Federal Court Holds Insurance Company Accountable
N/AOUTCOME: $5,000,000.00 Verdict In Our Clients Favor
Our client, a 36-year-old man, was building a sand castle with his three young daughters on the beach when a woman caught in a rip current screamed for help. Our client attempted to rescue the woman, b ... ut both he and the woman drowned while his wife and three daughters looked on. We obtained a $5,000,000.00 verdict in Federal Court, upholding our settlement with a municipality, against an insurance company which wrongfully refused to defend the municipality in our lawsuit. The insurance company was ordered to pay the $5,000,000.00 plus over $1,000,000.00 in pre-judgment interest, plus attorneys fees, even though their policy limits were only $1,000,000.00. The drowning portion of the case was appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled in our favor. It held that the municipality owed a duty, the same as a private land owner, to warn of dangerous conditions of which the municipality knew or should have known, such as the existence of dangerous rip currents, and that this portion of the beach did not have lifeguards. Users of the beach thought that it was a guarded, safe swimming area because there were concessionaires, licensed by the municipality, renting beach chairs, umbrellas and water craft, and who appeared to be lifeguards. There were also public restrooms, showers, fountains and parking, attracting people to use the beach at this location.
