TALLAHASSEE — Injured due to negligence by your city or county? You will soon be able to recover more in damages without having to seek out your state lawmaker to help you get the money you are owed.

In current law, if a person is injured because of a negligent act by the state or local government, they may only get $200,000, regardless of what a jury or settlement awarded them. If they want more than that amount, they’ll have to ask a state lawmaker to take up their case and pass a claim bill for the money — an extensive and expensive process.

Now, the injured person can get a bit more without legislative intervention — up to $350,000.

The change is in a bill, HB 145, which the Legislature passed on Thursday. The bill will now head to Gov. Ron DeSantis. He may veto it. If he does not, it will become law Oct. 1.

Rep. Fiona McFarland wanted even more expansive changes, including a higher cap and a process that could circumvent the Legislature altogether. But, amid pushback from local governments, the Senate wouldn’t go for it.

“Although this isn’t the full amount that I have been asking the House to support for a number of years, I think this will still do a lot of good for those victims who have been a victim of negligence by their local government,” McFarland, a Sarasota Republican, said before the bill passed.

In addition to increasing the amount a single victim could get from a lawsuit against their government, the bill will also increase the amount multiple people can get from the same incident. It increases the per-incident amount from $300,000 to $500,000.

Before the Legislature passed the bill, a coalition of local governments including school districts, counties, cities and hospitals, urged lawmakers to reject it.

The changes “could negatively affect public services, and the taxpayers that pay for those services,” the coalition wrote in a letter to the House and Senate.

Among the eight cases lawmakers took up this year to try to get victims injured by their local governments higher payouts, one would fit within the new payout caps. A claim for $500,000 will go to a married couple this year, if DeSantis doesn’t veto it, for injuries the wife sustained in 2017 after “she was struck by a malfunctioning automatic gate arm while exiting the Gables by the Sea community on her bicycle in Miami-Dade County,” according to the bill.

Lawmakers passed it in a “claim” bill. Two others they passed include a $2.3 million case where a man was severely injured in 2023 after being arrested for trespassing while sleeping in a St. Petersburg park; and a for $4.1 million case where a man was hit by a Miami-Dade bus in 2021. In all three instances, the local governments settled.

The legislative session will wrap on Friday. Any bill outside the budget that doesn’t pass by then is dead. Lawmakers are expected to come back and pass the budget in a special session.

McFarland said she hoped the higher payout caps would at least help victims get legal representation. Attorneys normally take a portion of the payout for their fee.

“If that number is $350,000, my hope is that it opens the door for more attorneys to be able to bring a valid claim to suit,” McFarland said.