Florida Finally Got Serious About Stemming Litigation
Florida finally got serious about stemming litigation. Not super serious mind you, but at least they are moving in the right direction. On January 1, 2012, the new Supreme Court Civil Procedure Rule 1.720 was put into play. This rule deals with mediation and the mediation process. The mediation process has been used in Florida over the past 20 years. It is efficient and easy and really works when the parties all attend in good faith.
The problem lies when one party comes to work toward a good faith settlement and the other is simply there to learn about the opposing case and does not try to settle the matter. Then it is a waste of time and a fraud from the get-go.
From a public perspective, many people believe the Plaintiffs are causing unnecessary litigation to clog the courthouse. No amount of data showing corporations and insurance companies are the actual cause of clogged courtrooms has been able to overcome the propaganda from Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the litigation deformation movement. However, this amended rule will show the public who really wants to litigate and who really wants to settle.
The new rule was put into place to force insurance companies and large corporations into sending a person to the mediation with actual authority to settle the case. Before the rule, some insurance companies would send a low level adjuster with low authority and make settlement negotiations a simple waste of time. The insurance lawyers knew this and would sit through the Plaintiff’s presentation just to learn about the Plaintiff’s case. In the end they would simply walk away never making a serious attempt to settle the case.
The new rule redefines who must attend and forces that person to have actual authority to settle the case for the true value of the case or the policy limits. Now we can finally get the right people to the settlement table and get some of these cases off the court’s docket.
The new language in Sub Section (C ) of the rule says as follows:
(c) Party Representative Having Full Authority to Settle. A “party representative having full authority to settle” shall mean the final decision maker with respect to all issues presented by the case who has the legal capacity to execute a binding settlement agreement on behalf of the party. Nothing herein shall be deemed to require any party or party representative who appears at a mediation conference in compliance with this rule to enter into a settlement agreement.
See http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/decisions/2011/sc10-2329.pdf for the full language of the rule.
