Florida's “Free Kill” Law — Still in Effect in 2026, and What Families Can Do

What § 768.21(8) Actually Does

Florida's Wrongful Death Act gives survivors the right to recover both economic losses and non-economic damages — the mental pain and suffering of losing someone you love. Section 768.21(8) carves medical negligence out of that promise for two groups: children 25 or older who lose a parent, and parents who lose a child 25 or older, may not recover non-economic damages when the death was caused by medical malpractice.

The practical consequence gives the law its nickname. When the person who dies is an unmarried adult with no children under 25 — a 30-year-old single professional, a widowed 70-year-old with grown kids — no surviving family member is entitled to pain-and-suffering damages at all. Because economic damages alone (lost wages, funeral costs) are often modest for these victims, many meritorious cases become economically impossible to litigate. Florida is the only state in the country with a provision like it.

The provision dates to 1990, justified then as a malpractice-insurance cost measure. Critics — including, by 2025, overwhelming bipartisan majorities of the Florida Legislature — argue it effectively prices the deaths of unmarried adults at zero.

The Repeal That Passed — and the Veto That Stopped It

In the 2025 session, repeal finally moved. HB 6017 passed the Florida House 104–6 in March 2025 and the Senate 33–4 in May 2025 — margins that would comfortably survive a veto override. Along the way, the Senate rejected an amendment that would have paired repeal with caps on non-economic damages, by a single vote (18–19).

On May 29, 2025, Governor DeSantis vetoed the repeal, citing the absence of those caps and warning of malpractice-insurance costs. No override was attempted. In the 2026 session, a fresh repeal — HB 6003 — passed the House 88–17 in January 2026, and then died in the Senate.

So the answer to the question thousands of Florida families search every month — was the Free Kill law repealed? — is no. It remains in effect in 2026. Repeal pressure continues, but no enacted repeal exists, and none so far has been written to revive claims whose deadlines already ran. Families cannot afford to wait on Tallahassee.

The Paths Families Still Have

• Is it really “medical malpractice”? The bar applies only to claims arising from medical negligence as legally defined. Deaths in healthcare settings caused by ordinary negligence — an unsafe premises condition, a security failure, general staffing negligence not involving professional medical judgment — may fall outside § 768.21(8) entirely. This framing question is often the whole case.
• Nursing home deaths follow a different statute. Claims for deaths caused by deprivation of rights in nursing homes proceed under Chapter 400's separate remedy, not the Wrongful Death Act's malpractice limitation.
• Economic damages survive. Medical and funeral expenses, lost earnings from injury to death, lost net accumulations to the estate, and lost support and services for qualifying survivors remain recoverable even when the non-economic bar applies.
• Unaffected survivors recover fully. A surviving spouse, and children under 25, are not barred — their non-economic damages proceed normally. Identifying every qualifying survivor under § 768.18 is essential.

Every one of these paths is fact-specific, and the medical-malpractice pre-suit process runs on its own clock inside Florida's two-year wrongful death deadline. If you suspect medical negligence killed a family member, the honest advice is simple: have the case evaluated now, under the law as it stands.

Florida Free Kill Law — FAQ