What happened: Florida appeals court ruled an attorney’s fee award double-counted delay compensation
Who’s involved: Citizens Property Insurance Corporation and a Miami-Dade policyholder
What’s at stake: Whether fee awards can stack current billing rates with interest for late payment
Why it matters: The ruling limits fee stacking in first-party property disputes, potentially cutting post-settlement costs
Where it stands: Partly reversed and sent back - opinion filed October 28, 2026
The storm claim settled on the eve of trial. The fight over what the lawyers should be paid lasted the better part of two years.
A Florida appeals court has sided with Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, ruling that a policyholder’s lead counsel could not collect both a higher billing rate and interest for late payment on attorney’s fees - because both are meant to compensate for the same thing: delay.
The case began as a first-party homeowners claim after Tropical Storm Eta. The policyholder and Citizens settled before a 2022 trial and the insurer agreed it owed fees under section 627.428 - Florida’s law requiring insurers to cover a policyholder’s legal costs when the policyholder prevails in a coverage dispute. That should have been the end of it. Instead, they spent the better part of two years arguing over how much.
After a hearing, a magistrate recommended that lead counsel be paid at the rate he charges now, not the rate he charged when the work was done, and that interest for late payment run from the date the fee entitlement was fixed. Citizens challenged the combination, calling it an impermissible windfall. The trial court disagreed.
The Third District Court of Appeal reversed on the interest question, adopting the First District’s reasoning, which held that a current billing rate “tacitly includes an adjustment for the time value of money” that interest for late payment would “partially replicate or possibly duplicate.”
Both remedies exist to make up for the same delay. A current rate reflects inflation and market shifts since the work was done. Interest compensates for the lost use of money over the same window. Stack them and the fee-entitled party recovers for delay twice.
The court acknowledged neither method is perfect - current rates can overcompensate or undercompensate depending on how fee inflation tracks against interest rates. But imperfection, the court said, “is a reason to carefully exercise a choice of remedies, not a license for double recovery.”
The reversal was narrow. Only lead counsel’s interest was struck. All other legal professionals on the case had been paid at rates below what they currently charge, so the overlap did not apply.
For anyone handling fee disputes in Florida property cases, the law now allows one method of delay compensation on attorney’s fees, not both. Counsel must choose.
The opinion was filed October 28, 2026, and is not final until disposition of any timely filed motion for rehearing.
