The Florida Justice Association featured CCL President Robert S. Peck as a speaker at its 2014 Convention in West Palm Beach, Florida. Coming fresh after his victory in the state supreme court in Estate of McCall v. United States, 134 So.3d 894 (Fla. 2014), which invalidated the Florida cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases involving wrongful death, Peck addressed the case and its meaning at two seminar sessions held on June 11 and 13. In his remarks, Peck described five myths that defense counsel will propagate to minimize the reach of the decision and why each were inaccurate.
In addition, on June 12, Peck introduced Linda Lipsen, CEO of the American Association for Justice, at the FJA membership meeting that preceded the group's election of new officers. Lipsen talked about the many ways that AAJ supplements the work of the FJA in protecting clients' rights and the civil justice system more generally.
The McCall case is just the latest case that CCL has litigated to help Florida lawyers overcome obstacles that harm better their clients' cases. Previously, CCL represented the FJA before the Florida Supreme Court after Floridians approved a state constitutional amendment that would have limited contingency fees in medical-malpractice cases, in order to discourage lawyers from taking complex cases. Before the Court was the question whether the limitation was subject to informed and voluntary waiver. Peck argued that as an individual constitutional right the limit should be subject to waiver. The Court adopted the argument and ordered the Florida Bar to produce a standard waiver form. In Re: Amendment to the Rules Regulating the Florida Bar - Rule 4-1.5(f)(4)(B), 939 So.2d 1032 (Fla. 2006).
In Bradley v. Sebelius, 621 F.3d 1330 (11th Cir. 2010), CCL represented a Florida family whose entire judgment arising from the negligent death of their father in a nursing home was claimed by Medicare for expenses it had advanced for medical care. The family had settled the case for available policy limits, which constituted a tiny percentage of the damages they could have claimed. After the Department of Health and Human Services refused to lower their reimbursement claim or participate in an apportionment in a Florida probate court, counsel for the family started a declaratory judgment in action in federal district court, which ruled in favor of the federal department. CCL took the case up on appeal to the 11th Circuit, where it argued that the Department's statutory interpretation lacked the force of law because it had not been subject to review and comment and had placed the family in a Catch-22 situation. The 11th Circuit adopted CCL's argument in full, also characterizing the situation as a Catch-22, and reduced the Department's share of a $50,000 settlement to $455 less attorney fees.
In FCAN v. Bush, 830 So.2d 148 (Fla. 1st DCA 2002), CCL, along with Florida lawyers, challenged a 1999 omnibus tort reform statute, resulting in a circuit court victory, which was reversed on appeal on standing grounds, using a rationale that has now been repudiated. In Wexler v. Lapore, 385 F.3d 1336 (11th Cir. 2004), and Wexler v. Anderson, 452 F.3d 1226, CCL challenged voting administration that used the excuse of different systems within a single election districts to avoid recounts in extraordinarily close elections. The lawsuit resulted in a legislative change to the law, adopting the relief sought by the lawsuit.
In addition, CCL has two pending challenges to a Florida statute that authorized ex parte interviews, presuit, with a putative medical-malpractice plaintiff's treating physicians. In 2013, CCL won a decision in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, finding the statute preempted by federal law in Murphy v. Dulay, 975 F. Supp.2d 1200 (N.D. Fla. 2013). That decision is currently on appeal to the 11th Circuit, with oral argument scheduled for the third week of August. A second case in state court in Pensacola adds additional claims, asserting that the law also violates provisions of the Florida Constitution. That case, Weaver v. Meyers, 2013 CA 001714 (Fla. 1st Jud. Cir.), is currently under advisement in a Florida trial court.
Currently, CCL has filed an amicus brief on behalf of AAJ in the Florida Supreme Court in the pending case of Westphal v. City of St. Petersburg, Nos. SC13-1930 & SC13-1976, which raises the question of whether an injured worker who has exhausted his limit on temporary total disability is eligible for permanent total disability benefits.
