PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Two years after her only daughter died just hours after leaving a Florida hospital, Beth Miller says she is still searching for answers.
She also wants to make sure another family does not face the same barriers she has encountered.
WATCH REPORT BELOW: Florida mom fights 'free kill' law after daughter's death
"I would like to be the only one," Miller said. "I know what it feels like. I don't want anybody else to have to go through this."
Miller's daughter, Dawn Miller, was 49 when she died after undergoing gallbladder surgery.
A previous WPTV investigation found medical records showed Dawn initially "tolerated the procedure well." But her condition later changed.
Her hemoglobin dropped. Doctors confirmed sepsis, a potentially life-threatening response to infection, and lab results the morning of her discharge showed decreased kidney function.
Records also show Dawn twice resisted leaving the hospital, telling medical staff she felt "weak" and "not ready to go home."
She was discharged anyway.
Minutes after arriving home, she collapsed.
"I couldn't get her to breathe," Beth Miller recalled. "And I just felt so helpless. You know, and then you're staring at your daughter trying to do CPR, and nothing's happening."
Dawn was pronounced dead about two hours after leaving the hospital.
Dr. Gerald Feigin, a medical examiner and forensic pathologist who reviewed Dawn's medical records for WPTV, said he believes she should not have been discharged.
"She should have been given emergency transfusions and [they should] figure out why she was bleeding," Feigin said. "Possibly had additional surgery."
Feigin also said the hospital should have performed an autopsy.
It did not.
WPTV previously reported Beth Miller requested an autopsy after her daughter's death, but the hospital declined to perform one. The hospital also declined to answer WPTV's questions about Dawn's case.
"I don't have an answer to this day," Miller said. "It's on your mind 24/7."
A legal barrier to seeking damages
Miller hoped she might find answers through the legal system.
But Florida law creates another obstacle.
A provision of the Florida Wrongful Death Act restricts which surviving family members can recover certain damages in medical malpractice cases.
Critics have dubbed it Florida's "free kill" law.
Under the provision, parents generally cannot recover certain damages for the medical malpractice death of an adult child age 25 or older. Adult children also face restrictions on recovering those damages for the death of a parent.
Dawn was unmarried, in her 40s, and had no children.
"Unless she had kids or a spouse, there's nothing I can do," Miller said.
Jordan Dulce, a West Palm Beach trial attorney who previously defended hospitals in medical malpractice cases, is among the critics calling for the law to change.
"It's completely arbitrary," Dulce said.
Dulce said potential liability is something hospitals consider as part of risk management.
"I can tell you, from a risk management perspective, it's very much on their radar," he said.
Critics argue the law can reduce the potential financial consequences when alleged medical negligence results in the death of certain patients compared with others.
Dulce argues that it can weaken one of the financial incentives intended to promote accountability and patient safety.
"It's not meaning that you're intending to hurt someone," he said. "But obviously, when you don't have those guardrails up, certainly the quality of health care suffers."
Why does the law exist?
Florida enacted the provision in 1990 amid concerns over the cost and availability of medical malpractice insurance.
Federal data show Florida had the sixth-highest number of medical malpractice claim payouts in the country that year.
A Yale Journal on Regulation study also found average malpractice premiums had more than quadrupled over a four-year period, from about $4,300 to $18,000.
At the time, proponents of the law argued rising malpractice costs were threatening access to doctors and driving physicians out of the state.
But some of those claims later came under scrutiny.
A 2003 U.S. Government Accountability Office report examined reports of physician shortages in Florida and other states and found some widely cited claims were "anecdotal" or "inaccurate."
In one example, medical society officials reported two Florida counties had lost all of their neurosurgeons. GAO investigators found at least five neurosurgeons were still practicing in each county.
The report also found the number of new medical licenses in Florida had increased while the number of physicians per capita remained relatively unchanged.
"There's been no actual studies or evidence or support for this law actually doing what it was intended to do," Dulce said.
Florida's malpractice insurance market today
Florida's medical malpractice insurance market has since stabilized.
A 2026 report from Florida's Office of Insurance Regulation found the industry was "doing well," with annual premium increases far below the triple-digit increases seen during the insurance crisis of the late 1980s.
The report, however, attributed much of that stabilization to malpractice reforms enacted in 2003 — more than a decade after the wrongful-death provision took effect.
Florida also remains among the most expensive states in the country for medical malpractice insurance, ranking third nationwide.
"No matter what we try to do to limit the victim's right to courts, that has never stopped the insurance industry from continuing to increase their prices because that's their model," Dulce said. "At the end of the day, trying to value life from the Legislature's standpoint, I think, is always improper."
'I don't want anybody else to have to go through this'
WPTV reached out to several local state lawmakers to share Miller's story and ask about the law. None have yet agreed to sit down for an interview.
For Miller, the debate is more than a question of insurance rates, liability or state policy.
It is about the daughter she still pictures lying on the floor of her home.
"It will always be difficult," Miller said. "I see her laying on that floor all the time."
She said she will continue speaking publicly in hopes of convincing lawmakers to change the law.
"To get this point across, to make it so other people don't have to go through this suffering," Miller said.
Last year, Florida lawmakers passed legislation that would have repealed the provision, but the bill never took effect.
In the next part of WPTV's investigation, investigative reporter Kate Hussey examines what happened to that effort — and shares the stories of other Florida families who say they have encountered the same legal barrier.