Parking Lot Accident Lawyer

Even in parking lots, a car accident can cause serious physical injuries, property damage, and overwhelming financial strain. Injuries suffered in a parking lot crash can disrupt your daily life, result in lasting pain, and force you to miss work while accumulating medical expenses.

In many cases, parking lot accident claims involve complex liability issues, especially when a property owner or parking lot owners failed to maintain safe conditions.

You may be unsure about how to gather evidence, determine who is at fault, or deal with the insurance company. That’s why working with a trusted parking lot accident attorney is so important.

Understanding the nature of the lot accident can help your parking lot accident lawyer build your case. Common scenarios include:

• Vehicles backing into pedestrians

• Vehicles striking a pedestrian head-on or from the side

• Vehicles backing into stationary cars

• Vehicles hitting passing cars while reversing

• Two vehicles backing into each other

• Disputes over the same parking space or parking spot

• Vehicles sideswiping parked cars

The most common causes of parking lot accidents include:

• Distracted driving or texting behind the wheel

• Speeding in confined parking lot spaces

• Failure to follow traffic laws within lots

• Poor lighting or design in parking lots

• Inadequate signage or improperly maintained surfaces

• Careless or aggressive driving behavior

Florida’s PIP law may cover your initial medical bills, but navigating this process isn’t always straightforward. If you don’t have auto insurance, the at-fault driver’s policy—or even the vehicle owner’s—might provide coverage.

Our attorneys help clients understand how insurance company obligations work, whether in a parking lot, a car accident, a pedestrian accident, or a parking lot accident.

If you were hurt in a private parking lot, different liability standards may apply. Regardless, you have rights, and we’ll make sure they’re protected.

If you’ve been injured in a parking lot accident, the at-fault party’s insurance company might reach out with a settlement offer. However, this offer could be far lower than what you truly deserve, considering the extent of your injuries and the details of the accident. The problem is, you likely have no way to determine whether the offer is fair.

Why? Because determining fairness requires knowledge of past settlement amounts and jury verdicts in cases similar to yours. Insurance companies rely on this data during negotiations, but without access to the same information, you’re left in the dark about whether the offer is reasonable.

The good news is that you don’t have to accept the insurance company’s offer without knowing whether it’s a full and fair one.

Our team tracks settlements and jury verdicts in parking lot accident cases, allowing us to estimate the reasonable value of your claim based on comparable cases. This helps us determine if the insurance company’s offer is fair or if it doesn’t appear to be a good-faith offer.

Don’t wait—call us today before agreeing to any settlement. Once you accept an offer, it’s final, and you can’t pursue additional compensation later, even if you realize the settlement was far less than your claim’s actual worth. 

Florida follows the doctrine of modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar rule. F.S. § 768.81.  This is a fault and damages the allocation system.  Florida law uses the term “comparative fault” rather than the more commonly used “comparative negligence.” 

Under this system, fault is determined and apportioned among the parties involved (plaintiff and all defendants), and how much compensation the plaintiff can recover is limited by his or her relative share of fault for causing the accident that resulted in the injury.

As a result, the plaintiff’s recovery is limited by his or her assigned percentage of fault.  The 51% bar rule means that if the plaintiff’s allocated percentage of fault is 51% or greater, he or she is completely barred from recovering any damages. 

Plaintiffs in Florida must be 50% or less at fault for the accident that resulted in their injuries in order to recover damages.  

For example, assume a plaintiff is determined to be 50% at fault, and the damage award is $100,000.  The amount to which the plaintiff is entitled is $50,000 because the plaintiff’s allocated percentage share of fault, i.e., 50% or $50,000, is deducted from the total damage award. 

If the plaintiff were determined to be 51% at fault, he or she would be completely barred from recovering any damages because Florida applies the 51% bar rule.

Thus, if the plaintiff is deemed 50% or less at fault for the accident, he or she is eligible to recover damages; however, if the plaintiff is deemed 51% or more at fault for the accident, he or she is not eligible to recover any damages.