Siegle argues that restoring her car to its precrash "like kind and quality," as her Progressive Insurance Co. policy promised, should include payment for loss of market value. It's an argument that a growing number of courts around the country have accepted.
Last year, the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. agreed to pay more than $100 million to settle the claims of a class-action suit by Georgia policyholders alleging they were owed payments for the lost value of their vehicles.
But Florida courts remain unconvinced. Siegle's case was dismissed by a Broward Circuit Court judge whose ruling was upheld by the 4th District Court of Appeal last May. The 4th DCA acknowledged the split of opinions across the country but held that there was nothing in Siegle's policy that obligated Progressive to do anything beyond restoring the car "to good condition with parts, equipment and workmanship of the same essential character, nature and degree of excellence" that previously existed.
The 3rd District Court of Appeal also rejected the argument last year, ruling against a man seeking diminished value compensation for a car damaged in a hurricane. "Nowhere does (the insurer's obligation) include liability for loss due to a stigma on resale resulting from 'market psychology' that a vehicle damaged and repaired is worth less than a similar one that has never been damaged," the court wrote.
But Siegle's lawyers, Mike Peacock and W. Christian Hoyer of Tampa, believe that Florida law requires insurance companies to pay for lost value. A 1984 information bulletin issued by then-Insurance Commissioner Bill Gunter says a car owner "has not been properly indemnified unless there is no diminution in value of the automobile as it was before the damage and as it is after repairs."
Peacock also cites a number of other Florida appellate court decisions that recognize the concept of lost market value. And he notes, Progressive could have specifically excluded such coverage but did not.
Tallahassee lawyer Katherine Giddings, who represents three national insurance trade associations, warns that a decision for Siegle would "significantly increase" the cost of collision insurance "and possibly all property insurance."
Litmus Test
When a bill designed to increase Gov. Jeb Bush's influence in seating judges became law nine months ago, critics warned that the conservatives and Christian activists who pushed the measure would work to ensure that candidates' views on things like abortion and school prayer would match theirs ["Razing the Bar," July 2001].
A recent appointment to the circuit court bench in Broward County has done little to put such fears to rest. Judge Cheryl Aleman's successful last-minute application for a judicial vacancy surprised some in the local legal community who had never heard of her. A former prosecutor with the Office of Statewide Prosecution, Aleman is described by the Broward Daily Business Review as a "conservative Republican and such a strong Christian conservative that she served as president of the Broward chapter of the highly ideological Christian Legal Society in 2000."
Though well-regarded, Aleman's elevation left many insiders puzzled as to how she had leapfrogged over better-known candidates on her first application, the newspaper reported. More troubling was the paper's revelation that two other applicants were asked their views on the Ninth Amendment -- a reference to the primary legal authority for the federal right to privacy, and by extension, abortion rights and decisions overturning bans on gay sex.
The question is considered a thinly veiled litmus test designed to ascertain a candidate's views on such issues. Calls to the governor's general counsel, Charles Canady, were returned by Bush spokeswoman Elizabeth Hirst. "There are no litmus test questions," Hirst says. "Depending on the flow of the interview, different questions and answers come up."
State Sen. Walter "Skip" Campbell, a Broward trial lawyer, says if Canady did ask candidates about the Ninth Amendment, it's difficult to imagine that it was anything other than a litmus test. "It has nothing to do with" the job of a state court judge, he says.
Settlement
Orlando-based workers' compensation law firm Rissman, Weisberg, Barrett, Hurt, Donahue & McLain has settled a lawsuit brought by a former compensation claims judge who alleged the firm defamed him at a 1994 seminar by suggesting that "young men in shorts" could curry favor in his courtroom ["Sleeping with the Enemy," December 1999].
Rand Hoch, now a mediator in West Palm Beach, says he has been paid a "substantial" amount of money to drop his lawsuit against the firm but says under the terms of the settlement, he can't say how much.
The firm has also agreed to publish statements in two trade publications read by insurance adjusters and workers' compensation lawyers acknowledging that the suggestion is untrue, though the firm did not admit that any of its lawyers were responsible for making it.
The characterization of Hoch was one of a number of unflattering descriptions of judges and lawyers in the state's workers' comp system contained in a memorandum purporting to summarize a seminar the firm put on for insurance adjusters. Titled "Sleeping with the Enemy," the Rissman, Weisberg seminars were designed to give adjusters the advantage of knowing the quirks, temperament and reputations of the judges and lawyers they'd be working with.
Hoch, who is openly gay, argued that the characterization of him suggested that he was a pedophile and that his sexual orientation could influence his professional judgment.