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In Demase v. State Farm Fla. Ins. Co., No. 5D21-2078, 2022 WL 16909408 (Fla. 5th DCA Nov. 14, 2022), Thomas and Joanne Demase served their property insurance carrier with a Civil Remedy Notice of their intent to sue for bad faith under Florida's bad-faith statute, Fla. Stat. § 624.155.1 The Demases made a claim for coverage as a result of damage from a sinkhole. The Florida bad-faith statute requires identification of the policy provisions relied on by the claimant writing the notice.
The Demases wrote in their Civil Remedy Notice "SEE SUBJECT POLICY." Further, they wrote that they based their pursuit of a civil remedy on "ALL INSURANCE POLICY PROVISIONS THAT PROVIDE COVERAGE TO THE INSURED PROPERTY," and apparently for good measure, on "ALL POLICY PROVISIONS." Demase, 2022 WL 16909408, at *1.
In this case, Florida's Fifth District Court of Appeal joined its sister court from the Fourth District Court of Appeal in rejecting such a vague CRN as insufficient under the Florida statute. The Fourth District's decision came in a similar case, Julien v. Utd. Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 311 So. 3d 875, 878 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021), and the Fifth District panel expressly agreed with it in Demase, 2022 WL 16909408, at *2-*3.
1The 2022 version of the statute, linked here, is identical in pertinent part to the 2014 version at issue in Demase, which the appellate court reproduced in its opinion, Demase, 2022 WL 16909408, at *2.
Civil Remedy Notices in first-party cases like Demase are gathered in Section 9:21 of Volume 2, DENNIS J. WALL, LITIGATION AND PREVENTION OF INSURER BAD FAITH (West Publishing Co. 3d Edition, and 2022 Supplements), and third-party cases involving CRN's are collected in id., Volume 1, Section 3:30.
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