TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Late Thursday afternoon after a series of delays and proposed amendments to add a cap on damages failed, the Florida Senate passed House Bill 6017 to outright repeal a law commonly referred to as the ‘Free Kill’ law.

“This is a 35-year-old law that needs to be repealed,” State Senator Clay Yarborough from Jacksonville said from the Senate floor. “It’s unjust. It shouldn’t be on the books.”

The 33 to 4 vote came as a welcome surprise to families who have been fighting for years to get the controversial law repealed.

 “We figured there was going to be another caps amendment that would get voted on and that if the caps didn’t pass, that the bill just wouldn’t be heard. We cannot believe we are at this place. It’s just unbelievable,” Cindy Jenkins said. “He read the bill as a clean repeal and it almost unanimously passed the Senate floor, and I would say our reaction is shock.”

Shock because all previous efforts to get the law repealed have failed. The passage in the Senate comes more than a month after the Florida House approved the bill in a 104 to 6 vote.

It’s a law Jenkins didn’t know about until her 25-year-old daughter, Taylor, died.

“If you lose your loved ones to medical negligence in a Florida hospital and they are 25 or older, unmarried, and don’t have children under 25, you have no recourse. Your right to the civil justice system is blocked,” Jenkins said.

Like Jenkins, Sabrina Davis has made countless trips to the State Capitol since her father, a veteran, died in a Florida hospital due to medical negligence.

“Today was history,” Sabrina Davis said. “Today we made history. I feel like we are one step closer to restoring the freedom my dad fought for.”

“We are thankful, but we don’t want to have a premature celebration because we’re not done. We want to see this successfully get signed off on, and I think then we’ll really be able to celebrate,” Darcy McGuill said. She lost her mother in 2023 and was barred from suing due to the ‘Free Kill’ law.

The bill now heads to Governor Ron DeSantis’s desk. If he receives the bill before the session ends he will have seven days to either sign it, veto it, or do nothing and have it become law without his signature. If he gets the bill after the session ends, he will have 14 days to take action.

“We’ve come so far, but we’re not done yet,” Davis said. “I don’t know what the governor will do. We are known as the Free State of Florida. I hope he does the right thing. Only time will tell. I’m staying hopeful, and I will definitely keep praying that he do the right thing.”

They are urging everyone in favor of repealing the decades old law to contact the governor.

“They can either call his office, they can write a short email, or they can tag him on social media,” Lauren Korniyenko, who lost her mother, said. “He does pay attention to that.”

These families know repealing this law won’t allow them access to the courts, but they’re determined no other family will be left without a voice. So now their attention shifts from the Senate floor to the Governor’s Office because for them it’s about protecting others in the future.

“Our loved ones will never have justice. This will not change anything for us,” Jenkins said. “We will always be blocked out of the judicial system. We did this in honor of our loved ones and so that everybody from July 1 on, if we can get this signed into law, we’ll never meet this fate. So, we really did it for others because we don’t want them to be in our shoes.”