School Bus Crash in Fort Myers? Here’s Your Immediate Action Plan
Florida Statute 768.28 puts a $200,000 cap on what you can recover from the Lee County School District. That number sounds large until you have a child with a head injury and a hospital bill running past it. The cap is the first legal fact I explain to parents who call our office after a school bus crash in Fort Myers, because it shapes everything that comes after — which defendants we name, how we investigate the at-fault driver, and whether there is a path around the government limit through a claims bill or a co-defendant without the cap.
There is also the 180-day notice requirement under §768.28, which has killed cases that had strong facts. Miss the written notice to the school district and the Department of Financial Services and you cannot sue, regardless of what the evidence shows. This post walks through those statutes, the three duties of care that are usually in play on a Fort Myers school bus case, and what to do in the first twenty-four hours so you do not lose options before you know you had them.
The Florida statutes that decide a school bus case
Three Florida laws do most of the heavy lifting on a school bus crash. You do not need to memorize them, but knowing they exist will keep you from accepting the first phone call from an adjuster and signing something you should not.
The first is the school bus stop-arm law, Florida Statute 316.172. In plain English, when a school bus stops on a two-lane road with its red lights flashing and stop arm extended, every car in both directions has to stop. On a divided highway with a raised median or unpaved separation, only the cars behind the bus and across an unraised painted center have to stop. The cars on the far side of a true median do not. I have seen parents lose perfectly winnable cases because a witness was confused about which configuration the road actually had. McGregor Boulevard south of College Parkway has a painted center turn lane, not a true median, so stop-arm liability applies in both directions there. Six Mile Cypress Parkway between Daniels Parkway and Colonial Boulevard is divided with a raised median, so it is the opposite. Tiny detail; big consequence.
The second is Florida Statute 316.1985, the backing-vehicle duty statute. When a bus is reversing in a school loading zone and hits a child or a parent’s car, that statute puts the burden squarely on the driver to confirm the path is clear before moving. Most defense lawyers will not concede this point in deposition; you have to back them into it with the statute.
The third is Florida Statute 316.130, the crosswalk yield statute. It comes into play when a child is hit walking to or from the bus stop. Drivers must yield to pedestrians in any marked or unmarked crosswalk at an intersection. The statute is the reason a driver who hits a child at the corner of Cleveland Avenue and a side street near a bus stop almost always has a hard road defending the case.
And there is one rule about children themselves that every Florida parent should know. Under Swindell v. Hellkamp, Florida applies what trial lawyers call the Rule of 6 — if a child is under the age of six, a jury is not allowed to assign any percentage of fault to that child, even if the child ran into the street, chased a ball, or did something a teenager would be blamed for. The law treats children under six as conclusively incapable of comparative negligence. That single rule has changed the outcome of more child-pedestrian cases in our office than any other.
Who actually owes a duty of care on a school bus route
A school bus crash is rarely a one-defendant case. In a typical claim out of our Fort Myers satellite office, there are three to five different duties of care in play, and any one of them can be the breach that ends up paying the recovery.
The bus driver owes a heightened duty because she is moving children. The Lee County School District owes a duty to hire, train, supervise, route, and maintain the bus and its driver. Contractors sometimes own a piece of that too — the company that services the brakes, the company that loaded the after-school activity bus, the after-care provider that walked the kids to the loading zone. The third-party driver who actually struck the bus has the same duty any motorist has on Florida roads.
And then there is the bus stop itself. Where a district has placed a stop on a road like Summerlin Road with high speed and no sidewalk, we have argued in the past that the stop location was itself a negligent decision. Those arguments do not always carry the day against the district because of sovereign immunity, but they sometimes shake loose a co-defendant.
The defense tactics you should expect
The school district’s insurer and the impaired-driver’s insurer will not run the same playbook. The district’s people will lean on sovereign immunity, the 180-day notice requirement, and the $200,000 statutory cap to try to get you to accept a small number quickly. The third-party driver’s insurer will try something different. They will try to name the parent as what Florida lawyers call a Fabre defendant.
The Fabre defendant doctrine comes from Fabre v. Marin, a 1993 Florida Supreme Court case. In plain English, it lets a defendant put a non-party on the verdict form and ask the jury to assign a percentage of fault to that non-party. In school bus cases the favorite Fabre target is the parent — the argument that you, the parent, should not have let your child walk to the bus stop alone, or should not have allowed her to ride that route, or should not have permitted her to sit in a certain seat. I do not love that defense, but you will see it raised, and the way you counter it is with documentation about the route, the school’s own policies, and the district’s recommendations to parents.
You will also see “sudden emergency” raised when an impaired driver swerves into the bus. The argument is that the driver was reacting reasonably to an unforeseen event. The DUI evidence usually kills that defense, but only if your lawyer gets the toxicology, the bodycam, and the dash cam early and preserves them before anyone has a reason to lose them.
The 2023 tort reform and what it actually changed for you
Florida’s 2023 tort reform package, House Bill 837, changed a few things that matter on a school bus case. The statute of limitations on most negligence claims dropped from four years to two years for any incident occurring on or after March 24, 2023. The clock on a school bus crash today runs at two years, not four. The Notice of Claim requirement on the school district itself is governed by Florida Statute 768.28 and still requires service within three years for negligence and 180 days of waiting before suit can be filed — but you should plan around the two-year filing deadline regardless and not let the longer notice window mislead you.
The other change was to comparative negligence. Florida moved from “pure” comparative fault to a modified system. If a jury finds you more than 50% at fault, you recover nothing. At 50% or less, your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault. This is exactly why the Fabre arguments against parents matter so much now — the defense is trying to push the parent’s share over 50% and zero out the case. Do not give them ammunition by telling the adjuster more than you have to.
A DUI crash involving a family with children — how we built it
A Fort Myers family came to us after a head-on collision on a major Fort Myers road. The other driver was impaired — well above the legal limit by the time he was tested at the hospital. The father had multiple fractures and internal bruising. His wife was in the passenger seat with their children belted in the back. By the grace of God, the kids walked out of the wreck with bruises and a story they will never forget.
We sat down with the family the day after the crash. That single decision shaped the next nine months. He healed cleanly. No second surgery. No permanent hardware that would haunt him on a settlement-value chart.
On the legal side, we hit the impaired driver’s policy hard and early. We made the carrier understand we knew what we had — the toxicology, the criminal disposition, the witness statements, and a treating surgeon who would testify clearly about the mechanism of injury. We recovered the maximum policy limits available to the family. The case did not need a trial; it needed the insurer to look at the file and conclude that going to a Lee County jury on a drunk-driver-versus-a-young-family fact pattern was the worst decision their company could make.
I think about that case often because it could just as easily have been the school bus on the morning route at Daniels Parkway and Six Mile Cypress Parkway. Same impaired driver, different vehicle in the lane. The fact pattern would have been more complicated and the recovery would have come from a different set of pockets, but the work to get there starts the same way: early, careful, and with the family treated as family.
What to do if your child was hurt in a school bus crash
Here is the short list, in the order I would do it if it were my own grandchild.
- Get your child to an emergency room or pediatric urgent care that same day, even if you think the injury is minor. Children mask concussion symptoms differently than adults. Lee Health and the children’s services at Golisano are well set up for this. The medical record from day one is what the case will be built on.
- Photograph everything. The bus number on the side and rear, the inside of your child’s car or backpack if she was on the bus, the road, the skid marks, the position of any other vehicle, the stop sign and crosswalk paint if it was a walking-route incident. Take more than you think you need.
- Get the names and phone numbers of every adult on scene — other parents, the bus driver, any teacher or aide who responded. Witness memory is best in the first 24 hours. After a week, the details start to blur.
- Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance company, including your own, until you have spoken with a lawyer. You are not required to. The adjuster’s job is to lock you into a version of the facts before you know what happened.
- Keep a small notebook. Write down what you observe about your child each day — sleep, appetite, headaches, mood, school refusal, fear of getting back on the bus. I have used this approach with parents of children involved in motor vehicle wrecks and noticed that they tend to recover better when someone is paying close attention and writing it down. The notebook also becomes evidence later in a way nothing else can.
- Save the backpack, the shoes, the lunch box. Anything from the wreck. Do not wash the clothes. I know that sounds odd, but the physical evidence has settled cases on its own more than once in our practice.
- Call a lawyer who has done these cases before the school district’s risk-management office calls you. The district has a process, and that process is designed to protect the district. You need someone on the other side of the table from day one.
Key Takeaways
- School bus crashes against the Lee County School District trigger Florida Statute 768.28 — written notice required and a $200,000 per-person, $300,000 per-incident statutory cap unless a claims bill passes the Legislature.
- The 2023 tort reform shortened the negligence filing deadline from four years to two years; modified comparative negligence now bars recovery if you are more than 50% at fault.
- Florida’s Rule of 6 from Swindell v. Hellkamp bars any assignment of fault to a child under six — a powerful protection in pedestrian-to-bus-stop and dart-out cases.
- The Fabre defendant doctrine from Fabre v. Marin is the third-party driver’s favorite move against parents in these cases. Document the route, the school’s policies, and the district’s guidance early.
- Get medical care the same day. Do not give a recorded statement. Photograph the bus number, the road, and the scene. Save physical evidence. Call a lawyer before the district calls you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. My child was on a Lee County school bus that crashed. Do I sue the school district or the other driver?
It depends on who caused the wreck. If a third-party driver ran a light or rear-ended the bus, your claim is primarily against that driver and their insurer. If the bus driver caused the collision or contributed to it, you have a claim against the Lee County School District under Florida’s limited sovereign-immunity statute. In most school-bus cases we work, more than one party shares fault, and we file against all of them.
Q2. How long do I have to file a claim against the Lee County School District?
Under Florida Statute 768.28, you must serve a written Notice of Claim on the school district and the Department of Financial Services and then wait 180 days before you can file suit. The underlying lawsuit must be filed within two years of the crash for negligence claims against a government entity. Miss the notice step and the case can be dismissed regardless of how strong the facts are. Get a lawyer involved early so the notice is drafted correctly the first time.
Q3. A school bus hit my car in Fort Myers. Whose insurance pays first?
Your own PIP, no matter who caused the wreck. Florida’s no-fault system requires your PIP to pay the first $10,000 of medical bills and lost wages. After that, if your injuries meet Florida’s threshold for a bodily-injury claim, you can pursue the school district’s liability coverage or the at-fault driver’s coverage. Uninsured-motorist coverage on your own auto policy can also stack in if the at-fault driver was underinsured.
Q4. What is the sovereign-immunity cap on a Florida school district claim?
Florida Statute 768.28 caps damages against any state agency or political subdivision, including a school district, at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident. If the verdict or settlement is larger than the cap, the only path to collect the rest is a claims bill passed by the Florida Legislature, which takes years and is not guaranteed. That cap is one reason these cases need to be built carefully from day one to identify every non-government defendant in the chain.
Q5. The other driver was impaired when he hit the school bus. Does that change anything?
Yes, in three ways. First, the DUI itself is strong evidence of negligence and often shifts liability cleanly to the impaired driver. Second, punitive damages may be available under Florida Statute 768.72, which can sit on top of the compensatory recovery. Third, if the impaired driver was served alcohol while obviously intoxicated, Florida’s dram-shop statute (768.125) opens up a claim against the bar or restaurant. We dig into the receipts on those cases.
Talk to Our Family About Yours
If your child or someone you love was hurt in a school bus crash anywhere in Lee County, call our office. I will sit with you, walk through what happened, and tell you straight what we think the case is worth and what it will take to build it. The first conversation is a free consultation. There is no fee unless we recover for you.
Pittman Law Firm, P.L. — 239-992-8259
About the Author
David B. Pittman, Esq. is a thirty-plus-year personal injury attorney in Fort Myers and across Lee County and the founder of Pittman Law Firm, P.L., with a particular concentration in child-pedestrian injuries and family-injury claims. The firm’s Fort Myers presence handles a steady stream of serious-injury work along the Daniels Parkway, Six Mile Cypress, McGregor Boulevard, Cleveland Avenue, and Summerlin Road corridors, and along I-75 between Estero and Bell Tower.
Educationally, David is a graduate of both The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, and the University of South Carolina School of Law. Professionally, he holds AV-Preeminent status with Martindale-Hubbell and Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum membership.
David has held a Florida real estate broker license for twenty-five years, a credential that shapes how the firm reads the property side of premises cases. The firm handles personal injury cases across Lee and Collier Counties, serving Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Naples, Cape Coral, Estero, and Lehigh Acres, with offices at Windsor Place in Bonita Springs (main) and Fort Myers (satellite). Call 239-992-8259 for a free consultation.
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