Fort Lauderdale Car Accident Attorney Blog
A Florida car accident injury lawsuit against an uninsured motorist coverage insurer will proceed once more, following a state appellate court ruling that the trial court improperly tossed the claim and deprived plaintiff of the right to refile. Florida’s 5th District Court of Appeal held the lower court abused its discretion by imposing the “extreme” sanction of dismissal with prejudice after plaintiff’s willful disobedience in going ahead with a scheduled surgery before undergoing a compulsory medical exam (or CME) at defendant insurer’s request.
Although plaintiff’s injury claim can proceed, our car accident attorneys in Fort Lauderdale know disregarding a court’s order can be fatal to a civil case, and is generally never advisable. Even the 5th DCA didn’t disagree that what the plaintiff did was out of line and potentially worthy of sanctions. It was just that the dismissal with no chance to refile is one of the most severe sanctions that can be imposed – and here, the punishment didn’t fit the crime.
According to court records in Faris v. Southern-Owners Insurance Company, plaintiff filed his car accident injury lawsuit following a September 2014 crash, wherein an uninsured motorist ran into his car while they were both traveling on a highway in Georgia. Fortunately, plaintiff had auto insurance through his own insurer that came with $250,000 in uninsured motorist coverage. Unfortunately, the auto insurer denied the claim. Plaintiff then filed a breach of contract claim, alleging his insurer wrongfully denied his claim.
Sanctions in Florida Car Accident Injury Lawsuit for Failure to Comply With Discovery Requests Continue reading →