Author archives

Before starting his own firm in 2011, Robert Friedman served as head of the Insurance Coverage Practice at Gunster in West Palm Beach, where he founded the firm’s insurance practice in 2006. Before joining Gunster, Friedman worked for seven years in the Insurance Coverage group of Dickstein Shapiro LLP in New York. Prior to that, he served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Naomi Reice Buchwald of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Friedman graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1998 and at the top of his class at Cornell University in 1995. He is a member of the bar in Florida and New York. He is admitted to practice in the U.S. District Courts for the Southern District of Florida, Middle District of Florida, Northern District of Florida, Southern District of New York, and Eastern District of New York, as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Friedman has written extensively about insurance coverage and other legal issues for national and regional publications, including National Underwriter, Business Insurance, Risk & Insurance, Daily Business Review, South Florida Business Journal, and the Harvard Law Record. He has been quoted as an expert on insurance law issues in numerous national and local publications. He has presented seminars on commercial insurance topics to business and legal groups, including the Practicing Law Institute. He also has advised the State of Florida on insurance policy issues. Mr. Friedman has served on the board of directors of the alumni association of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell, as well as the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County. He currently serves on the board of the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County.

No D&O Coverage For Civil Theft Judgment

We do not get a lot of D&O coverage decisions in Florida, so any time there is a decision in this area it is noteworthy. The recent decision in Twin City Fire Ins. Co. v. CR Technologies, Inc., 13-cv-80998-RLR, 2015 WL 1055382 (S.D. Fla. Mar. 11, 2015) does not contain much in the way of …

New Florida Appellate Decisions on Rescission, Coverage For Prevailing Party Fees

Today I want to discuss two important recent Florida appellate decisions addressing insurance law topics. The first decision, Mora v. Tower Hill Prime Ins. Co., Case No. 2D13-4125 (Fla. 2d DCA Jan. 23, 2015), involved a common underhanded insurer tactic: try to avoid paying a valid claim by searching for errors in the application. In Mora, …

Florida Insurance Law 2014 Second-Half Review

One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2015 is to post more regularly to this blog. It was a very busy 2014, especially the second half of the year, and I have not been able to provide updates as frequently as I would like. So before we ring in the new year, let’s review some …

Florida Appellate Court Rules Policyholder May Control Its Own Defense When Insurer Reserves Rights

I still need to catch up on several important Florida coverage decisions from this summer, but I could not wait to discuss this new coverage opinion out of the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami. The case is Geico General Ins. Co. v. Rodriguez, Nos. 3D11-2905 & 3D12-506 (Fla. 3rd DCA Sept. 10, 2014), …

When Can A Policyholder Pursue an Insurance Broker Malpractice Claim?

It has been a busy summer, and we have a lot of catching up to do on all of the important insurance decisions from Florida courts this summer. I know I have been derelict in posting regularly, so now that Labor Day is approaching and the kids are back in school, it is time to …

Eleventh Circuit Enforces Broad Statutory Exclusion To Deny Junk Fax Coverage

It may have seemed like déjà vu for the Eleventh Circuit to get another coverage dispute over junk faxes. But that is just what happened in Interline Brands, Inc. v. Chartis Specialty Insurance Co., No. 13-10025 (11th Cir. Apr. 15, 2014). The Eleventh Circuit had previously certified to the Florida Supreme Court a question regarding …

CGL Exclusions CLE This Wednesday at 1:00pm EST

Please join me for another CLE program I am presenting for Strafford Publications on Wednesday, April 16, 2014, from 1pm to 2:30pm EST. The topic of this week’s program is CGL Exclusions: Navigating Contractual Liability, Business Risk, Third-Party Over, and Data Breach Exclusions. I will present the issues from the policyholder perspective and Bob Marshall from Nicolaides Fink …

Southern District of Florida Voids Coverage For Pre-Tender Defense Costs

I have been meaning for some time to write about Judge Kenneth Marra’s decision in Embroidme.com, Inc. v. Travelers Prop. Cas. Co. of Am., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7715 (S.D. Fla. Jan. 23, 2014). Let me start by saying that Judge Marra is a great judge. But this decision is terribly flawed. It is now …

Florida Supreme Court Allows Third-Party Payments To Satisfy Self-Insured Retention

The Florida Supreme Court, on questions certified by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, determined that a policyholder need not pay out of pocket to exhaust its policy’s self-insured retention (“SIR”), but could instead rely on payments made by another insurance company. The decision, Intervest Constr. of Jax, Inc. v. General Fid. Ins. Co., No. …

Middle District Of Florida Reiterates Florida’s Injury-In-Fact Trigger Rule

I have written about the insurance law concept of “trigger” several times before, most recently in the context of the Middle District of Florida’s decision in Axis Surplus Insurance Co. v. Contravest Construction Co., 921 F. Supp.2d 1338 (M.D. Fla. 2012). An Insurance Law Florida reader from Colorado recently asked for an update on Florida …