Article Courtesy of The Orlando
Sentinel
By Ludmilla
Lelis
Published October 17, 2008
A Daytona Beach Shores
condominium won nearly $1 million Thursday in its insurance claim for 2004
hurricane damage, providing a key victory for beachfront properties
fighting Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
The Volusia jury decided that the state-run insurer had shortchanged
Sunglow Condominium Resorts $950,000 for damage to the 10-story building
after hurricanes Charley and Frances swept across Florida.
"We're thrilled and we're vindicated," said Andrew Plunked, an
attorney for the condominium, whose law firm has 30 clients statewide with
unresolved hurricane claims against Citizens. "They're all similar
issues, but every client has their own different story to tell, and we'll
be happy to tell all of them."
The verdict also gives the condominium a chance to test a more thorny
legal issue: whether Citizens acted in bad faith for not fully paying out
those claims. That issue hasn't been fully tested in court against the
central question of whether Citizens, as a government insurer, is immune
from such a claim.
Plunked said the
condominium association will push forth with the bad-faith claim and
another claim for damages for attorney fees and court costs.
David Doyle, an attorney for Citizens, was disappointed with Thursday's
decision but was encouraged that the verdict fell well short of the $5
million the condominium sought.
"The jury had a tough job and a lot of things to sort out," said
Doyle, who argued that Citizens already paid the covered damage and didn't
owe any more. "We were confident Citizens had done the right
thing."
Statewide, Citizens has about 2,000 unresolved hurricane claims from the
2004 and 2005 seasons, with a common theme among the property owners that
it is lowballing the damage estimates. It has taken four years for the
cases to reach trial.
The Sunglow case was the first of nine such lawsuits pending from Volusia
beachfront condominiums, and the jury had to decide whether the
condominium deserved more than the $370,000 that Citizens already paid.
For two weeks, jurors revisited the 2004 season -- hearing testimony about
the wind speeds of Charley and Frances, the torrential rains. They saw
dozens of photos and heard testimony from engineers about what the storms
did to the building.
Doyle tried to argue that some damage wasn't covered by the policy. He
told jurors the winds from Frances weren't strong enough to cause that
damage, and Citizens shouldn't be responsible if the condominium had been
poorly maintained.
But the jury agreed that Citizens should have paid more.
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