Court Opinion

ID: 9929336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-02 15:05:12.77152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:06:48.396385
License: Public Domain

FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                STATE OF FLORIDA
                 _____________________________

                      Case No. 5D23-0243
                 LT Case No. 16-2020-CA-004553
                 _____________________________

AYMEE TAYLOR, Individually and
on behalf of those similarly
situated,

    Appellant,

    v.

STATE FARM FLORIDA
INSURANCE COMPANY, A Florida
Insurance Corporation,

    Appellee.
                 _____________________________

On appeal from the Circuit Court for Duval County.
Michael S. Sharrit, Judge.

Gordon Van Remmen, of Hall & Lampros, LLP, Atlanta, GA, and
Tracy L. Markham, of Southern Atlantic Law Group, PLLC,
Winter Haven, and William L. Sundberg and Alison M. Thiele, of
Sundberg, P.A., Tallahassee, for Appellant.

Christopher B. Hall, of Hall & Lampros, LLP, Atlanta, GA, pro
hac vice, for Appellant.

Nancy A. Copperthwaite, and Marcy Levine Aldrich, of Akerman
LLP, Miami, for Appellee.

                       February 2, 2024
HARRIS, J.

     In 2020, Appellant Aymee Taylor’s Jacksonville, Florida
residence sustained water damage due to an overflowing sink. At
the time, her property was covered by a homeowners insurance
policy (the “Policy”) issued by Appellee, State Farm Florida
Insurance Company (“State Farm”). In 2021, the parties took part
in an appraisal, which resulted in an award to Taylor for her
damages, and State Farm promptly paid the appraisal award.

     Taylor subsequently sued State Farm because the amount
State Farm paid did not include interest. Taylor ultimately filed a
two-count second amended complaint setting forth a contractual
cause of action as well as a statutory claim. Following a hearing on
State Farm’s motion to dismiss, the court entered an order
dismissing with prejudice both of Taylor’s claims based on a
limitation against private causes of action contained in section
627.70131(5), Florida Statutes (2020). Taylor now argues that the
court erred in dismissing her contractual claim based on that
statutory limitation. We agree.

    We begin our analysis by looking at the language of the Policy
and of section 627.70131(5)(a) (“section 5(a)”). Pertinent to this
appeal, the Policy included the following provision:

 8.   Loss Payment. We will adjust all losses with you. We
      will pay you unless some other person is named in the
      policy or is legally entitled to receive payment. Loss
      will be payable upon the earlier of the following:

             a.   20 days after we receive your proof of loss
                  and reach agreement with you; or

             b.   60 days after we receive your proof of loss
                  and:

                  (1) there is an entry of a final judgment; or
                  (2) there is a filing of an appraisal award
                  with us.

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             If we do not pay or deny a loss within 90 days after
        we receive notice of an initial, reopened, or
        supplemental property insurance claim from you and
        no factors beyond our control would reasonably
        prevent us from making payment, interest will be paid
        in accordance with Section 627.70131(5) of the Florida
        Insurance Code.

    At the time the Policy was in effect, 1 section 627.70131(5)
provided:

             (a) Within 90 days after an insurer receives notice
        of an initial, reopened, or supplemental property
        insurance claim from a policyholder, the insurer shall
        pay or deny such claim or a portion of the claim unless
        the failure to pay is caused by factors beyond the
        control of the insurer which reasonably prevent such
        payment. Any payment of an initial or supplemental
        claim or portion of such claim made 90 days after the
        insurer receives notice of the claim, or made more than
        15 days after there are no longer factors beyond the
        control of the insurer which reasonably prevented such
        payment, whichever is later, bears interest at the rate
        set forth in s. 55.03. Interest begins to accrue from the
        date the insurer receives notice of the claim. The
        provisions of this subsection may not be waived,
        voided, or nullified by the terms of the insurance
        policy. If there is a right to prejudgment interest, the
        insured shall select whether to receive prejudgment
        interest or interest under this subsection. Interest is
        payable when the claim or portion of the claim is paid.
        Failure to comply with this subsection constitutes a
        violation of this code. However, failure to comply with
        this subsection does not form the sole basis for a private
        cause of action.

§ 627.70131(5)(a), Fla. Stat. (2020) (emphasis added).

    1  Section 627.70131 was amended in 2021 and subsection
(5)(a) was renumbered as subsection (7)(a).

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     The question we must resolve then is whether the prohibition
on a standalone statutory cause of action contained in section 5(a)
is broad enough, as the trial court concluded, to also bar a claim
based on a breach of the insurance policy. State Farm goes to great
lengths to demonstrate that it did not breach the Policy and
therefore was not obligated to pay interest. As this case was
dismissed with prejudice, reviewing that order de novo, we are
confined to the four corners of the complaint and must accept
Taylor’s allegations as true. Wilmington Sav. Fund Soc’y, FSB v.
Contreras, 278 So. 3d 744, 747 (Fla. 5th DCA 2019). Those
allegations include the fact that State Farm breached the Policy by
failing to pay interest as the Policy said it would.

     Taylor argues that, while her claim for statutory interest may
be barred by the statute, there is no similar limitation on her right
to enforce the terms of her contract. State Farm responds that
Taylor’s position has been consistently rejected by Florida courts.
We find the cases relied upon by State Farm to be readily
distinguishable.

     First, State Farm relies on State Farm Florida Insurance Co.
v. Silber, 72 So. 3d 286 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011), a case which it calls
“analogous” to this case. However, Silber simply held that insureds
cannot move for confirmation of an appraisal award that had
already been paid in an attempt to recover attorney’s fees. Id. at
289. Silber does go on to discuss section 5(a) and concludes that
“the last sentence of the statute closes the door on any insured
unless there is a viable independent cause of action.” Id. at 290
(emphasis added). Because there was no viable cause of action to
confirm an already-paid arbitration award, the claim for interest
could not stand on its own. The opinion does not discuss whether
the insured’s breach of policy claim was an independent
standalone claim sufficient to withstand section 5(a)’s ban on
causes of action. 2

    2 State Farm cites other cases that reject statutory claims
barely clothed as contractual ones. See Riley v. Heritage Prop. &
Cas. Ins. Co., No. 22-22893, 2023 WL 2988847 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 18,
2023); Williams v. Universal Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., No. 22-22890,
2023 WL 3750608 (S.D. Fla. June 1, 2023). In those cases, courts

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     State Farm relies heavily on Barbato v. State Farm Florida
Insurance Co., 2023 WL 2959138 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 14, 2023), appeal
docketed, No. 23-11645 (11th Cir. May 15, 2023), a federal trial
court case that relied in part on the order on appeal in this case.
In Barbato, the court found that the provisions of section 5(a) were
“explicitly incorporated” into the insured’s policy. Id. at *1.
Because the policy’s only reference to State Farm’s obligation to
pay interest was by incorporating the statute itself, the court
concluded that section 5(a) still served to preclude their claim as
there was no basis, independent of the statute, to establish a cause
of action. Id. at *2.

     We need not decide whether the Barbato court’s holding,
under the facts of that case, was correctly decided because our case
is distinguishable. Taylor’s policy did not just incorporate section
5(a) by reference, which it certainly could have done. Instead, State
Farm decided, for whatever reason, to include a separate and
independent loss payment provision that, like the statute,
provided for the payment of interest. The only reference to section
5(a) in the loss payment provision simply deals with the manner
in which interest will be paid. We find this wholly insufficient to
adopt the entirety of section 5(a), including the limitation on
actions, a goal State Farm could have easily accomplished had it
chosen to do so. While the Barbato court correctly noted that
section 5(a) “does not convey a private right of action for the
recovery of unpaid interest alone,” it fails to recognize that the
statute says nothing about whether failure to perform an express
contractual promise to pay interest can form the basis for a private
cause of action. We therefore conclude that section 5(a) does not
limit the right of an insured to file a claim for interest if that claim
is based on an independent policy provision that does more than

rejected claims for purported breach of contracts that contained no
express promise to pay interest, where the insureds argued that
their contracts implicitly incorporated the terms of section 5(a).
Those statutory claims in breach-of-contract clothing are readily
distinguishable from the true contractual claim that we face here,
as the Parties’ contract contains an express promise to pay
interest.

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simply incorporate, implicitly or explicitly, the terms of section
5(a).

     The parties were free to add this provision to the Policy, and
State Farm’s decision to do so must mean something.
Contractually obligating itself to do what the statute similarly
provides does not “waive, void or nullify” the provisions of section
5(a). Stated otherwise, there is nothing in section 5(a) that would
prohibit parties from creating an express contractual right to the
interest that the statute describes; doing so does not waive, void,
or nullify the statutory obligation that section 5(a) imposes on
insurers. Nor does creating such an express contractual right
waive, void, nullify, or otherwise contravene section 5(a)’s
limitation on actions. That limitation states only that a “failure to
comply with [the statute] does not form the sole basis for a private
cause of action”; it does not limit an insured’s ability to bring an
action for a failure to perform an express contractual promise to
pay interest. We therefore hold that an insurance policy that
contains a standalone, independent obligation to pay interest can
form the sole basis for a private cause of action that is not
precluded by the statutory limitation on actions. We reverse the
order of dismissal and remand this matter for further proceedings.

    REVERSED and REMANDED.

SOUD and PRATT, JJ., concur.

                  _____________________________

    Not final until disposition of any timely and
    authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
    9.331.
               _____________________________

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