YORDANY ZAMORA LOPEZ, ET AL.

v.

U-HAUL CO. OF FLORIDA, ET AL.

Third District Court of Appeal

State of Florida

Opinion filed April¹, 2026. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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No. 3D24-1488 Lower Tribunal No. 23-26785-CA-01

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Yordany Zamora Lopez, et al.,

Appellants,

vs.

U-Haul Co. of Florida, et al.,

Appellees. An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, William Thomas, Judge. Llopiz Wizel LLP, and Joan Carlos Wizel and Onier Llopiz (Fort Lauderdale), for appellants. Bowman and Brooke LLP, and Wendy F. Lumish and Daniel A. Rock, for appellees. Before SCALES, C.J., and LOGUE and MILLER, JJ. LOGUE, J.

This appeal arises from a lawsuit filed by an insurer seeking a

declaratory judgment that no coverage existed for a certain claim. The

insurer sued its insured, as well as certain third-party claimants. The third-

party claimants contended they were injured by the insured’s negligence and

planned to seek payment from the insurance proceeds as third-party

beneficiaries, but they had not yet obtained a settlement or verdict.¹ The

insured, meanwhile, failed to appear in the declaratory judgment action and

the insurer moved for a default final judgment against the insured based on

fraud and failure to cooperate.

The third-party claimants opposed entry of a default final judgment.

The trial court, however, agreed with the insurer that, although they were

defendants to the action for declaratory judgment, the third-party claimants

lacked standing to contest the insurer’s motion for default final judgment.

Nevertheless, the trial court issued a broad final judgment, which all parties

before this Court have agreed will affect the third-party claimants’ rights and

will preclude them from obtaining insurance proceeds if and when they obtain

a verdict or settlement against the insured. The third-party claimants

appealed. On appeal, the insurer again contends the third-party claimants

lack standing.

This case involves an apparent anomaly in Florida law. It is well-

established that third-party claimants injured by an insured’s negligence

have a right as third-party beneficiaries to payment from the insured’s

insurance proceeds. It is equally well-established that the third-party

claimants’ rights in this regard do not accrue unless and until they obtain a

verdict or settlement against the insured. A quick review of this law is helpful

at this point.

Section 627.4136, Florida Statutes,² requires that persons not a party

to a liability insurance contract obtain a settlement or judgment against the

(1) It shall be a condition precedent to the accrual or maintenance of a cause of action against a liability insurer by a person not an insured under the terms of the liability insurance contract that such person shall first obtain a settlement or verdict against a person who is an insured under the terms of such policy for a cause of action which is covered by such policy. (2) . . . No person who is not an insured under the terms of a liability insurance policy shall have any interest in such policy, either as a third-party beneficiary or otherwise, prior to first obtaining a

insured as a condition precedent “to the accrual” of a cause of action against

the liability insurer. See § 627.4136(1), Fla. Stat. Indeed, section

627.4136(2) expressly provides that until this condition precedent is met,

“[n]o person who is not an insured under the terms of a liability insurance

policy shall have any interest in such policy, either as a third-party beneficiary

or otherwise[.]” § 627.4136(2), Fla. Stat. (emphasis added).

Because the third-party claimants’ cause of action has not “accrued”

and indeed, they do not “have any interest in such policy, either as a third-

party beneficiary or otherwise,” third-party claimants cannot sue the insurer

or name the insurer in a lawsuit against the insured.³ Am.

settlement or verdict against a person who is an insured under the terms of such policy for a cause of action which is covered by such policy. § 627.4136, Fla. Stat.³ Canadian Home Ins. Co. v. Norris, 471 So. 2d 217, 218 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985) (“Section 627.7262, Florida Statutes (1983), amended as of October¹, 1982, modifies the common law rule which permitted direct joinder of an insurer in an action by the injured third-party beneficiary. VanBibber v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Insurance Company, 439 So. 2d 880 (Fla.1983); Osborne v. Elizabeth Massey Investment Corporation, 467 So. 2d 1095 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985). As the statute is currently drafted, a plaintiff’s third-party interest in the insurance policy must vest, by way of final judgment, before an action is filed against the insurer.”); Hazen v. Allstate Ins. Co., 952 So. 2d 531, 535-36 (Fla. 2d DCA 2007) (noting that Florida’s first nonjoinder statute, section 627.7262 enacted in 1976, “was a legislative response to the decision[ ] in Shingleton v. Bussey, 223 So. 2d 713 (Fla. 1969)” and that under the nonjoinder statute, “the injured third party had no right of action

Optical Corp., 985 So. 2d 23, 27 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008) (“Florida law is well

established that the right to sue on an inchoate cause of action—one that

has not yet accrued—is not a vested right because no one has a vested right

in the common law, which the Legislature may substantively change

prospectively.”); id. at 30 (“The right to pursue a cause of action is generally

considered to have become vested when the cause of action has accrued.”).

So here is the anomaly: It is also a well-established and continuing

practice in Florida for insurers, when suing insureds in an action for

declaratory judgments of no coverage, to name as defendants potential third-

party claimants, even when the third-party claimants have not yet obtained

a verdict or settlement and therefore they do not “have any interest in such

policy, either as a third-party beneficiary or otherwise.” In these

circumstances, the third-party claimants’ interests are not sufficiently choate

to sue insurers but are presumably sufficiently choate to be sued by insurers

and bound by such declarations. See generally Tomlinson v. State Farm Fire

& Cas. Co., 579 So. 2d 211, 212 (Fla. 2d DCA 1991) (concluding without

discussing the nature of the third-party claimants’ inchoate interest, “[s]ince

against the insurer under a liability policy before obtaining a judgment against the insured”); Morales v. Zenith Ins. Co., 714 F. 3d 1220, 1232 (11th Cir. 2013) (noting that in response to Shingleton, “the Florida Legislature enacted a statute which limited the circumstances under which an injured third party could sue an insurer as a third party beneficiary to a liability policy”).

section 627.7262 applies to declaratory judgment actions against insurers

and not to actions by insurers like this action, we conclude that the coverage

issue was properly addressed by the trial court”).

Neither party asks this Court to review the appropriateness of this well-

established, albeit apparently anomalous practice. And indeed, it may well

have some practical benefits in bringing all relevant interests together in one

lawsuit, which might facilitate early settlements. Thus, we do not reach the

appropriateness of this practice or the issue of whether such third-party

claimants can seek to be dismissed from such suits unless and until they

have a verdict or settlement which would give them an interest in the policy.

Under the circumstances presented here, where the insurer named the

third-party claimants as defendants in an action for a declaration of no

coverage, the trial court erred in its blanket determination that the third-party

claimants lacked any standing to contest a declaration that will preclude them

from claiming a right as third-party beneficiaries to payment from the

proceeds of a policy if and when they obtain a verdict or settlement.⁴ We fail

to see how a party can be a defendant in a declaratory judgment action and

be bound by the judgment but have no standing to defend or appeal.

We reverse the final judgment being appealed and remand for further

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

maintain a cause of action against the insurer to determine if such coverage exists, citing section 627.7262 (the prior version of section 627.4136)). Cf. Gen. Sec. Ins. Co. v. Barrentine, 829 So. 2d 980, 983 (Fla. 1st DCA 2002) (holding it was improper for trial court to reach the merits of an issue relating to insurance coverage because it concerned certain statutory provisions affecting insurance policies that were “not enforceable by a third party[ ] merely because that party may have an interest in the outcome of a coverage dispute[,]” explaining that the third party “had no legal right to take the place of the named insured and therefore could not insist on compliance with the statute”).