9 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 321b
Attorneys — Disqualification — Conflict of interest — Insurance — Attorney who, while acting as lead counsel in cases relating to personal injury protection, met with top-level litigation attorneys representing insurer to develop strategies for defense of MRI brokering cases is not disqualified from representing plaintiff in suit against insurer where the current matter does not arise from the same transaction or case in which attorney represented insurer
FIRDAUS IMANSJAH, Plaintiff, vs. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant. County Court, 7th Judicial Circuit in and for Volusia County. Case No. 2001-11935-CODL. March 28, 2002. J.R. Smith, Judge. Counsel: Alexander Billias, Morgan, Colling & Gilbert, P.A., Orlando. Ray Ravas, Jacksonville.
O R D E R
THIS CAUSE coming on before the Court on Defendant, STATE FARM’s, Motion To Disqualify the Law Firm of Morgan, Colling and Gilbert, P.A., and after hearing argument of counsel and reviewing the law, the Court finds as follows:
1. A previous attorney-client relationship existed between Plaintiff’s attorney, Hans Kennon, and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company.
2. State Farm alleges that Hans Kennon, while acting as “lead” counsel in litigation of cases relating to personal injury protection, met with top-level litigation attorneys representing State Farm throughout the state to develop strategies for defense of certain cases, specifically involving M.R.I. brokering.
3. Because of these meetings and the strategies developed at those high-level meetings, the Defendant alleges that Mr. Kennon should disqualify himself pursuant to the mandate of Florida Bar Rule 4-1.9(a).
4. The Florida Supreme Court, in State Farm vs. K.A.W., et al, 575 So2d 630 (Fla. 1991), established the legal standard to be used in determining if a violation of Rule 401.9(a) has occurred. First, the movant must show that an attorney-client relationship existed, giving rise to an irrefutable presumption that confidences were disclosed during the relationship. Secondly, the movant must show that the matters in which the law firm subsequently represented the interests adverse to the former client was the same or substantially related to the matter in which it represented the former client.
5. The disputed issue here is whether or not the “matter” in which Mr. Kennon is representing Mr. Imansjah, the Plaintiff in this case, is the same or substantially related to the “matter” in which he formerly represented State Farm.
6. A close reading of Rule 4-1.9(a) and especially the Comment resolves the above issue:
“…On the other hand a lawyer who recurrently handles a type of problem for a former client is not precluded from later representing another client in a wholly distinct problem of that type even thought the subsequent representation involves a position adverse to the prior client.” (emphasis added)
7. It is this Court’s understanding that the intent of the Rule was to prohibit lawyers who had been directly involved in a specific transaction or case for a client from subsequently representing another client with interest arising from the same transaction or case adverse to the former client.
It is, therefore:
ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the Defendant’s Motion To Disqualify the Law Firm of Morgan, Colling and Gilbert, P.A. is hereby DENIED.
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