Florida injury attorney

Florida’s 4th District Court of Appeal recently weighed the issue of whether it was proper to grant default judgment against the owner of a vehicle in a car accident lawsuit when there had not yet been a determination on the liability of the alleged negligent driver.

The court’s answer: No.

Beyond that, the court determined the insurance company seeking subrogation in this action, Kotlyer v. Metro Casualty Insurance Co., had wrongly characterized the damages as “liquidated” when in fact they were “unliquidated.” The reason that matters is that courts can’t issue a default judgment without a hearing on unliquidated damages because a hearing is required to determine the exact amount. No hearing had been granted in this case before the judgment was rendered.

A default judgment is a binding judgment in favor of one party on the basis of some failure to take action by the other party. In most cases, default judgment is issued when one party fails to respond or appear before a court of law. Continue reading ›

Florida courts do not allow plaintiffs in most car accident cases to raise the issue of defendant insurance due to concern that jurors would treat insured defendants differently from those who lacked insurance.

It is in a similar vein that courts generally don’t allow defendants to mention whether plaintiff seeking compensation for medical bills had health insurance coverage. Courts don’t want jurors giving less compensation to plaintiffs who had coverage (and maybe only paid a fraction of billed costs out-of-pocket) than those who didn’t (and are therefore solely responsible for paying bills in full). This is known as the collateral source rule, and the key is that wrongdoers shouldn’t be allowed to benefit just because plaintiff received compensation from some other source. A plaintiff’s compensation from a third party doesn’t make the actions any less wrong.

However, that also doesn’t mean plaintiffs are necessarily entitled to receive double recovery. Usually, the insurance company intercedes and collects its fair share. Continue reading ›

Articles Tagged with Florida injury attorney

Kotlyer v. Metro Casualty Insurance Co. – Florida Car Accident Default Judgment Improper

Uspenskaya v. Meline – Collateral Source Rule in Injury Cases