This text continues from CHANGES IN LATITUDE, 2023 CHANGES ATTITUDE: FLORIDA LEGISLATURE & BAD FAITH, posted June 5, 2023. There might have been some articles on associated subjects posted right here within the interim, as effectively. That’s all to the great.
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First, the 90-day interval laid out in new Subsection (4)(a) of Florida’s Unhealthy Religion Statute, Fla. Stat. § 624.155, begins for each legal responsibility provider “after receiving precise discover[.]”[1] The legal responsibility provider should subsequently obtain the discover earlier than the desired interval can start. The “precise discover” that the legal responsibility provider should obtain throughout the specified timeframe isn’t outlined within the statute. It’s an open query beneath this new statute whether or not precise data of the state of affairs will likely be ample or whether or not discover should be supplied to the provider earlier than the interval of immunity can start.
One other query considerations the brand new requirement that “the precise discover of a declare” – slightly than, say, the settlement demand of a third-party claimant – should be “accompanied by ample proof to assist the quantity of the declare.”[2] Maybe surprisingly, the “ample proof” required by the brand new statute is required to accompany discover to the legal responsibility provider and to not accompany any settlement calls for.
In any case, the brand new statute doesn’t supply any steering as to what would possibly represent “ample proof to assist the quantity of the declare” earlier than this new immunity can grow to be obtainable. That query seems to have been left to the Florida courts or maybe to future periods of the Florida Legislature.
[1] Part 624.155(4)(a). Be aware that the statute isn’t but formally revealed whilst of as we speak. The brand new language is accessible both on an unsecured site as 2023 Florida Session Regulation Ch. 2023-15 which the reader can method at her or his peril, or on a safe supplier equivalent to Westlaw or LexisNexis.
[2] Part 624.155(4)(a).
To be continued the day after Independence Day …. These and comparable points are addressed in 1 DENNIS J. WALL, LITIGATION AND PREVENTION OF INSURER BAD FAITH § 3:28, Authorized Bases of Legal responsibility in Settlement — Statutory (West Publishing Firm 3d Version, 2023 Dietary supplements in course of).
This weblog article ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.
