When a jury orders a Florida government to pay a victim more than $200,000, the Florida Legislature has to approve the payout. The Florida Legislature meets next year, and they will have to decide on 21 relief bills.
Statewide, 21 victims are asking lawmakers to approve settlements worth more than $43.6 million dollars.
That includes relief for Erin Joynt, who was on vacation from Kansas when she was run over by a beach patrol truck driving outside the designated lanes. The accident happened in 2011 and now Joynt’s lawyers are asking for state approval for Volusia County to pay the family $1.9 million dollars.
Another relief bill would allow the Department of Children and Families to pay $950,000 for failing to oversee a group home in Orlando where a disabled woman was raped and impregnated in 2002.
