Volume 13

13 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 609a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Contingency risk multiplier — Where medical provider’s counsel undertook representation pursuant to pure contingency fee agreement, and provider’s chances of success at outset of case were more likely than not, multiplier of 1.0 is appropriate — Expert witness fee, costs and prejudgment interest awarded

13 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 357b

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Contingency risk multiplier — Where medical provider’s counsel undertook representation pursuant to pure contingency fee agreement, market in jurisdiction requires contingency risk multiplier to obtain competent counsel in such cases, and provider’s chances of success at outset of case were more likely than not, contingency risk multiplier of 1.0 is appropriate — Expert witness fee, costs and prejudgment interest awarded

13 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 357a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Contingency risk multiplier — Where insured’s counsel undertook representation pursuant to contingency fee agreement, and insured’s chances of success at outset of case were approximately even, contingency risk multiplier of 1.5 is appropriate — Costs, expert witness fees and prejudgment interest awarded 

13 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 204a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection

13 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 130b

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Contingency risk multiplier — No abuse of discretion in ruling that 1.5 multiplier was appropriate and that medical provider’s attorney was entitled to reasonable hourly rate of $200 where provider and attorney entered into contingency fee contract and expert testified without rebuttal that relevant market requires multiplier, that she was unaware of any attorney within community who would have taken case, and that provider’s attorney was unable to mitigate risk of nonpayment — Error to award fees for litigating entitlement to multiplier

13 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 1242a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Automobile — Contingency risk multiplier — Where attorney undertook representation of insured pursuant to pure contingency fee agreement, insured did not provide evidence that he could not obtain competent counsel without application of multiplier, and market in jurisdiction does not require multiplier to obtain competent counsel in property damage benefits case undertaken in conjunction with representation of insured in other related claims, contingency risk multiplier is not appropriate or applicable — Costs, expert witness fee and prejudgment interest awarded

13 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 13a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Contingency risk multiplier — Where trial court had evidence before it that relevant market does require multiplier to obtain competent counsel, that there was no way to mitigate risk of nonpayment, that maximum results were obtained, that attorney represented medical provider on pure contingency fee contract, that case was highly contested, that law concerning preferred provider arrangement advocated by insurer was unsettled at time case was filed, and that, due to combination of PPO issue, exhaustion of benefits and med pay issue, provider’s chances of prevailing at outset were less than 50%, trial court was within its discretion to award multiplier of 2.5 — Appellate fees — Appellate fees cannot be awarded where only issue in case was application of, and entitlement to, contingency risk multiplier

13 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 1053a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Appellate fees — Prevailing medical provider — — Where appellate court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction an appeal in which insurer sought review of non-final, non-appealable order, medical provider is entitled to award of appellate attorney’s fees even though there was no decision on merits — Award is conditioned on provider ultimately prevailing in litigation

13 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 1089a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Appellate fees — Reasonable appellate attorney’s and paralegal fees, prejudgment interest and expert witness fees awarded

13 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 928a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Automobile — Sufficiency of motion — Motion for attorney’s fees was legally sufficient where, although insured did not cite statutes that entitled her to fees, she did state that basis for motion was insurer’s payment of property damage claim while suit was pending and cite to case holding that payment of claim after suit is filed is functional equivalent of confession of judgment — Moreover, insurer was on notice of statutory basis for insured’s attorney’s fees claim where insured’s attorney took position that payment of claim was confession of judgment entitling insured to fee award in memorandum in opposition to insurer’s motion for summary judgment and in hearing on competing summary judgment motions — No abuse of discretion in determining that payment by actual carrier was functional equivalent of confession of judgment by defendant insurer, which was owned by the same holding company as carrier, because defendant would have had to pay damage claim as well as attorney’s fees but for actual carrier’s payment — Amount of fee award — No abuse of discretion in basing award on half the time requested by insured’s attorney, without multiplier — Appellate fees — Insured is entitled to award of appellate fees for defending entitlement to fees but not for defending amount of fee award