Brito v. Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance Co.
Homeowners partially assigned policy benefits (a $2,495 mold-testing invoice) to a vendor, which lost a separate county-court small claims suit against the insurer; the insurer then obtained summary judgment against the insureds in their own circuit court suit on res judicata/collateral estoppel grounds. The Third DCA reversed, holding that a partial assignee and its assignor are not privies on this record, so neither preclusion doctrine barred the insureds' separate claim for their full loss.
Key facts
- Homeowners partially assigned a $2,495 mold-testing invoice to a vendor, who filed a separate small claims suit against their insurer and lost.
- The insurer obtained summary judgment against the homeowners in their own circuit court suit, arguing that the vendor's adverse small claims judgment barred the homeowners' claim through res judicata and collateral estoppel.
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Why it matters
This is a useful AOB decision for policyholder counsel: a partial assignment of benefits to a vendor does not make the insured a privy of the vendor, so an adverse judgment in the vendor's separate suit cannot be… — full analysis with a trial
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