice premiums were driving doctors out of the state. The same law also opened the door for adult children and parents to collect for grief in other kinds of wrongful death cases, the House analysis notes.

When premiums spiked again in the early 2000s, the Government Accountability Office looked into similar warnings in Florida and four other states. It found some real local problems, but many of the reported cutbacks either couldn’t be backed up or didn’t limit access to care on a wide scale. Medical society officials said Collier and Lee counties had lost all their neurosurgeons, for example. Investigators found at least five still practicing in each.

The Florida Supreme Court upheld the rule in 2000. But in a 2014 ruling on a different malpractice limit, the court wrote that “a crisis is not a permanent condition.” An appeals court asked the justices to revisit the free kill ruling in 2019, and they haven’t.

Today, OIR says the malpractice insurance business is “doing well” in Florida. The state is the country’s third-biggest malpractice market, with about $1.04 billion in premiums in 2025, and doctors’ approved rates rose an average of 5.4% that year. The report says the double-digit rate hikes and coverage crunch came before a separate round of reforms in 2003. Dulce told WPTV there’s no evidence the 1990 law ever did what it promised.

Lawmakers voted to repeal it. It’s still on the books

In 2025, a repeal bill, HB 6017, sailed through the House 104-6 and the Senate 33-4. Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed it on May 29, 2025. In his veto letter, he said the bill didn’t cap pain-and-suffering awards or lawyers’ fees and would drive doctors out of the state. He also warned it could “open floodgates” for lawsuits, the Florida Phoenix reported.

The vote margins were big enough to override him, but the House didn’t try. House Speaker Daniel Perez promised another run and said he still opposed the caps DeSantis wanted. Other states already cap these awards — Moneywise has covered capped malpractice cases in Tennessee and Ohio.

On Jan. 15, the House passed another repeal bill, HB 6003, 88-17. That’s nearly three times as many “no” votes as the year before, Florida Politics noted. The bill then died in the Senate Rules Committee when the session ended March 13, and an identical Senate version died in committee the same day.

Associated Industries of Florida, a major business lobby, opposed HB 6003 and says it won’t back repeal unless pain-and-suffering awards are capped. Some doctors also bristle at the nickname. Andy Borom, a Tallahassee orthopedic surgeon, told a House panel in October 2025 that he was offended by the “free kill” label and might retire early if repeal passed.

What families can do if a loved one dies after hospital care

Some of these steps can’t wait. The specifics below are Florida’s, but other states have their own versions.

On Medicare? Challenge an early discharge

If you’re on Medicare and think a hospital is sending you home too soon, you can request a fast appeal. Within two days of admission, the hospital should hand you a notice called “An Important Message from Medicare about Your Rights.” If you don’t get one, ask for it.