Quanstrom v. Standard Guar. Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 11 February 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 87-1340,87-1340 |
| Citation | 519 So.2d 1135,13 Fla. L. Weekly 433 |
| Parties | 13 Fla. L. Weekly 433 Brenda L. QUANSTROM, Appellant, v. STANDARD GUARANTY INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Stephan W. Carter of Dalton and Provencher, P.A., Orlando, for appellant.
Lora A. Dunlap of Fisher, Rushmer, Werrenrath, Keiner, Wack & Dickson, P.A., Orlando, for appellee.
This case involves the question of whether an attorney's fee agreement between an insured and her attorney is a contingency fee agreement as contemplated in Florida Patient's Compensation Fund v. Rowe, 472 So.2d 1145 (Fla.1985). The agreement in this case was to the effect that if the attorney ultimately prevailed on the no-fault question, the attorney would be entitled to a fee which would be the amount the court allowed as an attorney's fee under section 627.428, Florida Statutes, rather than a percentage of the recovery. Although implied, a necessary corollary of this agreement is that if the attorney did not prevail, the attorney would receive nothing. The attorney prevailed against the insurance company, but the trial court did not enhance the stipulated "lodestar" amount by an appropriate contingency fee multiplier as set forth in Rowe because the trial court did not consider the arrangement between the insured and attorney to be a "contingency fee contract." We do not agree.
If the agreement between a client and an attorney is that the attorney gets paid in the event of a result favorable to the client but does not receive a fee in the other event, the arrangement is a contingency fee agreement under Rowe. 1 This is precisely the nature and effect of the agreement between the insured and the attorney in this case.
This case further presents the question of whether the application of a multiplier factor is mandatory on the trial judge when the prevailing party's counsel is employed on a contingency fee basis and a reasonable attorney's fee is being calculated as directed in Rowe. We answer that question in the affirmative. The reason for our holding is that the federal lodestar method of calculating a reasonable attorney's fee, adopted in Rowe for the purpose of bringing standards and uniformity to a common legal problem, is a formularized method which considers and weighs certain criteria deemed relevant to a correct result. In every formularized method of reaching a reasoned result, each step in the calculation integrates into the final result only the weighed effect of some one particular factor. If a particular relevant factor is not considered and is not given its proper weight, the ultimate result does not properly reflect the intended...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Inacio v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co.
...to be set by the court. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Palma, 524 So.2d 1035 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988); Quanstrom v. Standard Guaranty Insurance Company, 519 So.2d 1135 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988). Counsel for both parties agreed at oral argument that prior to the supreme court decision in Rowe it had......
-
Musser v. Musser
...that an attorney is paid only if the client eventually receives money by settlement or judgment. See Quanstrom v. Standard Guar. Ins. Co., 519 So.2d 1135 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1988), modified on other grounds, 555 So.2d 828 (Fla.1990) (an implied but necessary corollary to a contingent fee agree......
-
Standard Guar. Ins. Co. v. Quanstrom
...Burke & Wechsler, Orlando, amicus curiae for Reliance Ins. Co. OVERTON, Justice. We have for review Quanstrom v. Standard Guaranty Insurance Co., 519 So.2d 1135 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988), in which the Fifth District Court of Appeal acknowledged conflict with the Third District Court of Appeal's d......
-
Ganson v. State, Dept. of Admin., Office of State Employees' Ins.
...agreement in Miami Children's Hospital, supra, and is quite similar to the fee agreements addressed in Quanstrom v. Standard Guaranty Insurance Company, 519 So.2d 1135 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988), and State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. v. Palma, 524 So.2d 1035 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988). The fee agreement i......