Episode Description
What happens if you’re injured in Georgia instead of Florida? The answer may surprise you.
In this episode of It’s No Accident, personal injury attorneys Jaeson Homola and Mark Nonni explain the biggest legal differences between Florida and Georgia personal injury law and why crossing the state line can dramatically impact your case.
Located just minutes from the Florida-Georgia border, Nonni & Homola regularly handle injury claims in both states. They discuss how differences in insurance laws, bodily injury coverage, no-fault insurance, statutes of limitation, permanent injury requirements, premises liability, and court procedures can affect everything from your medical bills to the amount of compensation you may recover.
Whether you’ve been injured in a car accident, slip and fall, or another negligence case, understanding which state’s laws apply could make all the difference.
Episode Transcript
Jaeson:
One thing a lot of our clients don’t realize about our law firm is that we handle cases not only in Florida, but also in Georgia. Tallahassee sits about 20 minutes from the Florida-Georgia line, so over the years we’ve handled quite a few Georgia cases.
I’m not licensed to practice law in Georgia, but Mark, with his big brain over here, is. So just about every Georgia case that comes into the office ends up going through Mark, especially if it gets into litigation and a lawsuit needs to be filed.
Mark spends a lot of time talking with potential clients about the misconceptions they have regarding Florida versus Georgia law. Those differences can affect everything from the amount of compensation you recover to how medical bills are paid in an auto accident or premises liability case.
At the end of the day, it’s a different state with different laws. Most of the laws we have in Florida are different from what you’ll find in Georgia.
Can you walk us through some of the biggest differences you see between Florida and Georgia law, maybe using a motor vehicle accident as an example?
Mark:
Absolutely. It comes up all the time.
When I’m explaining these differences, people who are familiar with Florida law are usually surprised by how different Georgia can be.
I’ll start with one similarity, which actually only became true recently. For years, one of the biggest differences was the statute of limitations. Florida used to give you four years to file a personal injury lawsuit, while Georgia only allowed two years.
As of 2023, Florida changed its statute of limitations to two years, so now they’re the same.
From a car accident standpoint, though, one of the biggest differences is auto insurance.
Florida has Personal Injury Protection, or PIP, which is part of our no-fault insurance system. If you’re injured in a Florida car accident, your PIP coverage pays up to $10,000 toward your medical bills and, in some cases, lost wages, regardless of who caused the accident.
Georgia doesn’t require PIP coverage.
Jaeson:
Right. I believe you can purchase it as optional coverage, but it’s not mandatory like it is in Florida.
Mark:
Exactly.
If someone has health insurance, they usually don’t need it anyway.
But if they don’t have health insurance and they don’t have PIP, there’s nobody paying those medical bills while they’re piling up. You may not receive a settlement for six months or even a year, and in the meantime those bills can become a real source of stress.
You also have to pay close attention to how much those medical bills are compared to the at-fault driver’s insurance limits.
Medical bills add up quickly these days.
Jaeson:
And Georgia requires a minimum of $25,000 in bodily injury liability coverage, correct?
Mark:
That’s right.
Georgia requires at least $25,000 per injured person and $50,000 per accident in bodily injury liability coverage.
Florida doesn’t.
That’s one of the biggest problems with Florida law.
If you’re injured in a Florida accident, one of the first things we have to determine is whether the at-fault driver even has bodily injury coverage.
Just because someone has an insurance policy doesn’t mean they have coverage that pays for injuries.
Sometimes we’ll receive a crash report showing the other driver was insured, but we still have to contact the insurance company and verify whether bodily injury coverage actually exists.
If it doesn’t, your only option may be pursuing the driver’s personal assets.
Unfortunately, if someone chose not to purchase bodily injury coverage, there’s usually a good chance they don’t have significant assets either.
Jaeson:
That’s another major difference between Florida and Georgia.
In Georgia, if you’re involved in an accident with another Georgia driver who has a Georgia insurance policy, you can generally expect there to be at least $25,000 in bodily injury coverage available—assuming there aren’t any unusual coverage issues.
That gives injured people a much better chance of recovering compensation for their medical bills, pain and suffering, and other damages.
Mark:
Exactly.
In Florida, we sometimes spend weeks just trying to determine whether bodily injury coverage even exists.
And when we find out it doesn’t, that’s one of the hardest conversations we have with clients.
We have to tell them, “The other driver was clearly at fault, but there’s simply no bodily injury coverage available.”
At that point, we’ll usually perform an asset search to determine whether it makes financial sense to pursue the individual personally.
But in almost every case, if someone chose not to carry bodily injury coverage, they don’t have enough assets to justify filing a lawsuit.
Jaeson:
Which usually means the case is over—unless our client has uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage.
That’s why we say it all the time: if you’re driving in Florida, check your insurance policy and make sure you have uninsured motorist coverage.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had clients who were injured in one accident, and afterward I told them, “Go increase your uninsured motorist coverage.”
Then, five years later, they’re involved in another accident, and I ask whether they ever added that coverage.
The answer is usually no.
Mark:
I’ve had the exact same experience.
You can only give people the advice—you can’t make the decision for them.
Jaeson:
Another important difference between Florida and Georgia involves what’s called the permanency threshold, which exists because Florida has a no-fault insurance system.
This gets a little technical, but it’s a huge issue if your case goes to trial.
Mark:
Absolutely.
Under Florida law, if you’re injured in a car accident, you generally can’t recover damages for pain and suffering unless you prove one of several things.
Most commonly, you have to prove that you suffered a permanent injury.
Other exceptions include significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement, or certain catastrophic injuries, but in most everyday car accident cases, the issue is whether the injury is permanent.
That’s one of the biggest battles we fight at trial.
Jaeson:
Right.
The jury is actually asked a specific question: Did the plaintiff suffer a permanent injury?
If the answer is no, then the jury cannot award damages for pain and suffering, mental anguish, inconvenience, or loss of enjoyment of life.
The injured person may still recover medical expenses and lost wages, but none of those non-economic damages.
Mark:
Exactly.
So one of the advantages of Georgia law is that you don’t have to overcome that additional hurdle.
If the case goes to trial in Georgia, there isn’t a separate permanency threshold that determines whether the jury can consider pain and suffering damages.
That’s a significant difference.
I’ve represented clients who suffered serious injuries—a broken kneecap, a shoulder requiring surgery, permanent scarring—and still had defense attorneys argue that those injuries weren’t “permanent enough” under Florida law.
Imagine telling someone who can no longer lift their arm the way they could before surgery that they don’t have a permanent injury.
From the client’s perspective, it’s obviously permanent.
But those are the kinds of arguments that get made in Florida courtrooms.
Jaeson:
And that’s why it becomes one of the biggest issues in almost every Florida automobile jury trial.
Jaeson:
Without getting too deep into the weeds, let’s talk about premises liability cases—slip-and-fall and trip-and-fall claims.
Those cases are difficult whether you’re in Florida or Georgia. A lot of people assume that if they fall at a store or another business, the property owner is automatically responsible. But it’s never that simple.
Even in Florida, these cases can be difficult to prove. You have to establish that the property owner was negligent and that their negligence caused the injury.
One major difference, though, is that these cases tend to be even harder in Georgia.
There are some court decisions in Georgia that, in my opinion, make these cases much more difficult to pursue.
Mark:
That’s right.
Without getting too technical, Georgia law requires much stronger evidence in many premises liability cases. Otherwise, the case can be dismissed before it ever reaches a jury.
Florida tends to leave more of those issues for the jury to decide.
For example, if the defense argues that your own actions contributed to your fall, Florida courts often treat that as a question of comparative negligence.
In other words, the jury can decide to assign some percentage of fault to the plaintiff and some percentage to the property owner.
Jaeson:
Exactly.
In Georgia, though, those same arguments can sometimes result in the judge dismissing the case entirely through summary judgment before you ever get to trial.
You don’t even get the opportunity to present your case to a jury.
Mark:
That’s one of the biggest practical differences between the two states.
There are situations where we’d have a viable case in Florida that simply wouldn’t survive in Georgia because of how the courts interpret the law.
It’s interesting because we’re only about 20 minutes from the state line.
Something that happens just across the border could have a completely different legal outcome depending on which state’s law applies.
Jaeson:
Exactly.
Some aspects of Georgia law are more favorable to injured people, while others are significantly tougher.
Another major difference is how long it takes cases to move through the court system.
For the most part, litigation moves much more slowly in Georgia than it does in Florida.
Mark:
Painfully slowly.
In Florida, once a lawsuit is filed, courts generally issue a scheduling order that sets a trial period and establishes deadlines for discovery, expert witnesses, mediation, and other important events.
Georgia doesn’t have that same structured process statewide.
There are exceptions in some larger counties around Atlanta where judges actively manage their dockets, but generally speaking, cases move at a much slower pace.
Jaeson:
Instead, both sides complete discovery, take depositions, hire experts, and do everything necessary to prepare for trial.
Then everyone waits.
Your case sits on a trial calendar, often in chronological order, waiting for older cases ahead of it to be resolved.
I’ve had cases where everything was ready for trial, but we still had to wait another year or more before the case was actually called.
Mark:
That system also gives defendants an incentive to delay things.
If there aren’t firm deadlines, it’s easy for someone to say, “We still need another deposition,” or “We still need additional discovery.”
Meanwhile, you’ve been asking for those things for months.
Without deadlines, there’s very little pressure to move the case forward.
Jaeson:
Exactly.
One benefit of Florida’s system is that trial judges are expected to move cases along.
The Florida Supreme Court has emphasized reducing delays, so judges are often very proactive about enforcing deadlines.
That pressure helps keep cases moving.
Mark:
I’ve had judges tell us directly, “This case has been pending too long. We’re getting it to trial.”
Sometimes the deadlines feel aggressive, but they force both sides to complete discovery, schedule expert depositions, conduct compulsory medical examinations, and prepare for trial.
If a party doesn’t follow those deadlines, there can be serious consequences.
For example, if an expert witness isn’t disclosed on time, a judge may prohibit that expert from testifying altogether.
That can completely change the value of a case.
Those scheduling orders are one of the biggest reasons Florida cases tend to resolve more efficiently.
Jaeson:
It really shows how procedural rules that seem minor can have a huge impact on how cases are handled, how long they take, and even how much they’re ultimately worth.
Mark:
Absolutely.
Those procedural differences affect settlement negotiations, trial preparation, and the overall outcome of a case.
Even though Florida and Georgia share a border, the legal systems operate very differently.
Understanding those differences is important if you’re injured in either state.
Jaeson continued his studies at Florida State University College of Law, graduating with a Juris Doctorate in 2011. Throughout his law school career, Jaeson regularly volunteered his time at Florida Legal Services, where he assisted with several projects aimed at advancing the rights of low-income families in Florida. Jaeson has recovered millions of dollars from individuals for his clients. For his efforts, Jaeson was inducted in 2016 into the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum. At the time of his induction, he was one of the youngest attorneys in the State of Florida to be inducted.
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