In August of 1917, La Badie was at the height of her motion picture success. She had appeared in an astonishing 185 films since 1909, just 32 shy of Mary Pickford`s 217 by that same time period. Her film The Woman in White had just been released in July, 1917. Her latest two films, The Man Without a Country, a film adaptation of Edward Everett Hale`s The Man Without a Country, and War and the Woman, would also soon be released, both on September 9th, 1917. Although "Thanhouser Corporation" had been struggling since the 1914 automobile accident death of Charles J. Hite, La Badie`s career was thriving and had been their saving grace. Less than a month earlier, she had announced that she was departing "Thanhouser", and she had several other film corporations willing to pick her up on contract immediately.

On August 28, 1917, while driving near Ossining, New York in the company of her co-worker and fiance Daniel Carson Goodman, the brakes on Florence La Badie’s car failed and the vehicle plunged down a hill overturning at the bottom. While Daniel Goodman escaped with only a broken leg, Ms. La Badie was thrown from the vehicle and suffered serious injuries, with a compound fracture of the pelvis. Hospitalized, she clung to life for more than two weeks and seemed to be improving, when she suddenly died from what was described as an infection, more specifically septicemia.

With her passing, Florence La Badie became the first major female film star to die while her career was at its peak, and the movie-going public mourned her passing. After a large funeral, she was interred in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, the same cemetery included by Marie C. Russ in her legal proceedings days before La Badie`s death, with Marie Russ claiming to have been her actual birth mother in sworn deposition. Obituary notices stated that she was survived by her mother, Amanda La Badie, with no mention of her ever having been adopted as would have been customary at the time.

With her untimely death, it is unknown as to what her prolonged impact on the film industry would have been, and though she is little known today, at the time she was a top billed star. Under New York laws the property of her estate was divided between her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph La Badie.