Background
Mark and Amy Annon brought a first-party property-insurance dispute against Security First Insurance Company. The dispute was resolved without a trial, after which the circuit court awarded the Annons attorney’s fees under section 627.428, Florida Statutes (2021), which applied because their claim predated that statute’s 2023 repeal.
The circuit court calculated an unchallenged lodestar of $125,080 and then applied a 2.0 contingency-fee multiplier, producing a total fee award of $250,160. Security First appealed the multiplier, arguing that it lacked competent, substantial evidentiary support.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth District held that the Annons failed to prove that the relevant legal market required a contingency-fee multiplier for them to obtain competent counsel. Neither insured testified at the fee hearing, and their expert—who did not handle first-party property-insurance cases, had not spoken with the Annons, and had not investigated whether other attorneys would have accepted the case without the possibility of a multiplier—did not supply the required non-inferential evidence.
The court also held that the Annons failed to present competent, substantial evidence that their counsel could not mitigate the risk of nonpayment. The record contained no specific, non-inferential evidence that the Annons could not afford a retainer or hourly fees. The court therefore reversed the multiplier portion of the judgment and directed the circuit court to enter an amended judgment awarding only the $125,080 lodestar.
Because that evidentiary failure resolved the appeal, the court did not decide whether the 2023 amendment to section 57.104—creating a strong presumption that a lodestar fee is sufficient and reasonable—applied retroactively.
Key Takeaways
- A party seeking a contingency-fee multiplier must present competent, substantial evidence supporting each applicable Quanstrom factor.
- General expert testimony is insufficient when it does not establish that the client would have had substantial difficulty obtaining competent counsel in the relevant market without a multiplier.
- The risk-of-nonpayment factor requires specific evidence concerning whether the client could afford a retainer or hourly fees; it cannot rest on inference alone.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the evidentiary burden for obtaining contingency-fee multipliers in Florida fee proceedings. A claimant must develop a case-specific record addressing both the availability of competent counsel without a multiplier and the client’s ability to pay through other fee arrangements.
It also shows that an appellate court may leave the lodestar intact while eliminating an unsupported multiplier, substantially reducing the final fee award without disturbing the underlying entitlement to fees.