Volume 15

15 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 398b

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Contingency risk multiplier of 1.25 is awarded where relevant market requires multiplier to obtain competent counsel in PIP matters, insured had difficulty obtaining counsel, and likelihood of success at outset was 40% – 70% — Expert witness fee, costs and prejudgment interest awarded

15 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 398a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Contingency risk multiplier of 1.25 is awarded where relevant market requires multiplier to obtain competent counsel in PIP matters, insured had difficulty obtaining counsel, and likelihood of success at outset was 40% – 70% — Expert witness fee, costs and prejudgment interest awarded

15 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 241a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Amount — Hourly rate — Although $350 hourly rate appears substantial for area, it is supported by competent substantial evidence that counsel has billed other clients at rate and been awarded rate as expert witness in PIP cases — Costs — Expert witness fees — No abuse of discretion in taxing expert witness fees as costs where expert was required to spend 5 hours reviewing file and preparing for deposition that lasted additional hour, and expert testified that he expected to be paid reasonable fee for services — Contingency risk multiplier — Abuse of discretion to award multiplier where there was no evidence that insureds who assigned claims to medical provider had difficulty obtaining counsel, and litigation was not of unusual duration or difficulty

15 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 167a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Amount — Reasonable hourly rates for attorneys representing medical provider are $300 and $350, and reasonable hourly rate for paralegal is $85 where case spanned more than 5 years and involved novel issue of necessity and reasonableness of dynamic motion x-ray test that required complex litigation on trial and appellate level — Contingency risk multiplier — Where evidence establishes that competent counsel cannot be attracted and retained in community in PIP cases without contingency risk multiplier, provider has personally experienced difficulty in finding attorneys in past but now had established relationship with counsel, counsel were not able to mitigate risk of nonpayment, case involved novel issue and posed substantial risk of loss to counsel, multiplier of 2.0 is appropriate — Costs, expert witness fee and prejudgment interest awarded

15 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 157a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Amount — Contingency risk multiplier — Application of multiplier is not warranted where denial of benefits on ground that traffic crash report did not list insured as passenger or driver did not involve novel or complex issue and required no significant legal expertise — Costs, expert witness fees and prejudgment interest awarded

15 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 118a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Contin-gency risk multiplier — Abuse of discretion to award multiplier where, although medical provider’s attorney and expert testified that attorney would not have taken case had there not been potential for multiplier, there was no testimony from provider that he would have had substantial difficulty in obtaining competent counsel in relevant market without fee enhancement, and attorney testified that provider could have hired another lawyer — Further, multiplier was not warranted where attorney could mitigate risk of nonpayment by being retained in provider’s numerous other cases, and insurer’s expert refuted claim that case was novel or difficult

15 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 156a

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Arbitration of contingency risk multiplier and cost issues

15 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 1052a

Insurance — Personal injury protection — Withdrawal or denial of benefits — Peer review — Trial court did not err in refusing to consider peer review report obtained more than 30 days after receipt of claim where insurer never filed peer review report or affidavit of peer review doctor with trial court — To ensure that peer review report and affidavit were available for appellate review, insurer had responsibility to file report and affidavit despite trial court striking report — No error in granting summary judgment in favor of medical provider where, in absence of valid peer review report supported by physical examination and accompanying affidavit, there was nothing in record to create genuine issue of material fact or justify denial of motion for summary judgment — Attorney’s fees — Appellate — Fees are assessed against insurer and its counsel as sanction for filing frivolous appeal

15 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 1058a

Insurance — Personal injury protection — Attorney’s fees — Appellate fees are awarded to medical provider that prevailed on appeal conditioned on provider ultimately prevailing in trial court proceedings

15 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 309b

Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Prevailing party — Hours — Abuse of discretion to fail to separate issue of insured’s unreasonable refusal to attend independent medical examinations, on which insurer prevailed, from issue of whether payment of PIP benefits were recoverable for services rendered within 30 days prior to IME cutoff, on which medical provider prevailed, when calculating reasonable number of hours expended by provider’s counsel — Contingency risk multiplier — Abuse of discretion to award 2.5 contingency risk multiplier for litigation of novel legal issue where issue was first decided in sister case, payment of benefits within 30 days of IME cutoff did not become issue until four years into litigation when provider stipulated that failure to attend IME was unreasonable, and there is no competent substantial evidence that provider had substantial difficulties finding counsel — Abuse of discretion to fail to reduce fee award by taking into account that provider recovered only $356 of $3,550 initially sought