When someone from Trinity dies on SR-54, the Florida Highway Patrol's traffic homicide investigators close the road, measure every mark on the pavement, photograph the vehicles and tow them to a lot where they will be held. The medical examiner takes custody. The trooper who comes to the house in the Trinity Communities has done this before. Then the insurance company calls, usually within the week, with condolences and a request for a recorded statement.
Conde-Huggins Accident Injury Lawyers represents Trinity families in wrongful death claims under Florida law. Our office is at 6609 Ridge Road in Port Richey, a few minutes north on Little Road, but we meet grieving families at home. The consultation is free and private, and no attorney's fee is owed unless we recover compensation. Call (240) 421-5511 when you are ready to talk.
The first weeks after a fatal crash in Trinity
The FHP investigation takes months. While it runs, the crash report is restricted to the parties and their attorneys for 60 days under Fla. Stat. § 316.066, the vehicles sit in storage, and video from the plazas and medical offices along SR-54 and Little Road is quietly overwritten. If the crash happened on Little Road or Trinity Boulevard, the Pasco Sheriff's Office may have responded instead, and its short-form report will contain far less than the FHP file.
Our first steps do not wait for the investigation to close. We send preservation demands for the vehicles and for video along the corridor, request the 911 recordings, identify every insurance policy in play, and, where a government body may be involved, begin the written notice that Fla. Stat. § 768.28 requires. If the loss followed a long stay at HCA Florida Trinity or the trauma center at HCA Florida Bayonet Point, we gather the hospital records that connect the crash to the death.
The claim belongs to the estate
Florida's Wrongful Death Act, Fla. Stat. §§ 768.16 through 768.26, requires the lawsuit to be brought by the personal representative of the deceased person's estate, on behalf of the survivors and the estate together (§ 768.20). Family members do not sue separately. If your loved one left a will, it usually names the representative. If not, the circuit court in Pasco County appoints one through probate, following an order of preference that begins with the surviving spouse, and probate for Trinity residents is handled at the West Pasco Judicial Center on Little Road. We prepare that filing alongside the investigation so neither waits on the other.
The Act defines survivors in § 768.18(1): the spouse, the children, the parents, and blood relatives or adoptive siblings who depended on the person for support or services. A child under 25 is a "minor child" for the Act's purposes (§ 768.18(2)), a definition that matters a great deal to the parents of a college student killed on SR-54 and to a 23-year-old who has lost a parent.
What Florida allows each survivor to recover
Fla. Stat. § 768.21 ties specific damages to specific people:
- A surviving spouse: lost support and services, loss of companionship and protection, and mental pain and suffering.
- Minor children, and all children when there is no surviving spouse: lost parental companionship, instruction and guidance, and mental pain and suffering.
- Parents of a minor child: mental pain and suffering. Parents of an adult child may recover for mental pain and suffering only when there are no other survivors.
- Any survivor who paid medical or funeral expenses may recover them.
- The estate, through the personal representative: lost earnings from the injury to the death, medical and funeral expenses charged to the estate, and in some circumstances the lost net accumulations the person would have left behind.
The deceased person's own claim for the pain of the injury does not survive (§ 768.20). The law compensates the people who are left. In a motor vehicle case, the deceased person's own PIP policy also pays a $5,000 death benefit under Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1).
Call (240) 421-5511 and our attorney will walk through exactly which survivors in your family qualify and for what.
The rules that shape a Trinity death claim
Fault of the person who died. Fla. Stat. § 768.81(6) applies to wrongful death claims. If your loved one is found more than 50 percent at fault, the survivors recover nothing from the other party. At SR-54 and Mitchell Ranch Road, where sight lines are poor and FHP has counted 129 crashes since July 2022, the insurer will argue that the person who pulled out was the one at fault. The reconstruction evidence answers that, and the one person who could have told the story is gone, which is why we secure it so early.
Insurance. Bodily injury coverage is optional for Florida drivers. Trinity households often carry higher limits than the drivers who hit them, so uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage under Fla. Stat. § 627.727 on your family's own policies may be the largest source of recovery, and stacked coverage across household vehicles can increase it. When a commercial truck on SR-54 was involved, federal rules require interstate carriers to carry at least $750,000, and we pursue the carrier and the vehicle owner together.
Government defendants. A school bus serving J.W. Mitchell High School, a GOPasco bus on the SR-54 route, a county vehicle on Little Road or an FDOT roadway brings Fla. Stat. § 768.28 into play: written notice within two years of the death, a 90-day waiting period, and caps of $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident unless the Legislature passes a claims bill.
Impaired drivers. A DUI manslaughter prosecution by the State Attorney proceeds on its own track and does not delay your civil claim. Florida's dram shop law, Fla. Stat. § 768.125, reaches a bar only when it knowingly served someone habitually addicted to alcohol or willfully served a minor.
Do not sign a release or give a recorded statement before you speak with us. A wrongful death release signed by one family member can end every survivor's claim.
How Conde-Huggins works with a Trinity family
We come to your home in the Trinity Communities, Fox Wood or wherever you are, and explain the process once, in plain terms. We help open the estate at the West Pasco Judicial Center, obtain the FHP traffic homicide report and the medical examiner's findings, document each survivor's loss under § 768.21 with help from an economist where lost support must be valued, present the claim to every insurer, and file suit when the offers do not reflect the loss. Clementine Conde, a member of the Florida Bar since 1992, handles each of these cases personally.
Our wrongful death page explains the Act in more depth, and our Trinity page covers the other injury claims we handle in the community. If the crash involved a motorcycle, our Trinity motorcycle accident page explains why riders have no PIP and how that affects the claim.
Talk to a Port Richey wrongful death lawyer about your Trinity loss today
There is no good time to make this call. There is a two-year limit, and evidence on SR-54 that is disappearing now. When your family is ready, call (240) 421-5511, at any hour, or send us a message. The consultation is free, no attorney's fee is owed unless we recover compensation for your family, and Spanish-speaking staff are available.
Free consultation, no attorney's fee unless we win. We meet Trinity clients at home, in the hospital, or at our office on Ridge Road. (240) 421-5511
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Questions people ask us about trinity wrongful death cases
My wife died at HCA Florida Trinity two weeks after the crash. Is that still a wrongful death case?
Yes. Florida's Wrongful Death Act applies whenever a death is caused by a wrongful act or negligence that would have supported an injury claim had she survived (Fla. Stat. § 768.19), whether death came at the scene or after weeks in the hospital. The medical expenses from those two weeks are recoverable by whoever paid them or by the estate, along with funeral expenses, and the two-year limit under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(e) runs from the date of death, not the date of the crash.
We live in Trinity, but my husband was killed in Pinellas County on his commute. Does that change anything?
It changes the courthouse, not the law. A wrongful death suit is generally filed where the crash happened or where a defendant resides, so a crash just across the county line may be filed in Pinellas rather than at the West Pasco Judicial Center. The estate is opened in Pasco County, where your husband lived. Our attorney has practiced in both Pasco and Pinellas courts since 1992, and we handle Trinity families' cases on either side of the line.
The driver who caused the crash also died. Is there still a claim?
Yes. The claim proceeds against the at-fault driver's estate and is paid by that driver's bodily injury liability insurance, if any existed. Because Florida does not require private drivers to carry bodily injury coverage, uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage under Fla. Stat. § 627.727 on your family member's policy, or on a policy belonging to a relative in the household, is often the main source of recovery. We also examine whether the driver was working and who owned the vehicle.
Does the two-year deadline run from the crash or from the death?
From the death. Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(e) gives the personal representative two years from the date of death to file the wrongful death action. If a government body such as Pasco County, the school board or FDOT is a defendant, written notice under Fla. Stat. § 768.28(6) must also be presented within two years of the death, and suit cannot be filed until the agency denies the claim or 90 days pass. Opening the estate and completing the investigation take time, so we ask families not to wait for the deadline to approach.
Will our family have to go to court in New Port Richey?
Most wrongful death claims resolve with the insurers before trial, and the court must approve any settlement that affects a minor child's share (Fla. Stat. § 768.25). If suit is necessary, a Trinity case is filed at the West Pasco Judicial Center, 7530 Little Road in New Port Richey, a short drive north. We prepare every case as though a Pasco jury will hear it, because insurers value a claim differently when they know the firm will try it. You will not be asked to appear anywhere without preparation and without us beside you.