The Florida Insurance Law Blog
By Jeffrey T. Donner, Esq.
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Update: There have been some last-minute changes to the changes (as of December 6, 2024) since I published this article September 2, 2024: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-news/florida-supreme-court-revises-civil-case-management-reforms-before-january-1-implementation/. The remainder of this article is as I published it on September 2 (I have not had time to edit it): Several significant changes are coming to the Florida Rules of
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You need a real trial lawyer representing you if you’re going to go to trial. You need one who is not only fearless, but well versed in the law. The law governing trials—the evidence and argument that is allowed—is extremely complicated. For example, there are a lot of conflicting appellate opinions on the issue of
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Florida law permits lawyers quite a bit of latitude to argue aggressively. American lawyers are taught that we use “the adversarial system,” meaning that each side is to make its best argument, as zealously as possible, and the result will be that truth and justice is found. Lawyers, however, cannot make arguments that do not
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Trial courts have discretion to impose sanctions for discovery violations, but that discretion has limits. The case of Griefer v. DiPietro, 708 So. 2d 666 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998) includes a nice analysis of the law. In Griefer, the Fourth District held that the trial court abused its discretion in completely excluding the testimony of
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The Fourth District recently addressed the measure of damages recoverable for the breach of a replacement cost property insurance policy, in a denial as opposed to a price-and-scope case, when the insured sells the property before making repairs. See Universal Property & Casualty Ins. Co. v. Qureshi, ___ So. 3d ___ (Fla. 4th DCA 2024).
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The Fourth District just reminded us—again—that an insured must provide the insurance company with prompt notice of a claim to have any prayer of winning in a lawsuit against the insurance company alleging a wrongful denial of coverage. In the last two years, the cases in which insurance companies have won on this issue have
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In Premark Intern., Inc. v. Pierson, 823 So. 2d 859 (Fla. 5th DCA 2002), the Fifth District considered a case in which the trial court struck an expert witness based on a problem coordinating the expert’s availability for a CME. This is an important case for those of us handling first-party property insurance cases in
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Striking of Pleadings is an Often Favored Remedy for a Party’s Misconduct in the Litigation Process.
In Empire World Towers, LLC v. CDR Creances, S.A.S., 89 So. 3d 1034 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012), the Third District confronted a case with an incredible set of facts involving brazen fraud on the court. Leon Cohen, Maurice Cohen, and Sonia Cohen (collectively, the “Cohens”) appealed from a final order granting CDR Créances’ (the “Bank”)
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In Homeowners Choice v. Thompson, 377 So.3d 1204 (Fla. 1st DCA 2023), notorious wannabe bully, Curt Allen, got verbally spanked yet again. Curt had his client, the insurer, claim that its claims and underwriting files were categorically protected against discovery in the insured homeowners’ first-party breach of contract lawsuit. In Thompson, Hurricane Sally had damaged
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In First Cmty. Ins. Co. v. Adjei, 365 So. 3d 1208 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023), the Third District considered a first-party property insurance case in which the trial court entered a nonfinal order compelling appraisal. The appellate court held that the trial court violated the insurer’s due process rights by considering and adjudicating the appraisal issue when no proper
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