Healthy Food Experts, LLC v. AmGuard Insurance Company
The Fourth DCA reversed dismissal of a first-party statutory bad faith action under section 624.155. It held that the trial court misapplied Fridman: an underlying breach-of-contract verdict is a binding prerequisite to a bad faith claim, not a bar to it, and it does not cap the insured's recovery of extra-contractual consequential damages. The court also clarified that Fridman's UM/UIM excess-judgment principles do not carry over to first-party property insurance.
Key facts
- A commercial property insurer denied most of a restaurant's claim after its dining-area ceiling collapsed, paying only food-spoilage losses despite its own engineer and field adjuster concluding the loss was a covered sudden and accidental collapse.
- The insured won a breach-of-contract jury verdict of $31,330; the insurer appealed, the Fourth DCA per curiam affirmed, and the insurer then paid the judgment with interest.
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Holdings
- Under Fridman, a determination of the insured's contractual damages is a condition precedent to a first-party bad faith action and is binding as to those contractual damages; it does not…
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Why it matters
This is an important clarification for insurance practitioners distinguishing Fridman's UM/UIM framework from first-party property bad faith. It confirms that obtaining a contract verdict satisfies the ripeness… — full analysis with a trial
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