Victory in Uninsured Motorist Case: Judgement Limited

February 3, 2025 by on News

Drew W. Peeler and Kevin D. Franz represent an insurer in a uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM) action brought for personal injuries from an auto accident. Plaintiff obtained a verdict of $1,700,000 and moved the trial court to (1) enter a judgment in the full amount of the verdict with execution limited to the insurer’s policy limits; (2) grant leave for Plaintiff to bring a statutory bad faith action against the insurer; and (3) have the judgment provide that the amount of the verdict is the amount recoverable in a subsequent bad faith action.

Through effective legal arguments, the trial court was persuaded to (1) limit the judgment, in total, to the policy limits based on the 2024 2nd District Court of Appeals case State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Finson; (2) deny Plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend; and (3) decline Plaintiff’s invitation to have the judgment provide that the amount of bad faith damages equals the verdict given that section 624.155, Florida Statutes, now allows a jury in a bad faith action to apportion fault.

Kevin D. Franz

 

Kevin D. Franz is a partner and Practice Group Leader of the firm’s Appellate Practice division. Mr. Franz has been Board Certified in Appellate Practice by The Florida Bar since 2019. He has received the Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent® Peer Review Rating and has 20 years of experience handling all types of civil appellate proceedings. Mr. Franz has handled appeals and petitions in the Supreme Court of Florida, the six District Courts of Appeal for the State of Florida, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Drew W. Peeler

 

Drew Peeler is an associate with the Appellate Practice division, working remotely from Tampa, Florida. Drew graduated from the University of Florida Levin College of Law in 2020, where he was an executive board member of the Florida Moot Court Team and the John Marshall Bar Association.  As a member of the Florida Moot Court Team, Drew was a participant in both the Final Four Competition and the Raymer F. Maguire Appellate Advocacy Competition where he presented argument on the University of Florida campus in front of members of the Florida Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

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