A Miami-Dade woman severely injured by a malfunctioning security gate is one step closer to long-delayed compensation after lawmakers cleared a key hurdle on the House floor.
House members voted 108-0 for the bill (HB 6515), which would authorize the county to pay Lourdes Latour and her husband, Edward Latour, $500,000 for injuries stemming from the 2017 accident.
The vote sends the measure by Coral Gables Republican Rep. Demi Busatta to the Senate, where a companion bill (SB 24) awaits final consideration.
If enacted, the legislation would clear the final portion of an $800,000 settlement tied to a jury verdict that found Miami-Dade fully liable for Latour’s injuries, but restricted from paying out the full sum by current Florida law.
HB 6515 is a claims bills, a special classification of legislation intended to compensate a person or entity for injury or loss due to the negligence or error of a public officer or agency.
Claims bills arise when the damages a claimant seeks are above the thresholds set in Florida’s sovereign immunity law, which today caps payouts at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident.
Last month, the House voted 104-7 to increase the caps to $500,000 and $1 million, respectively, with a 20% increase in 2031. That measure, sponsored by Sarasota Republican Rep. Fiona McFarland, would also allow local governments to settle claims above those caps without action from the Legislature.
Ahead of Wednesday’s vote on HB 6515, McFarland pointed to the Latours’ issue as proof that the current system isn’t working for Florida’s citizens or its local governments. She noted that the sum HB 6515 seeks to pay the couple is the same Miami-Dade agreed to pay, and the county isn’t contesting the award.
“With our passage of the good sovereign immunity bill, we explicitly say that a local government may pay a settlement case,” she said.
Rep. Dianne Hart-Lowman, a Tampa Democrat, said she’s carrying a claims bill this year to pay a woman about $600,000 as compensation for injuries she sustained in 2012 due to the negligence of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.
“We must not allow people to go this many years without taking care of them when somebody in local government has injured them,” Hart-Lowman said. “This is madness.”
Lourdes Latour suffered permanent nerve damage on Nov. 5, 2017, when a faulty security gate arm struck her and threw her from her bicycle as she exited the Gables by the Sea community. She and her husband sued the county the following year, alleging negligence in the ownership, operation and maintenance of the gate.
In January 2025, a jury agreed, finding the county 100% at fault and awarding the couple more than $4.9 million for pain and suffering, physical impairment, disfigurement, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life and loss of companionship and services.
Because of Florida’s liability limits for government entities, the parties ultimately settled for $800,000, with $300,000 paid directly by the county and $500,000 contingent on approval of a claims bill.
HB 6515 will now go to the Senate, where SB 42 sponsor Joe Gruters, a Sarasota Republican, will either substitute it for his bill, which Doral Republican Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez is co-sponsoring, or table it in favor of his bill.
