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Recent Florida Legislative Changes Impact Sureties' Exposure to Attorneys' Fees and Bad Faith Claims

Posted in Legal Alerts by Matthew G. Davis on Fri Apr 7, 2023

A few days ago, Governor DeSantis signed House Bill 837 into law enacting sweeping tort reforms.  This marks the second large scale reform to Florida law governing insurers and sureties in the last six months.  In December 2022, Florida eliminated the one-way attorneys’ fees provision for property insurance claims.  House Bill 837 goes further and eliminates one-way attorneys’ fees against insurers entirely. It also makes changes to statutes of limitations, comparative fault, and bad faith.  The bill does, however, expressly preserve claimants’ rights to recover reasonable attorneys’ fees for successful claims against construction payment and performance bond sureties. 

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