Florida’s ‘Free Kill’ law leaves grieving families with no day in court

Florida is the only state in the nation where an adult child of unmarried parents can lose their parent to a doctor’s negligence and never be allowed to tell a jury what that loss cost them. Florida also suppresses the grief of a parent who loses an adult child to a doctor’s negligence. These provisions, tucked into the state’s Wrongful Death Act since 1990, blocks parents of unmarried, childless adults over 25, and adult children of unmarried parents, from collecting non-economic damages when medical malpractice ends a life.

Families who have been stricken by medical malpractice and wrongful death have given this statute a blunt name that sticks because it tells the truth in two words: “free kill.” And, despite overwhelming bipartisan votes to repeal it, twice, Governor Ron DeSantis has used his veto pen to keep this corrupt statute on the books, continuing the pattern of catering to hospital lobbyists and protecting the medical malpractice insurance industry and the fallible doctors that hide behind this payout system. In Florida, families continue to bury their loved ones without recourse – their loss belittled.

Key points:

• Florida Statute §768.21(8), combined with the age-25 line drawn in §768.18(2), bars parents and adult children from suing for pain and suffering in medical malpractice deaths if the victim was unmarried and had no minor children.
• Florida is the only state that applies this restriction specifically to medical malpractice, meaning the same family could sue for grief damages if the death came from a car crash, but not from a hospital’s error.
• The Florida Legislature passed repeal bills in both 2025 and 2026 with overwhelming, bipartisan support. Governor DeSantis vetoed the 2025 version, HB 6017, and the 2026 version, HB 6003, passed the House but died in the Senate.
• DeSantis has defended the law by pointing to insurance costs, physician shortages, and what he has called “jackpot justice,” while families argue the real effect is shielding negligent providers from accountability.
• The Suto family of Florida says the law blocked them from pursuing civil accountability after their grandfather died in 2021 following treatment they allege included undisclosed risks and a forged death certificate.
• A privately commissioned forensic autopsy in the Suto case ruled the death a homicide, yet the family says state agencies, prosecutors, and law enforcement all declined to act.

A 1990 carve-out that hospital insurance money has kept alive

Lawmakers wrote the disgusting exception into Florida’s Wrongful Death Act in 1990, making the case that shielding doctors and hospitals from the cost of certain lawsuits would preserve malpractice insurance premiums and keep physicians from leaving the state. Three and a half decades later, the same justification still gets repeated in Tallahassee, even as analysts note that insurance costs climbed during this time anyway.

Under §768.18(2), the law draws a hard line at age 25. If a patient who dies from malpractice was unmarried, had no children under that age, and was themselves 25 or older, the surviving parents cannot recover non-economic damages, the kind meant to account for grief, mental anguish, and loss of companionship. Every other state recognizes this grief and recognizes the reality that doctors are fallible; these states allow families to pursue justice and compensation. This is not some “jackpot justice” system either, where people are looking for some kind of lottery winning. Families are typically shortchanged by insurance company negotiations in the final mediation and court rulings. Financial compensation is a small price to pay for someone who was murdered by the medical system, whom you can’t get back in your waking life.

State Senator Danny Burgess, a Zephyrhills Republican who supported the repeal of the statute, summed up the arithmetic problem with the age cutoff rule. During the debate he said there is no difference between a 25-year-and-364-day-old adult and a 26-year-old when it comes to the value of a life. The Legislature evidently agreed in large numbers. HB 6017 passed the House 104-6 and the Senate 33-4 in 2025, only for DeSantis to veto it that May. DeSantis cited the absence of caps on damages and warned that uncapped lawsuits would drive up health care costs and shrink access to care. The 2026 attempt, HB 6003, met the same caps impasse and stalled in the Senate after clearing the House, leaving the statute fully intact as of this writing.

Families without a path to justice

For the Suto family, the law is not an abstraction. Ethan Suto and his mother, Jana, say it has prevented them from holding two Florida physicians accountable after his grandfather, Stefan, died in December 2021 following treatment that included intravenous hydrogen peroxide, ozonated saline, and a non-cross matched blood transfusion. Suto said the physicians discouraged hospitalization while assuring the family that his grandfather was stable. Ethan Suto said, “all of my grandfather’s treatment was done without any informed consent whatsoever.” To make matters worse, a privately commissioned forensic autopsy later ruled the death a homicide, and the family says a physician listed on the death certificate has stated under oath he never treated Stefan and never signed it.

“We could not find closure as a family. We had no answers,” Jana Suto said. “These doctors are dangerous to the public. And we cannot get my daddy back, but we can prevent this from happening again to somebody else’s father, somebody else’s daughter.” Dr. Teresa Mahaffey, a Florida pediatrician who has testified in support of repeal, described the imbalance of power in the Capitol plainly, saying the presence of insurance, pharmaceutical, and medical industry representatives at hearings signaled the fight would be difficult, because, in her words, “money talks, especially in capitals.” It doesn’t matter who you are or what you stand for: if you practice alternative, experimental therapies and treatment protocols without provided informed consent, and they have negative outcomes, you should be held to account.

However, the Free Kill law in Florida shuts down full recourse for this family, and they are not alone! The state continues to shield doctors accused of medical malpractice, which is like spitting on the graves of those who died in their care, and leaving the surviving families without the compensation and comfort they need in order to heal properly.

Sources include:

Lawschack.com

FloridaSocietyofNephrology.com

WFLA.com